Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana

by Melanie Dobson

  BY MELANIE DOBSON

  SummeRSIde

  PRESS

  Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana

  © 2009 by Melanie Dobson

  ISBN 978-1-934770-74-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed

  reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James

  Version of the Bible.

  The town depicted in this book is a real place, but all characters are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or events are purely coincidental.

  Cover and Interior Design by Müllerhaus Publishing Group

  www.mullerhaus.net

  Published by Summerside Press, Inc., 11024 Quebec Circle,

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 | www.summersidepress.com

  Fall in love with Summerside.

  Printed in the USA.

  Dedication

  To my daughter Karlyn Skye

  Your courageous spirit and loving heart have blessed me and so many others. May God continue to use your compassion and your determination to protect and defend all those who need a friend.

  Acknowledgments

  In the 1800s, every Quaker Meeting had a clerk who would scribble down “minutes” as people conducted business or spoke out when the Spirit led. As I’ve worked on this novel, my role has been almost like that of a Quaker clerk, recording just a few accounts of the thousands of brave men, women, and children who risked their lives either to flee from slavery or to protect those who had run away. This work is fiction, but it is based on true stories about the courage and compassion of Quakers who harbored runaway slaves in their homes and escorted them to Canada along the “Liberty Line.”

  Many people supported and encouraged me during my research and writing, and I’m grateful to every one of them.

  A huge thank-you to the amazing Karen Coffey, Liberty, Indiana’s research librarian extraordinaire. Not only did she provide me with an incredible amount of information about the town, both past and present, but she gave me a personal tour of the area and opened up the doors for me to visit William Beard’s home (a renowned conductor on the Underground Railroad). Karen’s great-great-grandfather worked at a woolen mill outside Liberty, and a photo of the old Cockefair Mill is the backdrop for the book’s cover. The accurate details in this book are the result of Karen’s hard work in collecting and sending me scads of material about the area. All errors (and I’m sure there are plenty) are my fault.

  Rachel Meisel at Summerside Press—thank you for believing in this idea from the beginning and helping me mold it into the story it is today. You’ve been a joy to work with!

  Jason Rovenstine at Summerside Press—you’ve encouraged (and fed!) me throughout this project. Thank you for your wisdom and your hard work in getting this book out to so many.

  Connie Troyer—an incredible editor. Thank you for sharing your Quaker heritage with me and for correcting my many mistakes. The best of this book is the result of your hard work.

  A special thank-you to Kimberly Felton, who cheered on this book from the beginning, as well. Attending an unprogrammed Meeting with you was a highlight for me, and I really appreciate your helping me learn about the Religious Society of Friends, past and present. Thank you for your interest in this story and for your enthusiasm.

  Thank you to my critique group who gave me invaluable input through this whole process—Sandra Bishop, Leslie Gould, Christa Sterkin, Kelly Chang, and Kimberly Felton. You ladies rock!

  Thank you to all the amazing people in Liberty, Indiana, who welcomed me to their town, with a special thanks to Julian, Ruth, Stephen, and Vicky Logue for letting me crawl around your attic and explore the other hidden places in your home, as well as allowing me to borrow your family papers to learn about the house and the local Salem Meeting. It was a delight to meet all of you! Thank you also to Beverly Wiwi at the beautiful Carriage Lamp Bed & Breakfast for taking good care of me while I was away from home. If my readers visit Liberty, the Carriage Lamp B & B is definitely the place to stay.

  Thank you to Karen Trent at the Huddleston Farmhouse and Saundra Jackson at the Levi Coffin House for giving me personal tours of these historic gems. I learned so much from each of you.

  Thank you to the many other people who graciously answered my questions about Quaker history and the Underground Railroad, including Janet Wacker, Bev Hamilton, William Jolliff, Rebecca Ankeny, and Tom Hamm.

  Thank you to my parents, Jim and Lyn Beroth, for continuing to root for me during the highs and lows of this writing journey, and thank you to Carolyn Dobson, Christina Nunn, Miralee Ferrell, Patti Lacy, Tosha Williams, Diane Comer, Patricia Pursley, Heather Cotton, Lynda Shields, and Brenna Darazs for your many words of encouragement.

  Thank you to Karly and Kiki, who asked almost every day how many words I had written and then cheered when I told them. I am blessed beyond words to have you both as my daughters.

  Another huge thank-you to my wonderful husband, Jon. Without you and your support, not to mention the many Saturdays you spent trying to work at the local indoor playground/pizza place, this book never would have been finished. You are amazing!

  Most of all, thank you to my heavenly Father and His Son and the Holy Spirit for your light. I pray I will learn to listen as well as the Quakers did (and still do!) to your voice.

  QUEKERS IN UNION CONTRY, INDIANA, were active participants of the Underground Railroad, harboring runaway slaves in hidden rooms of their homes and secretly transporting them north. The small town of Liberty was the county seat, and in 1850, this town of 370 people held 110 houses, two churches, a courthouse, a jail, multiple shops, and the first woolen mill west of the Alleghenies. Today, Liberty is a peaceful farming community of nearly 2,000 people and gateway to the beautiful Brookville Lake just south of town. The Salem Society of Friends still gathers in the same Meetinghouse where they met in 1850, and right down the road stands the home of well-known Underground Railroad conductor and stationmaster William Beard. The citizens of Liberty are friendly, hard-working people who are rightfully proud of their town’s heritage. They are careful to preserve the memory of the many Quakers in their community who aided those attempting to escape slavery in Kentucky, just forty miles south of their town.

  Chapter One

  September 1850

  A shadow grazed the moonlit yard and ducked into the regiment of pine trees blocking the western winds. Anna Brent pressed her nose against the cold pane and scanned the row of evergreens. Clusters of cones and needles bounced and swayed like the stuffed arms of a scarecrow in the breeze, and her mother’s quilt fluttered on the clothesline beyond the porch. The shadow didn’t reappear.

  Boots tapped across the wood floor behind Anna, and she jumped.

  “What is it?” Charlotte whispered.

  Anna stumbled back from the parlor window and turned toward her housekeeper. Charlotte’s hair was bundled under a net snood at the nape of her neck, and tight ringlets dangled at the sides of her face to hide the rugged scars left by her former owner’s knife.

  Charlotte smoothed her fingers over her lilac skirt. “Did someone knock?”

  “No, but I saw something outside.” Anna glanced out the window again, but the night was still. “Are we supposed to receive another shipment tonight?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Ben since Tuesday.”

  Their agent usually sent Charlotte a note before guiding runaways to their house, although some nights Ben himself was notified only hours before he had to deliver a shipment. On those nights, they would be surp
rised by a knock on the back door.

  Anna nodded toward the hallway outside the parlor door. They had to be careful, for the sake of the others staying in their home. “You had best hide our friends.”

  Fear stole through the resolve in Charlotte’s soft brown eyes, and Anna wished she could tell her that she didn’t have to be afraid. “It’s probably a bear rummaging for food.”

  “Of course,” Charlotte replied. Then she lifted her skirt and rushed toward the steps.

  Anna stared out the window and waited. Moonlight illuminated the clusters of deep purple-and-white calla lilies scattered around the front yard. Her father’s wagon stood beside the porch—but her father was in Cincinnati for three days, ordering supplies for the mill.

  She had been born in this house twenty-two years ago and had seen a bear only once, when she was riding a couple of miles north. The bear had bolted away from her and her horse, disappearing into the thorny bramble.

  This time of year, though, bears weren’t the only animals that pilfered food. Panthers hid in the craggy hills and wilderness, too, along with packs of wolves. She often heard the wolves, but she rarely saw one.

  Whatever she had seen outside tonight hadn’t darted into the trees like a panther or a wolf. It snuck through the yard, too big for a raccoon or skunk, yet too small to be a deer. And if it was a person, it was either a skittish guest or someone intent on trapping the men and women hidden upstairs.

  Anna fidgeted with the bow on her bodice, her eyes fixed on the dark trees.

  Slave hunters traveled north more often these days. Even though the scriptures commanded care of the poor and orphaned, many of her neighbors collaborated with the enemy and willingly betrayed runaways in their flight north. Instead of rescuing slaves, they swelled their pockets with blood rewards and reveled in the pleasure of their own freedom.

  These days it was hard to know whom she could trust.

  Something moved in the row of pine trees, and Anna strained her eyes to see if it was a person or an animal. The apparition darted toward the trees and then back again, hidden in a nest of needled branches.

  Anna lifted the footstool from the entryway and carried it to the hearth. The fire crackled beside her, and heat permeated through her layered skirts as she stepped up onto the stool. She gathered her skirts with her left hand and reached above the mantel with the other to pull down her father’s Kentucky rifle.

  In the kitchen downstairs, she tugged open the drawer that her father kept stocked with cartridges. Edwin Brent prized this flintlock more than the two hunting rifles he kept stored in their barn, saying it was more accurate than any modern gun. He’d never harm a person with it, but he was a deadeye for deer and fowl.

  She slid three cartridges and balls into her pocket and then ripped off the end of a fourth foil cartridge, shook the black powder into the long barrel, and rammed the cartridge and ball into the gun with the rod. It took some people three or four minutes to load a rifle like this one, but her father had taught her how to load his gun in under a minute. And then he’d taught her how to shoot it.

  When she stepped out the front door, strands of hair stole away from her braid and blew across her eyes and neck, but she kept both hands clenched on the gun. Hundreds of cicadas sang out in the darkness. Down the hill, the wheel beside the woolen mill dumped buckets of water back into the river, which hummed and splashed in rhythm along Silver Creek.

  A wolf cried out in the forest behind the house, and goose bumps prickled her arms when an entire pack answered the call with chilling howls. Either they were stalking dinner or the wolves sensed trouble.

  Anna moved to the edge of the wide porch, the gun propped on her shoulder, and pointed the weapon toward the rolling hills and woods. A single hit on the lead wolf should scatter the rest of the pack, but if it didn’t deter them, it should also give her enough time to load her next cartridge and ball.

  Her gun honed on the forest, Anna watched the oak and sugar maple branches bat at the dark sky. The wolves didn’t wander onto her property, but their cries escalated into a frenzy until, in an abrupt finale, they stopped.

  The pine trees rustled to her right, and Anna swung toward the noise. She’d shoot to kill if it were a bear, but if it were a bounty hunter, she’d have to set the gun to her side.

  Even though her father had taught her to shoot, he’d also taught her that the battle against slavery wasn’t a fight against her fellow man. It was a silent, steady fight against evil. Instead of blasting her enemies with force, she and a few other members of the Religious Society of Friends relied on a quieter strategy of persuasion—and deception—to protect those runaways who couldn’t protect themselves.

  She wasn’t afraid to die, but she’d never had a slave owner threaten her guests before. If one did, God help her, she didn’t know what she would do.

  Seconds passed in silence as a cloud blanketed the full moon. Her finger wrapped around the trigger, she called out, “Who goes there?”

  When no one answered, she lifted her gun and blasted a warning shot in the air.

  From the row of trees, a baby cried out in the darkness, and Anna pointed her gun toward the cry. Then she lowered the gun.

  “Who goes there?” she shouted again into the darkness.

  This time a faint voice answered. “A friend of a friend.”

  The gun clutched in her fingers, Anna cautiously moved off the porch. The voice could belong to a catcher baiting her away from the house, or it could be a fugitive who needed her help. She walked through the tall grass, past trees and the hidden door of the root cellar west of the house.

  “Show yourself,” she demanded, as the clouds swept past the moon.

  A fifteen- or sixteen-year-old mulatto girl stepped out from the covering of trees, her head bowed. In her arms was a baby loosely swathed in a linseywoolsey blanket. The child squirmed in the girl’s arms and cried out again.

  Anna set the gun on the ground. “Why didn’t you knock on the back door?”

  The girl looked up, and in the moonlight Anna saw a fresh wound on her forehead. Dirt smeared her caramel-colored cheeks, and her curly hair was matted to her head. Her voice trembled when she spoke.

  “I ain’t knowin’ if it the right place.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Marie.” The girl held up the baby, and Anna saw his fair skin. “And this is my chile, Peter.”

  “He’s hungry?”

  “Yessum.”

  The baby’s cries calmed into a whimper.

  “When did you and Peter eat last?”

  Marie closed her eyes and then reopened them. “Yesterday mornin’.”

  “Your milk?”

  Marie shook her head. “Ain’t workin’ no more.”

  Anna glanced around the yard and down the hill to see if anyone was watching them. It was one thing to house a runaway slave, but should she house a runaway who might have stolen a white child? She couldn’t risk her anonymity or sacrifice the lives of her other guests if this girl was lying to her.

  Another cloud passed over the moon, turning the yard black for a moment. When the light returned, Anna set her hand on the girl’s shoulder, and Marie flinched.

  “Are you alone?” she asked.

  Marie nodded in response.

  “How did you find our house?”

  “Unca Ben done brought us up the river and showed me the way.” Her fingers caressed the baby’s head and then pointed toward the house. “He say look for a quilt, but I ain’t seen no quilt.”

  Before Anna could tell her about the quilt by the door, the pounding of horse hooves broke through the quiet. Marie clutched the baby to her chest. “He comin’ for me.”

  “Uncle Ben won’t hurt you.”

  “Not Unca Ben.” Marie pulled away from her. “Massa Owens.”

  Chapter Two

  Anna shouted for her to stop, but Marie had already bolted for the back of the house with Peter in her arms. The horses would be at their house in tw
o minutes, maybe less. Anna pulled her skirts above her knees and followed the girl into the darkness.

  The rush of adrenaline might give Marie the strength to sprint a couple hundred yards, but she wouldn’t have the strength to go much further. She and the baby needed to hide, not run.

  She chased Marie toward the barn and watched the girl fidget with the clasp on the door and fling it open. Anna caught the door before it slammed shut. Hay crunched under Marie’s feet as she fled across the floor. Goats bleated from their stalls.

  Anna snatched a match from the top of the barrel and flicked it to light an oil lantern. Shadows danced over the mounds of hay at the far end of the barn. Even if Marie and the baby buried themselves in the straw, it wouldn’t take long for a slave hunter with a pitchfork to find his prey. She had to catch Marie before a hunter did.

  Marie dove into the hayrick, and Anna reached down for her arm. “They’ll find you in here.”

  The girl trembled in Anna’s grasp. “Massa’s gonna kill me.”

  “We’ve got to get you into the house,” Anna insisted. “It’s warm upstairs, and safe.”

  Marie didn’t move, but the baby cried out again.

  “Please let me help you,” Anna begged. “We’ve got fresh milk for Peter and plenty of food for you.”

  Anna stepped toward the barn door, no time left to linger. She needed to greet her visitors like a lady and offer them a place to rest.

  Her stomach rolled as she started to close the door. If her guests were hunters and they found Marie and the child in the barn, she would have to feign ignorance to protect the lives of the other runaways hiding inside the house...and the lives of the dozens of other fugitives who would pass through their station this fall.

  “If they catch you...,” she started to say—but she stopped herself. Marie knew better than she did what they would do if they caught her. She had probably traveled hundreds of miles in search of freedom. Anna wouldn’t try to force her into the house.