Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-02-25

bound over to q man and his wife
there. Great Bend was sort of trad
ing station then, where people came
to be ferried over from Pennsylvania
to New York. Sylvia says she was
very powerful and athletic, and was
often ordered to row parties across the
|SusquehanRa. Her capacity for Fl ght-
ing and drinking brandy must have
been marvellous, if her stories are at
all trustworthy. She says she
knocked OUT half dozen white
men in a regular prize-ring before she
was 90. She soon became the terror
of the neighborhood.
One of her favorite stories is to the
effect that one night a muscular look
ing stranger arrived at the tavern
kept by her master. This stranger
did a good deal of talking about his
pugilistic abilities and his record as a
fighter. He cowed all the habitues of
the bar-room, and no one would fight
him. Sylvia came in to steal drink
of brandy on the sly-brandy of a
quality which she says is not made
now. She overheard the stranger
Dragging about his proves, and at
once challenged HIM. He laughed at
her, but some of the men in the room,
who had tested the colored girls fist,
encouraged her. She rolled up her
sleeves and shook her fist in the
stranger face. He thought it joke.
Then she tapped with more or less
vigor ON the nose. This angered him
and he put himself in pugilistic at
titude. Someone tod him he had
better take off his coat, but he said it
wasn't necessary, as he could ..'kill the
niger in minute" When he said
this Sylvia told him to come on and
hurry up. He responded with blow
on her chin that staggered her. This
reused her blood. She says it was
good fight for a few minutes, and then
she began pounding the life out of
him." and in five minutes laid him
groaning and bleeding on the floor.
1t was SYlYia's use of her fists that
finally caused her to leave Great Bend
and return to New Jersey. She liked
her master, but detested her mistress.
The mistress was always scolding her
and using whip over her shoulders.
she submitted for a while, and then
grew rebellious. One day the mistress
rebuked her for some trivial matter and
rushed at her with the whip. Sylvia
waited until she was close at hand,
and then struck her mistress terri
bic blow in the face. It knocked her
against the door, from which she fell
to the floor unconscious. Sylvia did
not wait for more. She knew her
life was IN danger when the people
around heard of it. So she rushed
up stairs where her little babe lay,
for, like many of the slaves of that
day, Sylvia was immoral and utterly
oblivious Of the duty of chastity, and
grabbing the child ia her arms, rush
ed out of the house and made for the
woods. Her story of the tramp from
there back to Sourland mountain is
not only pathetic, but, as she tells it
is as exciting as any border nara
tive III the average dime novel. She
encountered bears and wild cats, and
experienced all the pargs of hunger.
But she finally got back and was free.
No one claimed her for slave. end
unquestionably was one of the first
free negroes in New Jersey, and one
Of the longest to remain such. Ia
few monthe she established her claim
here, SIS she had done in Pennsylvan-
ia. She INDUCED ia a number of
fights, in none o. which, as she ex-
presses it, was I licked, Or anywhere
near licked"