Tag Archives: Underground Railroad to Canada

The Settlement Begins – Wm. King, 18 of 28

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Isaac Riley, his wife and children, were the first settlers.

Isaac Riley and his wife and children were the first settlers.

Mob violence was the next option for those opposed to the settlement. King was to meet the Government Agent and a surveyor from Chatham to have the land in Raleigh Township surveyed. The surveyor informed Larwill who assembled “a number of Roughs (who) came out to drive us off the land.” (80) But the Government Agent had become ill and the meeting was called off, but not before Larwill, the surveyor and “the Roughs” had spent the day in the woods drinking and threatening what they would do to the minister when he appeared. “A few coloured men in Chatham who had heard of the threats made against me by Larwill and others went out armed to the land under the pretext of hunting, as it was the fair season, but really to protect me from violence should any be offered. They continued all day on the land hunting. Had I come out that day there probably would have been bloodshed. “ (80)

“When informed of the treachery of the surveyor, I paid him off and employed another who remained with me until I divided the block into lots of 50 acres each and prepared it for settlement. I purchased 100 acres in the middle road and moved unto with my coloured servants.” (81)

Word of the settlement had travelled far and wide. When he and his former slaves moved in Rev. King found that he already had coloured neighbours. “Isaac Riley had entered on a lot adjoining mine as he told me afterwards that he might be near the School and Church to give his children a good education. He had just come from Missouri with his wife and four children. His Master was about to sell him to the South. He got word of it, crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois, made his way to Chicago, got on a boat that took him to St. Catherines, where he heard of the Elgin Settlement. He returned back with his family to Detroit and from there made his way to Buxton, entered 100 acres of land and became one of the best settlers.” (85)

I like the Rileys’ sense of agency. They, like so many of the refugees who were to head to Canada, were bold in their actions. They “made things happen”.  I invite you to think of those you have met who have that same sense.

“I Will Not Surrender” – Wm. King, 17 of 28

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Rev. William King
Rev. William King

Rev. King left “his slaves” with his brother in Ohio and proceeded on to Canada West to purchase land on which he could settle them.  The Chatham area had the “soil, climate and nearness to market” he desired.(74)  Nine thousand acres were to be purchased “for settlement by people of color and to solicit for this purpose the aid of all who are desirous to promote the improvement of this long neglected and deeply injured race.” (75)

Word got around Chatham that the popular minister who had preached on two different Sundays had “chartered  a vessel and intended to bring in a shipload of coloured persons from the United States and settle them in Canada in the Township of Raleigh…My popularity fell rapidly; the next time I visited the Town I got the cold shoulder. Scarcely anyone would speak to me. One man came to me when riding down King Street on horseback and told me as a friend that my life was in danger, and that I should not expose myself after dark in the town.

A public meeting was scheduled and a memorial written “in not very respectful language to the Coloured people and signed by 400 citizens. A copy was sent to the Governor General and one to the Commissioner of Crown lands, and one to the Synod of the Presbyterian Church with a letter threatening my life if I should settle the coloured people in Raleigh. On my way to Toronto I met with the Sheriff in the stage who handed me the requisition calling the meeting, who also informed me of what the enemies of the coloured persons were doing.” (77)

King finished his business in Toronto and returned to Windsor by lake the night before the meeting. “To my dismay I found the boat (for Chatham) was disabled in her machinery and would not run for a couple of days. The meeting was to take place.” (77) He hired a horse and buggy and travelled all night and arrived at Chatham to find the Magistrate swearing in twelve special constables to keep the peace, as trouble was expected at the meeting.

The crowd that assembled was too large for the barn in which the meeting was to take place, so they moved to the front of the Exchange Hotel where the speakers could be heard from the balcony. “The crowd became noisy, and would not let me speak. Mr. Larwill (the loudest opponent) said I was a Yankee, and had no right to speak. I said I was a British subject, owned property in the Township, paid taxes and had a right to speak. I had come 200 miles to attend this meeting and they could not put me down. Besides, I am from LondonDerry and LondonDerry never did surrender.  Several influential persons at the meeting insisted that I should be heard.” (79)

And heard he was! By the end of the meeting the land was secured and Rev. King could begin surveying.

Tell of a time when you stood up for yourself or others.

Northward Bound – Wm. King, 16 of 28

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King and "his slaves" travel north on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
King and “his slaves” travel north on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

On May 5th, 1845 William King and “his fifteen slaves” boarded a steamboat bound for Cincinnati. “A crowd of spectators had gathered to see me start with my negroes (sic) to Canada. Some of the planters present had slaves there who had gone without their knowledge or consent… We had now a journey of 1500 miles through a slave country 1000 miles on the Mississippi River with slavery on both sides of the river and 500 miles on the Ohio with slavery on the south side of the river. “ (70)

During a lay-over in Cincinnati some “abolitionists called on them (the slaves) and asked where they were going. Stephen, one of my old faithful slaves said he did not know, he was going with his Master wherever he was going. The man told Stephen I was going to take them to a slave state and sell them.  Stephen replied, ‘my Master has brought me 1500 miles from New Orleans and if he had been going to sell us, he would have sold us there.’” (70)

First to Louisiana – Wm. King 15 of 28

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King had to settle his affairs in Louisiana.*
King had to settle his affairs in Louisiana.*

Still surrounded by sorrow, William King finished the last of his theological studies and exams and accepted an appointment as missionary to Canada. But first he needed to return to Louisiana. His father-in-law had also died that year and King – now Rev. King – was named executor, along with Mr. Phares’ widow. “I could know see the dispensation which appeared so dark and mysterious to me at the time that I lost my whole family that it was preparing the way for me to manumit the slaves that were coming to me by inheritance. By my being appointed Executor of my Father-in-law’s estate and the death of my own family I was left free to do what I pleased with all the slaves that belonged to me which I could not have done had my family been living.” (62)

Things were not going well on the plantation King owned. “The cotton crop had been destroyed during two years by the Army worm, that great pest of the cotton plant. They are so numerous when they come that a large field of cotton will be eaten bare with them in a few days.” (65) King sold the plantation, paid the debt and placed the slaves on his father-in-law’s estate until matters could be settled with it. The widowed Mrs. Phares (his father-in-law’s second wife)  was young. She “expected that King would settle down in the south and become a Planter, put an overseer on the Plantation, take a church and preach to the Planters.” (65)  But Rev. King had other ideas. He turned down an offer of $9,000 for his slaves and another to hire them out at $900/year. He announced that he was taking them to Canada where he would free them. “They seemed not to understand what was meant by going to Canada. Most of them thought it was some new plantation that I had purchased. I explained to them that Canada was a free country, that there were no slaves there and that when we reached that Country I would give them their freedom and place them on farms where they would have to support themselves by their own industry.” (68) “They had come to consider that slavery was their normal condition.  They did not know what freedom meant. They thought that to be free was to be like their master, to go idle, and have a good time.“ (69)

“One of my slaves had married a woman in my absence in Edinburgh. The woman belonged to the Estate of my Father-in-law and had a child two years old. In the division of the slaves, the woman fell to me but the child fell to another of the heirs. The woman came to me with tears and asked if I would not buy her child that she might take it with her. The heir had agreed to sell it for $150. I told her I did not see it my duty to buy children and set them free. However the woman was so distracted about leaving her child that I bought it. Here is a bill of sale, a curious document in its way. He is warranted to me to be a slave for life although I was going to set him free in a few weeks.” (69) This was the boy Solomon.

I invite you to tell of a time when you turned down money because it would involve selling your soul.

* This photograph is a story in itself. To learn more about it see http://www.mirrorofrace.org/carol.php

Death and Wings of Kindness – Wm. King, 14 of 28

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More death.

Toward the end of the first year after the couple arrived in Edinburgh Mary King gave birth to a daughter. Not long after Mrs. King began to show symptoms of consumption. William King details in his autobiography how he cared for her and how he got a wet nurse for the child. But his wife was to die Feb. 25, 1846. “After the death of my wife my whole affection was placed on the Child now left the last of my family and the very image of her Mother, her playful innocence had drawn my affection strongly towards her. On coming from the Class she would stretch out her arms as soon as she saw me enter the door, to leave her nurse and come to me and quite contented when she got on my knee… My child who was growing well with her wet nurse was taken suddenly on the fifth of May with Hydrocephalus or water in the head and died on the ninth of May.”

Dr. and Mrs. Chalmers were to take William King under their wings. He often breakfasted with them, especially on Wednesday mornings when they held public breakfasts for the many guests who would call upon the president of the college and head of the church.  “A great deal of information was obtained at those breakfasts; as the guests were men of learning and from all parts of the world.”

Who would you like to sit down to breakfast with?