Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-08-24

n ltOoht oOITeS eSpOulenG III l0e iDulSVlllo
COwter-J0urnal gives an account of the
return to Lowell, Ky, of Lewis Clarke, the
: George Harris" of Mrs. Stowe's famous
story. Ahout two miles from Lowell on
the Crab Orchard pike stands fine old
brick mansion which fifty years ago was
owned by Gen Thomas Kennedy. a gen.
tleman of the old school, His estate con
tanned about 1000 acres and he had Il force
of l50 slaves upon it. He was imminenty
wealthy for that time and .place and
while royalty generous to his friends was
cruel AMI eXacting with his slaves. In
1885 Kennedy died, leaving the bulk of his
property to his son Thomas, then about
twenty years of age. Three years sufliced
for the young man to run through the
property and die.
Among the slaves left on the estate was
IN intelligent, high strung octoroon boy,
named Lewis Clarke, who had been grant
ed comparative freedom, in being allowed
to travel about with an open pass, trad
ing. weaving and occupying himself as he
pleased, paying his master certain sum
every month. When the estate came to be
settled, it WAS discovered that some of tne
slaves must be sold, and an execution was
issued against Lewis among the others.
The rumor got out-and at that day the
rumor was Il dreadful one among slaves
that they were to be "sold down south"
On the first night of the September court,
in lS41, Lewis Clarke mounted his pony
and struck for liberty.
He was as white as any Caucasian and
the control over himself which had been
allowed him had earned him the applica-
tion of Il "spoit nigger." He made his
way to Canada where he remained for
some years, and then went to Cambridge,
Mass, where he lived for seven years with
brother-in law of Mrs. Stowe. 1t was
here in her visits to tie family that Mrs
Stowe obtained many of the facts which
she afterwards used in her story. The
narrative of his experience was related to
"A friend in Cambridge and was published
in 1915 under the title of Narrative of the
sufferings of Lewis Clarke, during a cap.
tivity of more than twenty five years
among the Algerines of Kentucky, one of
the so called Christian states of North
America" Many copies of it were sold.
but it created so much excitement that
several thousand cepies were suppressed
and the plates destroyed.
The way in which Mrs. Stowe came to
write Uncle Tom Cabin" Clark gives
as follows: A paper called the National
Era was published in Washington about
lS4S-50, in the interest of emancipation,
and after the fugitive slave law was passed
it lost circulation so rapidly that its friends
feared it would have to be given up. 1t
was thought it might yet live if some
woman of ability could be secured to write
II series of articles for it upon the subject
of slavery as a violation of the finest senti-
ments of the race.
Mrs. Stowe was mentioned and the pub
Usher was advised to write to her and en-
close her draft of 800 rs an incentive.
This he did and the next week there ap-
peared not the first of series of articles
on slavery, but the first chapters of story
C tled Uncle Tom s Cabin" The effect
was instantaneous and great. The scenes
delincated with such frequent strokes of
eloquent simplicity and covered with the
somberness of Christian adherence of the
slave system, went home to the reader
Imagination with wonderful force. The
circulation of the National Era increased
at once, and soon became very large Mrs
Stowe was poor and earning her money
so aboriously that for fear the great novel
would be cut short she was sent an addi
tional draft for $500. Then she copy
righted the story, which in book form has
made her fortune, and become more ia.
nous than any novel ever issued from
printing press.
Into the book she wove all the facts
given her by Lewis Clarke, in connection
with information CLEANED elsewhere.
Now he returns to his old home after
the lapse of forty years, upon railroad
train instead of pony, an old man with
white hair, gray beard and wrinkled fore
head, but free, educated and with wide
reputation in the northeast.
He leclured to the people gathered at
the church, drawing the contrast of yester-
day and to-day well, and urged the negroes
10 depend for to-morrows success and
happiness upon education of mind and
morals. 1t was an address intended solely
for them, and made a decided impression
While Clarke was giving the history of
his life and running over the story of his
wrongs, he spoke with deep feeling of the
fate OF sister Della. She was an unusu-
ally beautiful quadroon girl. whose master
wished to make her his mistress; but she
steadily declined, was brutally whipped
and then sold south. At New Orleans, in
the slave pen she was seen by French
resident, who was told her story as re-
commentator of her value to man seek
ing favorite. He bought her, emanci-
pated her, took her to Mexico and married
her In those days the clothing of slaves
was woven and made on the plantation,
and each weaver could recognize his own
work. When the girl was sold south she
wore striped dress woven by her father
1t was customary then for slaves sold south
to cut off the sleeves of the dress worn, ,and
send it back by any chance messenger to
relatives on the old plantation.a as Solomon
sent his sinnet, to prove the truth of the
messenger. Lewis never saw his sister
again; she died in New Orleans; but when
telling of the separation he drew nervous
ly from his breast pocket a folded bit of
striped cloth-the cut sleeve of the dress
which she wore south, and which she
wore on the block in New Orleans, and
said that long years after he ran away
from the old Garrard plantation fugitive
slave from New Orleans delivered it to