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Freedom Seekers Abraham and Patrick in Johnstown, 1837

News Item from the Johnstown Sky

The news item below introduces one of the most famous incidents in Cambria County Underground Railroad history, the arrest of brothers Abraham and Patrick, escapees from a Virginia plantation in February 1837. The article describes two desperate men who had survived previous scrapes with capture, only to be shot down as they ran from a gang of slave catchers and carried, perhaps mortally wounded, to Johnstown for transportation back to their enslaver in Virginia.

In addition to describing their capture and arrival in town, the news article expresses frustration at the violent methods employed, and the seeming lack of concern on the part of local officials to reign in the slave catchers, who were acknowledged to be local men. Incidents such as this were becoming increasingly frequent in Pennsylvania, and the legal and moral questions surrounding the capture of fugitive slaves was being hotly debated by citizens and lawmakers alike.

On Friday last, two colored men were brought to this place on a sled, who had been shot, one of through the knee, and the other through the back -- The circumstances in relation to this unfortunate affair, as far as we have been able to collect them, are as follows: -- The wounded negroes are said to be fugitive slaves, who had made their escape from their owners in Virginia. They were pursued by a number of persons, who had made several unsuccessful attempts to arrest them, until they had arrived within a few miles of this place, where they were again overtaken by their pursuers, who called to them to stop, or they would shoot them.

One of them turned around, and replied that he would die before he would be taken, and at the moment received a rifle ball through the knee: the other started to run, but was brought to the ground by a ball being shot in his back. After receiving the above wounds, they made battle with their pursuers, and kept them off until they reached a house two or three miles from the place where they were shot, when, becoming exhausted, they were unable to proceed further.

They were brought as above stated to this place by the person who was authorized to take them. Their recovery is said to be rather doubtful. The persons who are said to have shot them are residents of this county. We have not heard of any attempt being made to arrest and bring them to justice as yet. We acknowledge the right of the owners of slaves to arrest and take them back, when they make their escape and come among us, but we abhor the idea of their being shot down, in order to arrest them, like the wild beast of the forest. It is said that the young men who shot them had orders to take them, dead or alive. We do not know that such is the fact.

[Since the above was in type, a warrant has been issued for their arrest.]

The Back-Story: A Winter Escape

Twenty-year-old Abraham and his twenty-one-year-old brother Patrick were enslaved on Fruit Hill Farm, the 300-plus acre estate of Colonel John Sherrard in Bath, Morgan County, Virginia, now West Virginia. Colonel Sherrard was a well-respected lawyer and jurist from a powerful family, and in early February, 1837, upon finding two of his enslaved men gone, offered a three-hundred dollar reward for their return.

Advertisements for escaped slaves from Maryland appeared with great regularity in Pennsylvania newspapers as the Keystone State was considered a relatively safe haven where freedom seekers would find aid and possible employment while they hid from their former enslavers. Those ads, with thier inducements of considerable rewards, plus expenses, for the capture and return of fugitive slaves were intended for slave catchers -- men who frequented the border counties and known escape routes in search of people on the run. Two of those men were John Compston and Edward Maxwell, and they began tracking Abraham and Patrick.

Narrow Escapes in Pennsylvania

The two freedom seekers left Fruit Hill Farm and traveled west, crossed the Potomac and then turned due north, following Sideling Hill Mountain and then into Pennsylvania. On their very first day at large the brothers covered about 35 miles, making it to a small place called Bloody Run, modern day Everett, in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. That first night was uneventful, and they continued their journey, using a Native American trail known as Warrior's Path to reach Bucks Town, modern day St. Clairsville in Bedford County, a twenty-mile walk. There, they stayed in the home of a free Black man. Some accounts of their journey state that slave catchers Compston and Maxwell caught up with and nearly arrested the brothers, both in Everett and in St. Clairsville, but other accounts dispute that.

From St. Clairsville the men took a mountainous trail toward Johnstown, apparently following directions given them by local Underground Railroad activists. It was on this leg of their journey that they were caught by the Bedford County Sheriff, who found them in a "chopper's cabin" on the side of a mountain. The sheriff beat one of the men with an axe handle, knocking him down, but the other brother attacked the sheriff with a knife, wounding him, and they got away.

Gunshots, Woundings and Capture

Now in Cambria County, the freedom seeker's luck ran out when they encounterd George Helzel, a local man working with slave catchers Compston and Maxell, who themselves soon caught up with the pair. It was during this encounter that the brothers were shot, apparently by Helsel, in their last futile attempt at eluding thier pursuers. Abraham was the first one shot, taking a rifle ball through the knee. Patrick was shot in his right shoulder. Both wounds were serious and required immediate medical attention.

Helsel directed the slave catchers to take the wounded men to the nearby farm house of William Slick, Sr., near Geistown. This farm happened to be a well-established Underground Railroad station. William Slick, Sr. and his family received freedom seekers from Bedford County and forwarded them to stations in Ebensburg or Johnstown. It is unlikely that Helsel was aware of the Slick family's activities when they brought the wounded men for treatment. William Slick, Jr., the fourteen-year-old son of the Underground Railroad agent, remembered the incident well and related details to historians decades later. While the brothers were receiving treatment for their gunshot wounds by the family, Compston and Maxwell left to seek out the local Justice of the Peace, Christian Horner, to have a warrant issued making their arrest of Abraham and Patrick legal.

Judge Horner's warrant read:

Whereas, it appears by the oaths of John Compston and Edward Maxwell that "Abraham" & "Patrick," two colored boys, was held to labor service to Col. John Sheard of Morgan county, in the State of Virginia, and that said Abraham & Patrick, two colored boys, hath escaped from the labor & service of the said Colonel John Sheard. YOU are therefore commanded to assist and seize the bodies of the said Abraham & Patrick, if they be found in your county and bring them forthwith before a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of your proper county, so that the truth of the matter may be inquired into and the said Abraham & Patrick may be dealt with as the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this Commonwealth directs.

Johnstown, and a Planned Rescue

After the brothers' wounds were bandaged at the Slick Farmstead, the slave catchers transported the men into Johnstown, where they expected to take them immediately before a judge who would grant them permission to remove the men back to Fruit Hill Farm in Virginia. Compston and Maxwell went to the town constable, Samuel J. Smith, brandishing their warrant from Judge Horner. Constable Smith took charge of Abraham and Patrick, placing them under arrest in his tavern on Clinton Street. Meanwhile, the Underground Railroad operatives in the town, probably tipped off by William Slick, were already working to frustrate the slave catchers' plans.

When John Compston and Edward Maxwell requested an immediate Court of Common Pleas hearing, local anti-slavery sympathisers protested that such a course would be inhumane, considering the severity of the brothers' wounds. It was agreed to put off a hearing for several days. During this time, Edward Maxwell swore out a statement with Judge Samuel Douglas regarding the shooting, recording in part:

"doth say that on Friday, the 10th day of February, a certain (name removed) acknowledged that he did shoot a Black man by the name of Abraham, in the knee & from all information that this deponent hath received he has just reason to believe that a certain (name removed) did shoot one other Black man by the name of Patrick, in the back, both being mortally wounded, being slaves of Dr. John Sheard of the State of Virginia, and that a (name blanked) was also concerned in aiding and assisting in the same, etc."

A Successful Getaway

The delaying tactics had been successful. Persons familiar with the operation later reported that a wagon was filled with straw as a bed for the wounded men, who were then hidden under more straw, and the wagon driven out Hinkston Run Road to a Quaker settlement in St. Clair Township, and from there, it was believed, they were forwarded to safe houses in Clearfield County.

The men named in Constable Smith's statement are all now known to be Underground Railroad operatives in the Johnstown area and are mentioned in Charles Blockson's research. All appeared at a hearing on March 3, 1837 before Judge Douglas, but the charges were dismissed by the judge, who concluded "No ground for prosecution, Suit dismissed."

Notes

Pennsylvania historian Dr. Barbara Zaborowski has researched this story in an effort to uncover the ultimate fate of Abraham and Patrick. Many of the details in this story are from her research.

The Virginia enslaver of Abraham and Patrick, John Sherrard, died at home in Bath, Virginia on April 1, 1837, about the time that Abraham and Patrick were gaining their freedom in Pennsylvania. A death notice appeared in the Martinsburg Gazette on Wednesday, April 5, 1837 announcing "DIED, On Saturday last, at his residence in Morgan County -- Col. JOHN SHERRARD."

Sources

• Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 24 February 1837.
• History of Cambria County Pa. Vol. 1, Henry Wilson Storey, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1907., p 188-190.
• Sandyvale Memoral Gardens & Conservancy, "Underground Railroad," https://www.sandyvalememorialgardens.org/heritage/underground-railroad/, accessed 06 August 2024.
• Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, "Johnstown Magazine, February 2023: Emancipation Johnstown -- The Ballad of Abraham and Patrick," James Gindelsperger, Correspondent, Johnstown Magazine, Feb 3, 2023.
• Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, 26 February 2010. "Area was hub for Underground Railroad," Randy Griffith.
• The Morgan Messenger (Berkeley Springs, WV), "Escape from Fruit Hill Farm," Kate Shunney, 30 August 2022, https://www.morganmessenger.com/2022/08/30/escape-from-fruit-hill-farm/, accessed 06 August 2024.
• The Martinsburg Gazette (Virginia), 05 April 1837, p. 2.

The Year of Jubilee

Vol. 1: Men of God and Vol. 2: Men of Muscle

by George F. Nagle

Both volumes of the Afrolumens book are now available on this website. Click the link to read.

The Year of Jubilee is the story of Harrisburg'g free African American community, from the era of colonialism and slavery to hard-won freedom.

Volume One, Men of God, covers the turbulent beginnings of this community, from Hercules and the first slaves, the growth of slavery in central Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg area slave plantations, early runaway slaves, to the birth of a free black community. Men of God is a detailed history of Harrisburg's first black entrepreneurs, the early black churches, the first black neighborhoods, and the maturing of the social institutions that supported this vibrant community.

It includes an extensive examination of state and federal laws governing slave ownership and the recovery of runaway slaves, the growth of the colonization movement, anti-colonization efforts, anti-slavery, abolitionism and radical abolitionism. It concludes with the complex relationship between Harrisburg's black and white abolitionists, and details the efforts and activities of each group as they worked separately at first, then learned to cooperate in fighting against slavery. Read it here.

Non-fiction, history. 607 pages, softcover.

Volume Two, Men of Muscle takes the story from 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, through the explosive 1850s to the coming of Civil War to central Pennsylvania. In this volume, Harrisburg's African American community weathers kidnappings, raids, riots, plots, murders, intimidation, and the coming of war. Caught between hostile Union soldiers and deadly Confederate soldiers, they ultimately had to choose between fleeing or fighting. This is the story of that choice.

Non-fiction, history. 630 pages, softcover.