Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-12-17
THE TRUE STORY OF ELIZA.
me BASIS of One of the Incidents in
"IncIe Toms Cabin.o

From the Hartford Courant.
The incidents which formed the basis for
the story of the escape of Eliza, the slave
mother, with her chile, across the Ohio river
on the ice, which is familiar to readers of
Mrs Stoves Uncle Toms CABIN were
told by Rev. s. G. w. Rankin In Hartford
recently. The incidents came within the
personal knowledge of Mr.. Rankin, and he
said that he gave them to Mrs Stowe and
that she used younger woman, who es-
capped at nearly the same time to complete
the picture and make it more attractive and
dramatic.
AS Mr. Rankin tells the story, his fathers
family, living the bluffs on the Ohio side
OF the river We're well known as in the bus
mess OF helping runaway slaves, and slaves
knew them as friends. 1t was one Christ
mas week that Eliza, a stalwart negro
woman, came to the Rankin house in the
night, having brought her husband across
the river in boat He was covered with ice
from the river, the night having been in
tensely cold, AID the man, who was not as
bright as Mrs Stoves George Harris by
any means had fallen into the water in get
ting out of the boat. Eliza was very re-
ig.ous and very determined. and had
planned to send her husband ahead TO Can
ada, intending to join him with her children
afterward. The husband was sent along and
Eliza crossed the river to Kentucky that
same night, returning to her mother She
nXed date-tWo months ahead--When she
would again come to the Rankin house.
True to the arrangements, she crossed the
river one night in February, when the river
was in treacherous condition. carrying
her young child in a shawl strapped to her
back. The ice was in broken foes and she
carried a board with a rope attached to 1t,
by which she passed from one cake to an
other. She got across and was sent to Can
ada to join her husband. She still had five
children in slavery and said to the Rankins
she going hack a q tor
them the following June.
On the June day in question she appeared
in Mr.. Rankins garden. and she was dis
guiSed as a man and sent across the river
where she made her way to her former
masters plantation and hid beneath the
currant bushes in his garden. Were she was
discovered by her eldest daughter a girl Of
seventeen, and at nightfall was hidden be-
meath the floor of her old cabin in the negro
quarters. Sunday, after dinner. her master
and his wife went several miles away to
visit friend. and Eliza, following the ex-
ample of the iSrael-teS when they IeSpoiled
the Egyptians, took blankets AMI household
goods to the amount of about POO pounds
weight, divided them into bundles for the
five children and started on an eleven miles
walk to point on the river which she was
to reach at = O'Clock Monday morning. She
had been told to bring nothing but the chill
dren, but she had So overloaded them with
the packages that the smaller ones gave
out, and she was obliged to carry one child
a little ways a bundle a little ways, and
then go back after another child and an
other bundle, until she so delayed that
the river was not reached until O'Clock in
the morning, and the boat that was TO carry
her over gone. 1t was very fOgSy,
however, and by walking about mile and
a quarter in the shallow water of the Ken
lucky side of the river to throw off the
scent of the bloodhounds, she reached an
anti-slavery mans house, where she
manned all day.
That morning." said Mr. Rankin, when
we expected to have Eliza and her children
safe in Ohio, after the fog lifted we saw
th:rty-one men on horseback, with dogs and
guns, across the river, hunting this defense
less woman with five children, after a re-
ward of $1,000. Communication was opened
with Eliza during the day, and she was told
what to do. At nightfall Mr.. Rankin, dis
gused as a woman, with party of young
fellows made a fe:nt on the Kentucky shore
few miles farther up the river and gave
the negro hunters a lively chase, they sup
posing they had track of Eliza. The hunt
ers We're evaded, and at the same time a
trusted boatman had ferried the woman and
children across to the Rankin house, where
she remained in hiding for two weeks, being
finally taken to the Quaker settlement in
a load of flour and bran. She escaped to
Canada and lived for years there with her
Inv I,a 81 children