Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-06-30
WORCESTER, June 8, 1855.

My DEAR GRANDMOTHER: To-day is Mr.. Stephen
Fosters fathers ninetieth birthday, and there is Il
grand roster party at their house, at which every
one OF the ten sons and daughters, with their wives
and husbands, and every grand-child but tco, are
assembled. They have come from Maine, New
hampshire, Connecticut, Ohio. and Pennsylvania.
There is not 4 siugle great-grand-child. l saw
them last evening, and they are a very earnest,
upright looking race of people. l thought it must
pc a great comfort to the old gentleman to look
around upon them, and feel that every one was re-
spectacle and conscientious. This seems TO have
been what both he and their mother labored to
teach their children--to respect, in the highest de-
gree, what was right and just,--and this is their re
ward--to see themselves surrounded by good, in.
telligent and useful descendants. This puts me in
mind OF the only time when all your descendants
that could be gathered together met at Minerals
wedding.
All the children will sit down to dinner with the
father, and at ten, all the grandchildren will sit
first. Little ALA was in great glee. Her laugh
was as merry as the song of the gladdest bird, she
was so happy at this rare visit from SO many cou-
sins.
Old Mr.. Foster was one of General Arnold's
body guard in the American Revolution, though
but a mere lad. What a change he has lived to sec
in this great country! Steamboats,, railroads, tel
egraphs, and all manner of mechanical improve
ments and inventions sought out by the ingenious
Yankees; Boston grown from a town intoa mighty
city Of 1901 900 people! If all the people of the
country had been such lovers of truth and justice
as himself, we should not be SO disgraced by sla-
very and all kinds of vice as we now are. lie,
too, is himself changed. NoU he does not think it
right ever to fight, and refuses to receive the
bounty lands, to which his services entitled him,
believing it to be a reward for sin.
lie told me he was very anxious to 20 to the
war. lie was a great Wing, though, | believe,
but thirteen years old. But, he added, he would
not have gone, if he had known how wicked the
Americans were going to be in turning right about
and making slaves of others.
There has recently come to Mr.. Fosters a fuci-
tive from Virginia. lie is a very bright lad about
nineteen years old. lie hid himself on board a
vessel loaded with lumber, where lie was for some
days, without food, in the dark among the timber.
Ala Is teaching aim to- read and when | saw
how eager he was to learn, l felt more than ever
how awtully wicked it was to shut the sacred
gates OF knowledge against millions of human
beings like ourselves. l had some sympathy with
John, 1.-THE fugitive,) who said that the masters
who do these things ought to dance in a fiery fur.
mace Ills master owned a boat on the James
river, in Virginia, and he was one of the hands
employed on the vessel. ] asked him if he ever
heard Of the Dismal Swamp. lie said yes, and
that about two years ago. some fifty Of the fugi-
tlves who had escaped there were taken and nut in
jail, and the shareholders tried to sell them TO 20
to New Orleans but they swore, every man and
woman of them, by everything they could think of
that they never would work a single day and no.
body dared to buy them. So they were let loose
again, and wont back to live in the Swamp. |
had never heard this circumstance before, and hay-
ing always read how dangerous it was to attempt
to capture them, | asked John how thew were
taken. 'O,' said he, the swamp was set on fire,
and they were driven out. He SAYS he saw them
| asked him if he ever thought of going to the
swamp. lie said. No; there are too many bad
"varmints" there