At the end of that year, he went to California to try his luck as a gold miner. Later he went on to Australia together with Harriet's son Joseph, again searching for gold. It is not clear, whether his decision to go to California and on to Australia was caused by the Fugitive Slave Law. His sister explicitly states that the law did not apply to John S., because he didn't come to the free states as fugitive, but was brought there by his master. On the other hand, Garrison wrote many years later on occasion of John Jacobs's funeral, that he stayed on in the North until the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and then left the county "knowing that there was no longer any safety for him on our soil."