In our last issue, we recounted the narrative of runaway slave Charles Ball and how his story came to be published in Mifflin County in the 1830s. 
In part 2, find out how Mifflin County reacted to slavery, that “peculiar institution.” Based upon articles which appeared in The Sentinel thirty-four years ago, these brief accounts reflect information originally written by local historian and newspaper editor, J. Martin Stroup. 
Read about... 

MIFFLIN COUNTY’S OWN ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
The Thrilling Escape of Richard Barnes
LEWISTOWN SUED BY SLAVE CATCHERS

I

n 1774, the tax lists of what would become Mifflin County included the assessment of sixteen slaves as taxable.  Seven were held by settlers south of Jack's Mountain, while the remaining nine live in Kishacoquillas Valley.

Many prominent local settlers of what would become Mifflin County owned slaves, and were active in their churches. In an earlier assessment, dated 1767, made when our area was part of Fermanagh Township, Cumberland County, three slaves were listed as valuable possessions. By the Census of 1790, the number of locally held slaves stood at thirty-three among seventeen families.
On March 1, 1780 the General Assembly passed the Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act, the first emancipation statute in the United States. Section 3 reads in part: Be it enacted...by the representatives of the freeman of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania...that all persons, as well Negroes and Mulattos...who shall be born within this state...shall not be deemed and considered as servants for life, or slaves; and that all servitude for life, or slavery of children, in consequence of the slavery of their mothers, in the case of all children born within this state...shall be, and hereby is utterly taken away, extinguished and for ever abolished. 
In 1793, Congress approved the Fugitive Slave Act, which laid out the rights of slave owners to recover a runaway slave. Rewards were offered in local newspapers, accompanied with woodcut illustrations like the one above from the 1820s. But rewards led to excess. Any African-American, free-born or runaway, were potentially subject to seizure and many were kidnapped by slave catchers to be returned to plantations below the Mason-Dixon Line. This is what happened to Charles Ball, as told in Part 1. 

Although it is hard to imagine, white society did not see slavery as a moral or philosophical problem until a small number of outspoken individuals made it a problem. Beginning in the 1750s members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, took the lead in challenging the institution. The most important Quaker antislavery activists were New Jersey Friend John Woolman, the author of the pamphlet Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754), and Philadelphia Friend Anthony Benezet. During the mid-18th century Woolman traveled widely in British North America, appealing to Friends to free their slaves.
In 1775 Benezet and Woolman played a leading role in founding the first American antislavery organization, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. ...the Society of Friends reached consensus on the issue and became the first institution in the United States to condemn slavery as a moral wrong.
An event in the City of Brotherly Love would touch Mifflin County in a profound way. 
The convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society was held at Philadelphia, December 4, 1833. Those assembled ratified a constitution that states, in part: ...it [the American Anti-Slavery Society] shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed to their understandings and consciences, that Slave holding is a heinous crime in the sight of God...

Fervent Local Abolitionist 
Rev. James Nourse
of Perryville 

Much of what we know today about the county’s reaction to slavery came from George R. Frysinger, local historian and founder of the Mifflin County Historical Society. J. Martin Stroup’s series of articles on this topic appeared in the Sentinel in 1966, and relied heavily on Frysinger’s collection and files.

Stroup concludes that when the clarion-call for the abolition of slavery came from Philadelphia in 1833, it was taken up here in 1834 by, among others, local Presbyterian pastor Rev. James Nourse, who during his career translated the New Testament into English from the original Greek.
The pastor was born in Washington, D.C. and served at a couple Pennsylvania churches before being called to the East Kishacoquillas Presbyterian Church in Reedsville.
His stay in Reedsville lasted a few short years, when he left for Williamsport in 1833. Gibson’s History of the Huntingdon Presbytery, tells why he resigned:
...owing to the trouble arising from the agitation of the temperance and anti-slavery causes, both of which he was a zealous advocate, he resigned that charge and moved to Williamsport.
A committee was formed at the direction of the Presbytery to reconcile the factions at the Reedsville church. It became evident that this was not possible and a new church was organized out of the Reedsville congregation in 1834.
The recommendation came down that the new church not be established closer then three miles to Reedsville, so the Armagh Township village of Perryville, later known as Milroy, was selected.
The newly formed church called out to its former pastor, Dr. Nourse, to return to them, becoming the Milroy Presbyterian Church’s first minister.
Shortly, a number of local abolitionists began to organize in the village. Dr. Nourse, Dr. Samuel Maclay, John Taylor and Samuel Thompson gathered to work for the antislavery cause.
Frysinger commented on the group, “...[they] united in safely conducting a number of runaway slaves over the Seven Mountains from Milroy to Centre County.”
This abolitionist sentiment wasn’t universally held throughout Mifflin County, however. Frysinger observed,
In those days...the term abolitionist was contemptuously used by many, while others contended themselves neutral or indifferent, looking upon it as a southern affair.
One incident that occurred on Saturday, August 29, 1835, according to Frysinger, involved a young man with abolitionist leanings who arrived in Lewistown. He spread the word around town that he would lecture that evening. The topic - abolition. 
Frysinger continued:
The news spread like wildfire, and before night he [the young abolitionist] was followed through the streets by a number of men and boys, who occasionally threw rotten eggs, apples, etc. crying, Lynch, lynch! and every indication of a riot was manifested. Observing the state of feelings the gentleman prudently retired to Perryville, nine miles away, where he received a better reception.
Stroup noted in his series that no Mifflin County newspapers of that time are available to check the account.

Milroy’s 1825 Maclay House 
Underground Railroad Station

Dr. Samuel Maclay was a prominent local citizen, and active abolitionist, was the son of William P. Maclay and the grandson of another Samuel Maclay, a United States Senator from Pennsylvania and grand nephew of William Maclay, credited with being the first U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.
	Maclay’s South Main Street home is located several doors from the Milroy Presbyterian Church, shown above. The 1825 structure, today the private residence of David and Sandy Goss, is on the

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Register of Historic Sites. Over the years, the Maclay House, which is not a public museum, has been occasionally open for small group tours.

The following partial description is from commentary distributed during those limited tours:
It was in the Maclay House, under a window of the front bedroom in a space between the porch roof and porch ceiling that slaves were hidden. There is evidence of a tunnel leading from the basement under the highway to the bank of Dry Creek just across the road.
Runaway slaves were able to escape from the house into the brush along the banks of the stream, and continue over the Seven Mountains and on to freedom in Canada. In recent years, the tunnel has been filled in and walled up.

A Thrilling Escape from Slave Catchers by Richard Barnes

The punishment of kidnapping is not proportioned to the offense and requires to be increased.
These are the words of Pennsylvania Governor William Findlay in an address to the Legislature in 1819. The governor referred to the taking of would-be escaped slaves by slave catchers. He found the practice of seizing any black assumed to be a runaway abhorrent and further noted:
I have observed that it is usual to take colored persons in numbers, in chains together, through our state without any inquiry being made into the cause...
Pennsylvania soon gave a degree of protection to freedmen, by passing a law that required slave catchers to appear before a state court and show proof of ownership before any “kidnapping” could occur.
The thrilling escape of Richard Barnes occurred in 1834, when a group of southern planters came through Lewistown. Their arrival was unannounced, on horses the locals considered “splendid mounts. “ 
 
They were searching for runaway slaves. While here, they had a local man, Richard Barnes, arrested on being a suspected runaway slave. He was placed in the county jail.
One of the planters identified him as a slave from his plantation, which Barnes vehemently denied. The whole town became interested in the case. 
Richard was locally known and liked, respected for his hard work around the town. It was generally believed he was a fugitive slave who reached Lewistown by way of Fulton County, through Shirleysburg and Mt. Union, then down the Juniata River to Lewistown. Fugitive or not, Richard had earned a place in the community and in the hearts of many citizens, runaway or not.
Pursuant to Pennsylvania law, a trial to determine ownership was quickly held in Mifflin County Court. Unfortunately, Richard was judged to be the planter’s property before a packed court room.
The sympathetic sheriff, purposely careless, allowed Richard Barnes to slip away on his return to jail.
With the enthralled crowd from the court house in pursuit, Richard ran up Main Street to Third Street, then east to near Dorcas Street, where he climbed down an open well. The swell of people encompassed the mouth of the well, jockeying for a glimpse of the forlorn runaway.
The degree of his desperation was so great and his determination to never return to slavery so intense, Richard Barnes swore he would drop himself into the dark waters below and drown himself.
The slave catchers were among the members of the gathering, and quickly realized the mood of the assembled townsfolk - they sided with the hapless Barnes, who now believed his cause was hopeless.
A man well known to Barnes, Urie Jacobs, his present employer, assured him of his safety if he would only come up. It was only by this guarantee that he reluctantly climbed from the well, unsure of what awaited him.
To the astonished runaway AND the equally flabbergasted slave catchers, the gathered citizens raised $250 on the spot and purchased Barnes from his would-be masters.
J. Martin Stroup noted in his 1966 Sentinel series that he had personal recollections from his mother of Barnes and his family. Stroup stated:
Barnes lived in Lewistown on West Third Street for the rest of his life. The writer remembers his mother [Stroup’s mother], who was born in 1855, tell of Richard Barnes’ wife, known in the Martin family of Vira as Auntie Barnes...being brought out from town to help during harvest and at other times such as butchering...Stroup’s mother also remembered seeing old Richard Barnes, then blind, in the Barnes home on West Third Street.
Stroup also detailed an interesting anecdote from Barnes’ later life. The local historian continued:
He lived to be over 100. In 1869, the Lewistown Gazette announced plans for the “Old Stagers” of Lewistown to hold a picnic. The paper printed a list of 27 white men, all over 70 years, also three colored citizens. These were Richard Barnes, Frank Snowden, and Samuel Hill. The “grand picnic” of the old timers was to be in charge of the oldest resident as president. The Gazette said it was difficult to determine the oldest, but that Richard Barnes apparently held seniority, claiming to be 104 years old.
Unfortunately, the Old Stagers never got together, the picnic was never held.

Lewistown Sued Over Runaway Slave Freed by Crowd In March, 1966, another article dealing with Mifflin County and slavery appeared in the Sentinel. J. Martin Stroup had found a journal kept by an uncle, which contained several personal recollections of another episode of a runaway slave being released by a local crowd, this time by force.

The manuscript from which Stroup quoted was written by James M. Martin in 1892. He recorded stories told to him by his father, J. McGinnis Martin, plus his own personal memories.
This slave-hunting saga occurred about 1820 in Lewistown, and was told to James Martin by his father, J. McGinnis Martin, who lived at the time with his father, Samuel Martin of Vira, Derry Township.
There was an “excitement” in the Diamond, the Public Square, McGinnis Martin recalled. He and the other boys his age (about 10 years) ran to the scene.
McGinnis remembered:
I found a Dearborn wagon in which there was a large colored man handcuffed and shackled, resisting to the extent of his ability, while two broad brimmed, slouch-hatted southern drivers sat upon and held him in the wagon which they were ordering be driven to the river. But the gathering crowd had blocked the way. 
The wagon was stopped. The chained Negro squirmed, struggled and finally threw himself from under the swearing drivers into the mud where he wallowed and tried to regain his feet, while the drivers jumped upon him, swore and cussed, and flung him again into the wagon. One of them seized him and sat upon him.
The crowd was growing larger, a large number of free Negroes were crowding around. They were very much excited and ready to spring to the rescue if encouraged. We boys climbed lamp posts and dry goods boxes and looked on.
My Uncle Joseph Martin, with a dry goods box for a rostrum was exhorting the slave drivers to repent, amend their ways, perhaps to meet an avenging God at judgment.
Again the poor manacled Negro, with groans threw himself into the mud. The air was full of cursing. Uncle Joseph’s patients was exhausted. His exhortation was having no effect. The cruelty of the drivers was too much.
Stroup recounts that at this point, McGinnis’ Uncle Joseph gave the word and the local freemen surged in and lifted their mud-stained brother from the mire, carrying him to the nearest blacksmith shop to remove his shackles and handcuffs.
McGinnis finishes:
After swearing awhile, the slave drivers took the advice [of the gathered crowd] to leave and prevent trouble. But in the years after, they sued the town under the Fugitive Slave law and received pay...but the Negro was a free man. 

In the November Newsletter

The third part of this series on Mifflin County’s reaction to slavery concludes in November with an 1855 account of helping a runaway slave in Derry Township and the voluntary migration of many Mifflin County African-Americans to the Republic of Haiti in the 1860s. Haitians living on that Caribbean island today have their roots in Mifflin County. - Editor