Frederick Douglass for Kids Read online

  It was a secret practice among fugitives to borrow or pay someone to use their free papers and then mail them back to their owner once the fugitive had arrived in a free state. Although Frederick had a number of friends who were free and carried free papers, he did not match the description on any of his friends’ papers.

  One of Frederick’s friends was a sailor who was free. He agreed to let Frederick use his sailor’s protection papers to escape. Frederick knew this was a serious danger. If someone asked to read his papers, that person would realize instantly that the papers were not Frederick’s because Frederick did not match the description. He would be arrested immediately. The consequences would be terrible.

  “TO TAKE OFF SPOTS

  OF ANY SORT, FROM

  ANY KIND OF CLOTH”

  Anna Murray probably made her own soap to scrub the laundry, such as the soap found in this recipe from The House Servant’s Directory by Robert Roberts.

  Materials

  2/3 cup honey

  1 egg yolk

  1 tablespoon table salt

  Wooden spoon

  Mixing bowl

  Pair of old, dirty socks you can throw away

  Old-fashioned washboard, or 1 x 2-foot plain pine board

  Large bucket or laundry tub

  Mix the honey, egg yolk, and salt together in the bowl. Working on a protected surface, use the wooden spoon to spread a thick paste on your dirty socks. Allow the mixture to soak into the socks for at least an hour, or overnight. Place the washboard in a large bucket or laundry tub that is half full of warm water. Scrub the socks up and down on the washboard to try to remove the dirt. Rinse the socks well. Hang them in the sun to dry.

  As a maid, Anna Murray used a washboard like this to scrub the laundry for the Wells family. Photo by author, courtesy of Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park

  Robert Roberts (c. 1777-1860)

  Robert Roberts served elite families in Boston. When he was hired to serve as a butler to the governor and later senator of Massachusetts Christopher Gore, Roberts drew from his years of exemplary service to write a book of recipes and instructions for being a top-rate servant.

  Roberts published his book, The House Servant’s Directory, in 1827. It was one of the first books published by an African American. Even if Anna Murray did not ever read The House Servant’s Directory herself, this book gives us a glimpse into the duties and tasks she would have been responsible for as a maid serving a family in America during the 1830s.

  The House Servant’s Directory

  by Robert Roberts.

  Courtesy Special Collections, Michigan

  State University Libraries

  Frederick carefully planned his escape. He decided to travel openly from Baltimore to Philadelphia and then to New York City. Dressed as a sailor, he planned to carry his friend’s sailor’s protection papers in his pocket. He would pretend he was free and travel like free people did—on the train, on the ferry, and on the steamboat. It was a risk, but one he hoped would work.

  Part of his escape plan, therefore, was to do everything he could to avoid having anyone actually read the papers he carried. He made arrangements for another friend to arrive at the train station in Baltimore with Frederick’s luggage at the exact moment the train was starting to leave.

  Timing everything down to the second, his luggage arrived as planned, and Frederick jumped up on the steps of the train just as it started to leave the station. It looked like Frederick did not have time to stand in line and purchase his ticket at the train station where the ticket master would have demanded his papers and instantly spotted his deceit.

  Frederick was impersonating a sailor. He remembered, “I had on a red shirt and a tarpaulin hat and black cravat, tied in sailor fashion, carelessly and loosely about my neck. My knowledge of ships and sailors’ talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to crosstrees, and could talk sailor like an ‘old salt.’” His friend’s sailor’s protection papers were hidden deep inside his pocket.

  As Frederick had hoped, the train conductor was busy collecting tickets. By the time he reached Frederick, the conductor asked, “I suppose you have your free papers?”

  It was the most anxious moment Frederick ever experienced in his life. Trying to hide his fear, Frederick answered quickly, “No, sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me.”

  “But you have something to show that you are a free man, have you not?” the conductor asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Frederick answered, his heart pounding. “I have a paper with the American eagle on it, that will carry me round the world.”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out the borrowed papers, boasting the large image of the American eagle that was on every sailor’s protection papers. Without taking the time to read it, the conductor collected Frederick’s money for his ticket and moved on to other passengers.

  Frederick let out a deep sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and steadied himself.

  The first main obstacle had passed.

  He was on a train, speeding north, clutching a ticket in his hand.

  MAKE A PASTE TO

  KEEP FLIES AWAY

  The House Servant’s Directory by Robert Roberts was a very practical book. It even included a recipe for making a mixture that was guaranteed to chase away the flies, a pesky problem in the mid-1800s.

  Materials

  ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

  teaspoon brown sugar

  tablespoon fresh cream (heavy cream or whipping cream from fresh milk found in the supermarket dairy section, not a processed can of dessert topping)

  Whisk

  Small bowl

  Spoon

  Plate

  Mix the pepper, brown sugar, and cream together in a small bowl using a whisk. Spoon the mixture onto a plate. Place the plate in a room where flies are a bother and see if they disappear! Be sure to keep the mixture away from pets or small children.

  DRESS LIKE A SAILOR

  When Frederick Douglass escaped, he disguised himself as a sailor. A sailor in the mid-1830s wore a red shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and a black cravat tied loosely around his neck. Most sailors made their own tarpaulin hats by stitching fabric from old sails into the shape of a hat and then painting the hat with tar. This made the hat waterproof, which helped protect a sailor from the splashing waves and pelting rain from storms at sea.

  Tarpaulin Hat Materials

  String

  Ruler

  Pencil

  Scissors

  1 yard white cotton duck fabric

  White thread

  Sewing needle

  Thimble

  Pins

  Newspapers

  4 ounces black glossy acrylic fabric paint

  Wax paper

  Clear tape

  Paper plate

  Paintbrush

  Adult supervision required

  Measure your head by wrapping the string around your head over your forehead where you would wear a hat. Next, measure this length of string with your ruler. The instructions for making this hat will fit your head if it is 23 or 24 inches around. Adjust the patterns slightly if your head is smaller or larger.

  Tie a piece of string to a pencil and cut the string to be 6½ inches from the pencil to the end of the string. Mark a dot 7 inches away from all edges of the cotton duck fabric. Hold the end of the string on the dot with one hand. With your other hand, hold the pencil and draw a 13-inch circle, with the dot as the middle of the circle.

  Draw another circle the same way, only this time cut the string to measure 4¼ inches. The finished circle will measure 8½ inches across. Cut out the two circles from the cotton duck fabric. Inside the 13-inch circle, draw a smaller circle. Cut the string to measure 4 inches. Hold the end of the string on the dot in the center. With your other hand, hold the pencil and draw an 8-inch circle. Cut out the smaller circle and discard it.

  Use your ruler to measure a 3 x 24-in
ch rectangle and cut this strip out of the cotton duck fabric.

  Fold the rectangle in half and use the needle and thread to stitch the two short edges together with small stitches as close together as possible. Wear the thimble to protect your finger while you sew because it can be hard to push the needle through the cotton duck fabric.

  Pin one long edge of the strip to the small circle and stitch the edges together with small stitches as close together as possible.

  Pin the other long edge of the strip to the inside edge of the large circle as shown. Stitch the edges together with many small stitches as close together as possible.

  Spread out sheets of newspaper to cover a table, for protection. Tape two sheets of wax paper together to form a large square big enough for the hat to sit on. Place the hat on the wax paper on top of the newspaper. Pour a puddle of fabric paint on a paper plate and use the paintbrush to paint the entire top side of the hat. Allow the paint to dry completely overnight, gently repositioning the hat several times to prevent it from sticking to the wax paper while it dries. Weigh down the brim of the hat with a small object if it starts to curl up during the drying process. After the hat is completely dry, turn it over. Use a new square of wax paper for it to sit on. Carefully paint just the underside of the hat’s brim, stopping short of the stitches. Do not paint the stitches or the inside of the hat because then it will be uncomfortable to wear. If the brim starts to sag while you are painting it, crumble squares of wax paper into balls and prop up the brim of the hat with them until it dries. Allow the hat to finish drying overnight.

  Cravat Materials

  ½ yard lightweight black cotton fabric

  Scissors

  Sewing needle

  Black thread

  Ruler

  Cut the piece of fabric in half lengthwise to form two long, thin 9-inch strips. Sew these strips end to end to form one long, thin strip of fabric. Use the ruler to measure, and cut the strip to be 64 inches long.

  Lay the strip flat on a table. Grasp the fabric strip in the middle and loosely roll the middle section into a tube. Place this behind your neck and over your shoulders like a scarf, allowing the ends to hang down the front.

  Adjust the fabric so that the right end hangs about 3 inches longer than the other. Cross the long end over the short end to form a V about 4 inches below your neck. The long end will now point to the left. Draw the long end behind the short end, up inside the loop, and over and down to the left side again.

  Cross the long end over the short end again. The long end will now be pointing to the right. Bring the long end behind the short end, up through the small loop, and out again to the right.

  Tighten the knot and adjust the cravat to hang loosely around your neck.

  A Dangerous Day

  Over the next 24 hours, peril and danger awaited Frederick at every turn of his journey. “The heart of no fox or deer,” he recalled, “with hungry hounds on his trail, in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia.”

  At Havre de Grace, Maryland, the train stopped. Frederick joined other passengers traveling across the Susquehanna River and boarded a ferry. One of the workers on the ferry recognized Frederick and started to ask him questions. Alarmed, Frederick hurried to the other side of the boat.

  Once on shore at the other side of the river, Frederick boarded another train and spotted even more people he knew! One was an overseer he’d recently worked for at a shipyard and another was a German blacksmith he knew well. At any moment any one of them could have ruined his chance to escape. But none did.

  Finally, he reached the most dangerous part of his journey. “The last point of imminent danger,” Frederick shared, “and the one I dreaded most, was Wilmington.” In Wilmington, Delaware, he left the train and boarded a steamboat. Frederick knew that the borders between slave states and free states were the most perilous of all. Slave hunters flocked to Wilmington to look for men and women escaping to freedom. Would they be searching for his face today among the crowd? Officials in border towns such as Wilmington were extra cautious and carefully inspected every African American crossing over the state line into the free states. Would they stop him now and demand to read his papers?

  Frederick remembered, “In making the change I again apprehended arrest, but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware [River], speeding away to the Quaker City.”

  The Final Stretch on Freedom’s Road

  Frederick stepped off the steamboat and onto the dock at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a free man. Yet he knew his freedom was still not secure. He was too near the slave catchers. Too close to the slave states.

  As the afternoon sun shone upon his back that warm September day, Frederick knew his journey was not yet over. He would not jeopardize his newfound freedom by staying so close to those who could easily capture him and return him to slavery. He walked slowly along the docks, smelling the familiar smells of fish and boats and the river, not quite sure where to go next.

  Stopping a fellow African American, Frederick asked how he could travel to New York City. The man directed him to the train depot, located on Willow Street.

  As Frederick walked through Philadelphia on the way to the Willow Street depot, the setting sun cast his lengthening shadow along the cobblestone streets. The evening air turned cooler. Glimpses of Independence Hall could be seen through the trees.

  What thoughts stirred his heart, knowing that now each step he took was the step of a free man? Did he know that others had come before him, walking through these streets with thoughts of freedom burning in their souls? Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams had walked these same streets over 50 years earlier when meeting to declare their independence from British rule. In the years following the American Revolution, Black Founders Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and James Forten walked these same streets leading Philadelphia’s community of free blacks in the campaign for equal rights through the sermons they preached, the petitions they signed, and the newspaper articles they wrote.

  A new generation of freedom fighters was living and working in this city now, black and white together, determined to bring the evils of slavery to an end. Little could Frederick imagine that he would one day join them. Little could he dream that his voice would one day echo through these streets alongside theirs, rallying the cry for freedom.

  His one consuming thought was to travel as quickly toward his destination as possible. His flight to freedom was not yet over. Even though he was walking on free soil, he was still in too much danger.

  He found the Willow Street train depot, boarded a train, and went speeding through the night on his way to New York City.

  Morning dawned. The train whistle blew as it chugged to a stop. Blasts of steam filled the air. Frederick stepped out into the crisp, fall morning of a bustling metropolis. His 24-hour flight had come to an end.

  He was free—he had broken the chains of slavery! He had thrown off the terrible and powerful bonds that had chafed against him all his life.

  The Willow Street train depot in Philadelphia was located in full view of Independence Hall. It was here Frederick Douglass purchased a train ticket to New York City on September 3, 1838, the day he escaped from slavery. This short segment of tracks shows where the Willow Street train depot once operated. Photo by author

  “From my earliest recollections of serious matters, I date the entertainment of something like an ineffaceable conviction, that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and this conviction, like a word of living faith, strengthened me through the darkest trials of my lot. This good spirit was from God; and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.”

  —Frederick Douglass

  Alone and in Despair

  Frederick walked the streets of New York City. “It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced,” he remembered. Heart bursting with joy and r
elief, he said, “I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions.”

  This feeling quickly disappeared, however, in the distress of knowing he was still in danger. A fugitive, he could always be captured and sent back into slavery. Frederick was overcome by a deep sense of loneliness. Who could he trust? A price was now on his head and anyone who turned him in, black or white, could profit. He looked at all the people around him. He said, “I dared not to unfold to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to the wrong one.”

  Unexpectedly, he met one person he knew well while wandering through the city’s streets, a fugitive like himself. His friend confirmed his fears. “Trust no one!” his friend warned before disappearing back into the sea of people. Confused, lonely, and afraid, Frederick wandered the streets of New York City for several days. At night, he slept in alleys or at the docks. Finally, close to despair, he found a sailor who seemed to have an honest face.

  “I told him I was running for my freedom—knew not where to go—money almost gone—was hungry—thought it unsafe to go the shipyards for work, and needed a friend.” Frederick had found a friend at last. The sailor made arrangements for the lonely fugitive to meet David Ruggles.

  A Helping Hand

  New York City had a core group of men and women who helped the countless fugitives pouring into their city who were penniless, scared of capture, and close to starving. David Ruggles was one of their leaders. A dedicated abolitionist, Ruggles was the secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee, a group that kept watch for escaping slaves to help them reach safety along the Underground Railroad.