Abolition

by Tim Black

  Bette Kromer spoke up. “We are, indeed, Mr. Brown.”

  “That is good,” John Brown agreed.

  The abolitionist was about to elaborate on women’s suffrage when a messenger rode into camp. The rider dismounted his horse and ran over to the abolitionist to exclaim, “Father, the Missouri ruffians attacked Lawrence and burned the town to the ground!”

  “Are you certain of this, Owen?”

  “Yes, the people of the town fled and didn’t fight back. There were hundreds of proslavery men.”

  John Brown’s face suddenly changed. Anger replaced the previous tranquility of his bearing. He arose from his seat and stood up, his right hand raised to the heavens. “A day ago, in the Senate of the United States of America, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was attacked by a cowardly South Carolina congressman by the name of Preston Brooks. Bully Brooks. The proslavery villain stalked into the Senate chamber and attacked Senator Sumner with a cane while Senator Sumner was reading at his desk. He delivered several blows to the senator, rendering Mr. Sumner unconscious. And nothing happened to Bully Brooks; he was not arrested. He was hailed as a hero by the slavers. Slavers are violent. It is time for abolitionists to fight back. We can no longer turn the other cheek, when the slaver is holding a gun or a cane. We must fight back. We will fight back. Here, in Kansas, we will fight back!” he shouted.

  John Brown’s men had stopped what they were doing and had walked over to ring their leader in a show of support. As he cried “we will fight back,” a rousing cheer went up from his followers.

  “We must show the slavers we are not afraid,” he added.

  “Huzzah! Huzzah!” John Brown’s men shouted.

  Samuel Chandler was impressed. John Brown was a charismatic speaker. As Brown spoke, Samuel had an urge to pick up a rifle or a sword and join the band of abolitionists.

  “I would rather have the smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera together in my camp, than a man without principles. You, my men, are men of principles. Tonight, we are going to pay a visit to some of the slavers and we are going to use the same weapons that Nat Turner used on his nighttime raid in Virginia so long ago. We are going to mimic the slaves themselves in that famous uprising!” he declared.

  Then John Brown paused and glanced at his ‘Quaker’ guests. “Frederick,” he said. “Our new friends are Quakers and they do not believe in violence. It would be offensive to ask them to join us tonight. And it may also be dangerous for them to stay out here. Escort them to Samuel Adair’s cabin if you would. Take a wagon, we are going to need most of the horses fresh for tonight’s activities,” John Brown said.

  “Friend Nathan,” the abolitionist said, addressing the teacher. “We will not ask you to participate in violence as it is against your creed. Your people have been among the first to call for the end of slavery. But now, it is time to purge this slave land with blood. After tonight, I and my men will probably be on the run or in hiding. You will be safe with Samuel Adair. He is a good man and he will see that you are welcomed in Osawatomie.”

  “Thank you, Friend John. May God bless you for your kindness and may the Lord also keep you safe until we meet again.”

  As Frederick pulled a wagon up and the students took seats in the back of the buckboard, Mr. Greene took the “shotgun” seat next to the driver.

  The teacher thexted Nikola Tesla. Nikola, please float back to the classroom and have Professor Bridenbaugh move it adjacent to the Adair cabin. Google the location of the John Brown Memorial Park and the stone museum. It houses the Adair cabin today. Set the coordinates and bring the classroom down in the vicinity, if you will.

  “Of course, Nathan. John Brown is preparing for Pottawatomie, isn’t he? The massacre?”

  Yes, I believe so. We don’t want to be around for that. It is bad enough I let the students witness Nat Turner’s execution, but I don’t want them to see a horrific bloodbath.

  “John Brown is a complicated man, Nathan. He isn’t a demon and he sure isn’t a saint. He truly believes that God put him on the earth to end slavery, Nathan. It was his destiny. He is a Calvinist and he believes in predestination. We might find that a bit whacky, but many people in the 19th century would not. In fact, I bet today that there are still a good many people that believe in predestination. Who is to say who is right? Where are we going next?”

  To meet Harriet Tubman and to go on a rescue with her.

  “No, I mean, what year?”

  1859.

  “I will reanimate, Nathan.”

  I know, that is why I bought you a nice three-year-old’s outfit.

  “I think I will want to stay with the classroom, Nathan.”

  That’s fine. Will you be able to handle the computer?

  “Do you know a three-year-old who cannot manage a PC, Nathan?”

  Mr. Greene laughed at Tesla’s thext.

  “What’s so funny?” Frederick asked.

  “I’m sorry, Frederick, I was remembering a silly song my father taught me long ago,” the teacher lied.

  “I like silly songs, sing it,” Frederick said. It was more of a command than a request, Victor Bridges said.

  Victor decided to help. “Is it the ‘Cow Kicked Nelly,’ Mr. Greene?”

  Mr. Greene looked at Victor and smiled, forming the words “thank you” without uttering them. “You sing it, you have a better voice, Victor.”

  And so, Victor Bridges sang a nonsensical song to the son of John Brown on the day of the Pottawatomie Massacre.

  Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn,

  Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn,

  Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the bell in the barn

  And the old farmer said it wouldn’t do her any harm.

  “Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse…”

  Victor sang the second verse, which was indeed a little bit louder and a whole lot worse, but Frederick Brown was laughing heartily. Mr. Greene was laughing, albeit nervously, for the silly song might have prevented Frederick from getting suspicious of the visitors.

  “Here we are,” Frederick said as he pulled the wagon up in front of the Adair cabin. A bearded man and his wife, hearing the commotion out front, opened the cabin door. Frederick jumped down from the buckboard to meet the owner of the cabin.

  Mr. Greene turned to his students and said in a soft voice, “Samuel Adair is John Brown’s brother-in-law; his wife is John Brown’s sister.”

  “Evening, Uncle Samuel,” Frederick greeted the man and his wife. “Father would like you to give these people shelter and a meal if possible.”

  “I want no violence here, Frederick.”

  “They are Quakers, Uncle Samuel,” he replied.

  “Oh! In that case, they are welcome. Do come in, folks,” he said. “Please give us a minute to straighten up though,” he added.

  “Certainly,” Mr. Greene said. “We will wait outside.

  Mr. Greene thanked Frederick, and the wagon left. He turned to his students and said, “Samuel Lyle Adair was a Congregational missionary from Ohio, and Florella was John Brown’s half-sister. They moved to Kansas in 1854 with the support of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which was why I mentioned that earlier, and they founded the Osawatomie Congregational Church. Both the Adairs were graduates of Oberlin College, the first college in the United States to admit women. They were fierce abolitionists, but they did not believe in violence. They are free-state supporters This house was a stop on the Underground Railroad for several years.”

  As Mr. Greene finished his background information on the Adairs, a full-bearded man, sans mustache, introduced himself. “I am Reverend Adair, but please call me Samuel. This is my wife Florella. My nephew mentioned that you are Quakers?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Greene. “These are my nieces, Minerva, Bette and Heather and my nephew Victor and,” he said, placing a hand on Samuel’s shoulder for emphasis, “my adopted son, whose name is, by coincidence, Samu
el as well.”

  A broad grin creased the minister’s face. “That is wonderful,” he said as he led the group into his humble house. While there were a few chairs, a window seat and a writing desk in one corner of the main room provided meager furniture; the house was as “neat as a pin,” as Minerva’s grandmother would say. A loft overhung the room and a retractable ladder led the way up its stairs to the sleeping area of the cabin.

  Minerva was thrilled. It was a cabin right out of Little House on the Prairie. Laura Ingalls Wilder would have felt at home, she thought, as she remembered the series of books she had read voraciously as a young girl.

  Mrs. Adair, in a gray dress adorned with an apron, was a woman that Minerva guessed to be in her late forties. She led the girls to a back room, which included a small kitchen and an oak table with six chairs around it. On the table was a large bowl of potatoes. She handed a knife to each of the three girls. “Might as well put you to work,” she said.

  Minerva, Bette and Heather took a seat at the table and began to peel the spuds.

  “Have you girls thought of college?” Mrs. Adair said, as she took a knife to a potato and quickly cleaned the tuber of its skin in one deft movement, without taking the knife off the potato. Minerva was impressed by the woman’s agility, but then realized that Mrs. Adair had probably spent a lifetime peeling potatoes. Even though Mrs. Adair had a college degree, her primary role was as a housewife.

  “College?” Bette replied to the woman’s inquiry. “College is not for women, my father said.”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Adair replied. “After we end slavery, the next thing that we are going to do is get rights for women, which we began at Seneca Falls in ’48, that ‘all men and women are created equal,’” Mrs. Adair said. “But first things first. Slavery is not dead yet. Much as I deplore slavery, I much fear that when slavery dies it will be in a conflict of arms, or some other violent manner. What a fearful doom awaits our nation, awaits us, when God shall mete out to us the measure we have meted to others. Thomas Jefferson once said that ‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.’ Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom. May enough be found in the land to save our nation. My brother is only one man. He is a righteous man, a bit too headstrong as are many men, but I believe that God has sent my brother John to deliver the slaves from bondage; it is his destiny,” Mrs. Adair said with a tinge of pride in her voice. “John Brown was chosen by our Creator.”

  John Brown’s sister believed in the abolitionist, Minerva realized. Minerva was not surprised; she had read John Brown’s whole family was behind him. That they too, would be willing to die for the slaves. Some of them would die in the years ahead, Minerva realized. John Brown’s sons would forfeit their lives for their father as well as the slaves.

  As Mrs. Adair switched to meaningless small talk about the spring weather, into the kitchen floated the apparition of Nikola Tesla. He looked at the girls peeling potatoes and began laughing. Thankfully, only the girls and not Mrs. Adair could hear the Serbian scientist chortle. With difficulty, the three 21st century teens remained mute.

  Mr. Tesla announced, Mr. Greene says it is time to go. The classroom is parked out by the outhouse, behind the cabin.

  “I need to use the privy,” Bette said.

  “Go out through the back door,” Mrs. Adair said.

  “Me, too,” Heather declared.

  “Well, I declare,” Mrs. Adair replied. She looked at Minerva. “Are you going to join them as well?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Minerva said.

  “Do all of you girls have to go at the same time?” Mrs. Adair asked.

  “Sometimes,” Minerva replied as she got up from the table and joined her classmates. Mr. Greene, Victor and Samuel, were nowhere to be found and then Minerva realized they were already in the classroom. Professor Bridenbaugh had applied the cloaking device. Minerva joined the other girls and waited. After a moment the classroom door creaked open a crack and the handicap ramp appeared. Victor opened the door the full way, and the girls dashed up the ramp into the portable. Just before she closed the door behind her, Minerva looked over her shoulder to see Mrs. Adair watching from a kitchen window, a puzzled look upon her face.

  Minerva wondered what the 19th century woman thought of what she had just seen. Minerva doubted, however, that Mrs. Adair would tell anyone, not even her husband, that she had seen three girls disappear into a room, which would disappear as well. Who would ever believe her? People would think Mrs. Adair was a witch probably, Minerva thought, as she took her seat for the jump to 1859.

  Chapter 11

  Before the group jumped from 1856 to 1859, Nikola Tesla floated to the back closet and shut the door.

  Mr. Greene explained. “In two months, Mr. Tesla will be born and consequently he will reanimate. So, he is taking refuge in the closet, not wanting to arrive in 1859 as a naked little three-year-old. He has two outfits in the closet, one for age three and one that we bought in Gettysburg on our trip to 1863 at the Fahnestock Brothers General Store.”

  “He looked so cute in that little outfit,” Minerva said.

  A voice from the closet shouted, “I heard that, Minerva.”

  Minerva laughed.

  “For Samuel and Heather, this may come as a bit of a shock for you,” Mr. Greene said. “It did for us after the Battle of Gettysburg. Reanimation, we call it. We have mentioned it. Now you will experience it. It is a wrinkle in time travel, so to speak…” Mr. Greene commented. He waited for his students to chuckle at his pun on the title of the novel A Wrinkle in Time, but his joke was met by silence. He shrugged off their indifference and continued his explanation. “Mr. Tesla was born in July 1856, so when we stop in 1859 he will be three years old. We are also going to go to January 1, 1863, where he will be six and a half. And 1865…well you can do the math on that one. But from this point on until return to Cassadaga, Mr. Tesla will be among the quick and not the dead.”

  “Huh?” Heather wondered.

  “The word ‘quick’ in this case means alive, Heather,” Minerva whispered, helpfully.

  “So, where are we headed now, Mr. Greene?” asked Bette Kromer.

  “To meet Mrs. Harriet Tubman in Philadelphia. Captain John Brown, when he met Mrs. Tubman, referred to her as General Tubman. She became rather famous among abolitionists, you see. She has also become the subject of myths,” Mr. Greene added.

  Samuel, who revered the name of Harriet Tubman, was a bit peeved at his teacher. “What myths, Mr. Greene?”

  “Well, for one, people think she went all through the South rescuing slaves. She only worked in Maryland. She only worked the area she knew. She was smart that way. And she rescued probably seventy people not three hundred, in thirteen raids, not nineteen. And the bounty for her return to her mistress was one hundred dollars, not forty thousand. On the other hand, most people don’t know that during the Civil War she acted as a spy for Union Colonel James Montgomery. In 1863, she was the first woman to lead a raid during the Civil War in the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina where 700 slaves were set free. So, if you add those 700 to the seventy people she freed, that’s far more than the three hundred that was originally claimed for the Underground Railroad. Oh, she is portrayed in paintings as carrying a rifle on the Underground Railroad. She carried a small pistol. In the Civil War, however, Harriet Tubman carried a rifle, a Sharps Rifle, I believe.”

  “You sound like you know her, Mr. Greene,” Heather said.

  “I do. I met Harriet Tubman last summer during my scouting exhibition for this trip,” the teacher said.

  “He did. I was with him,” came a shout from the closet.

  “Mr. Tesla was with me then, but I met her before 1856, so Mr. Tesla was in ghostly form.”

  “So, you think she will remember you, Mr. Greene?” Samuel asked.

  “Yes. Samuel, I know how much you look up to Mrs. Tubman. I remember the paper you wrote on her last year. It was great. I knew t
hat we had to meet her and give you a chance…”

  “A chance? A chance for what?”

  “To go with Harriet Tubman and rescue a slave.”

  “You are kidding,” Samuel said.

  “No, I am serious.”

  “Wow, we are going to go with Harriet Tubman on a rescue?” Victor said.

  “No,” Mr. Greene. “Perhaps one of the girls can tag along playing the role of a mistress, but no white men on the trip, Victor. We would stick out. Mrs. Tubman will be using forged passes and Samuel will have manumission papers in the name of Cassius Clay…”

  “Wasn’t that boxer Muhammed Ali’s original name?” Victor asked.

  “Yes, Ali’s ancestors were owned by the Clays of Kentucky.”

  “Henry Clay?” Samuel asked. “The Great Compromiser?”

  “No, Cassius Marcellus Clay of Kentucky who inherited slaves from his father, but emancipated them all, which is why the ruse should work. The original Cassius Clay was rare for a Southern planter because he did not believe in slavery. During the Civil War, Lincoln would appoint Clay as minister to Russia for the United States.”

  Victor looked over at Samuel, who was buckling himself into his desk for the next jump in time. He heard his friend whisper a string of “wows,” and a large smile cut across his face as if he had just won the state tennis singles championship for the second straight year.

  *

  The Philadelphia of 1859 was a major city of over a half-million people. The Pennsylvania metropolis was the second largest city in the United States, and its population had skyrocketed from 121,376 in the 1850 Census, more than quadrupling in less than a decade. It was no longer the quaint colonial town of the 18th century, but a hub of commerce and industry, connected to other larger cities such as Baltimore and New York by a web of railway lines. The invention of the elevator by Elisha Graves Otis, which he demonstrated at the World’s Fair at Crystal Palace in New York in 1854, allowed a city to build up, as well as out.