The Secrets of Mary Bowser (24 page)

Not a woman in the room wasn’t frightened, of course. We were thinking of those slaves, but of our own safety, too. It had been some while since Philadelphia’s last big race riot, longer than I’d been in the city, though not much longer. Time and again, mobs had burned down businesses owned by negroes, beaten colored temperance marchers, killed and destroyed in mad frenzies while the police stood by and watched. If slaves were rising up, maybe even killing whites, down in Virginia, there was no telling how mobs in Philadelphia might retaliate.

“The rain will keep the mobbers at home,” Mrs. Catto said, with as much hope as a person could muster just then. But wet streets were no safer for us than dry ones, really. I stared up at David Bustill Bowser’s eagle painting, marking each detail of the predatory beak and pointed talons, as we sat wondering what dangers lurked in the October night. At last the brass knocker fell on the broad front door, and the butler announced Mr. Passmore Williamson.

A gaunt white man entered the sitting room. Miss Forten extended her hand to him. “Mr. Williamson, thank you for coming. Have you any more news?”

Only four years earlier, Passmore Williamson had stormed onto a boat moored at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street wharf, seized a slavewoman named Jane Johnson and her children from their owner, and sent them off to freedom. He went to jail for that, though eventually the judge released him, ruling Johnson’s owner had as good as freed her himself when he brought her through Pennsylvania on his way to a plantation in Nicaragua. Mr. Williamson had safeguarded Miss Johnson and her family when he might have rotted in Moyamensing Prison for the privilege, and he was as respected and trusted, even loved, as a white man could be among colored Philadelphia.

Now he stroked the muttonchops that formed a dark frame around his narrow face. “It is the hero of Osawatomie, John Brown. Leading a band of some two dozen followers, negro and white. They’ve seized the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, to arm the slaves he hopes will join them. There is word of killing on both sides, although Brown’s men yet hold their ground. They mean to extend the rebellion into the neighboring counties, though it is too soon to tell whether they shall succeed.”

Mr. Williamson spoke with a surety of detail that told me he had foreknowledge of Brown’s plan, or at least had heard about the plot from someone on the Vigilance Committee who did. Such propinquity shocked me nearly as much as the news itself.

Was there some great conspiracy afoot, so large it stretched from Virginia to Philadelphia, maybe even to Kansas and Canada? Who around me had known what was to come to pass, and had looked at me without the slightest hint in their eyes?

Was this what we had waited for, worked for, prayed for all these years? Were all the slaves freedom bound at last?

Dear Mary

I presume you have less news of this than we have—though to tell fact from rumor is nearly impossible. Brown of Kansas fame—or infamy as the slaveholders would have it—was captured at dawn Tuesday.

Richmond is thirsty for blood—but all the bluster is just cover for her fright. SLAVE INSURRECTION—the two most fearsome words to a Southerner! All talk of master and servant alike benefiting from the paternal institution is forgotten now—nerves on edge awaiting the tocsin tolling another uprising. Virginians are as terrified of whites in the North as they are of the negroes among us—if there is anything to be glad for these days I should say it is their dread.

Will send more as soon as it is known.

Yours

Bet Van Lew

Dear Bet

There is much excitement here. The telegraph brings the news & the news-sheets turn it all to rumor. No mobs yet though they are feared.

If you can send a word or two from Papa it would do much to ease my mind. Please give him all my love.

Yours

Mary Van Lew

Dear Mary

I am sorry for the delay in responding. The curfew here is quite strict—Lewis could not come to me during the week. This morning I set out to find him—had only a vague notion of the location of his cabin.

When he opened the door he took quite a fright about the reason for my visit. I assured him that I only came because you asked me to bring him your regards. I did not stay long enough to take down any message. But I give you my word he is well and knows he may come to me for any aid a lady can offer should he need it.

Mahon will not let any harm come to him—for selfish reasons perhaps but those may prove as strong a motivation as the very milk of human kindness could be.

Yours

Bet Van Lew

Learning that Bet had gone all the way down to Shockoe Bottom to hunt up Papa’s cabin turned me topsy-turvy. White people passed up and down that block of Main Street all day long, but only laborers, tradesmen, and shopkeepers. Never a Church Hill lady. I was sorry to have caused Papa such alarm. But relieved, too, that Bet knew where to find him, that she pledged her protection of him, even.

When I returned from the Institute one afternoon the following week, I heard men’s voices debating hotly in Mr. Jones’s back parlor. “We warned Brown the raid would be a death warrant. This madness is only more of the same.”

“Faugh! Brown has fowk ready to fight at lang and last. We maun strike now.”

I hurried up the staircase and found Mr. Jones, McNiven, and David Bustill Bowser in the front parlor. Mr. Jones frowned at my arrival. “Gentlemen, we will need to speak of this matter at some later time. I’m sure you understand.”

McNiven wouldn’t be put off. “We need not be protecting Mary from our talk. The lass is as brave as any man when danger is at hand.”

I looked to Mr. Bowser to see if he would agree. “McNiven’s plan is folly. What harm can there be in speaking of it in front of her?”

“No folly in it,” McNiven said. “So long as I can find a route to Charlestown without coming from the North.”

Charlestown was where they were holding John Brown while Virginia’s highest civil authorities and the jeering mobs gathered outside the prison plotted his demise. “They’re going to Charlestown by the trainload from Richmond,” I said.

“How ken you so?” McNiven asked.

“A letter, from my— from a correspondent in Richmond.”

“If I go first to Richmond, there might be a way to Charlestown that will not raise suspicion.”

Mr. Bowser shook his head. “My cousin says Richmond is too hot these days. We cannot ask him to take on such a party as you suggest.”

“Your cousin need not hazard himself to join me in liberating Osawatomie Brown.”

I let out a little cry, the idea was so audacious. Mr. Jones slammed his fist down on the mahogany table, glaring at McNiven for saying so much in front of me.

“The lass can be trusted, I tell you. Awready she has given me the notion o’ Richmond. I need but find a place to bide there, till I can slip up to Charlestown.”

“Bet Van Lew would have you,” I said.

Mr. Jones raised his arched eyebrow. “You suggest we send McNiven to a white lady?”

“McNiven is a white man, going to save another white man. I don’t suppose the aid of yet one more white person would be so strange,” I said.

“But a Virginian,” Mr. Bowser said. “And female to boot.”

He almost had me with Virginian, but when he added the part about female, something caught in me. I stomped upstairs to my writing desk, searched out the most recent missive from Bet, brought it down, and read it out to them.

“
Things here do make my blood boil! Governor Wise carries on so they say he means to ride this to the White House. The slave-owners are in such a frenzy they would give him the Democratic nomination—they demand no less than a Southerner for the Presidency now. They say Brown’s correspondence is proof no Northerner can be trusted. For my part I should like to tell them there is a Southerner or two who thinks Brown more wise and Wise more yellow than the other way around. I do hope to have my part in this before all is said and done.
” I held the pages out to Mr. Bowser. “There is more, if you care to see it.”

“No need,” McNiven said. “I am the one what will go, and I hae heard enough. Write to your friend, ask will she help me or no.”

“The mails are being searched,” Mr. Bowser reminded him. “To write anything hinting at such a mission will get us all hanged.”

“Mary is one what can fool fowk with her words.” He nodded at me. “Scrieve the letter so only your friend will ken the meaning.”

Dear Bet

I am sorry to hear your Uncle John has almost no one to care for him but yourself. I hope you will not take offense when I say that though I am not partial to many of your relations he is a great favorite of mine. Indeed others I know admire him & one in fact might wish to tend him to prevent any severe incapacitation. Though you have voiced fear that his confinement will prove fatal perhaps with the aid of this caretaker he might live many a year from now.

Would you be willing to host such a visitor come to tend your Uncle? His name is Thomas McN & he is a nearer relation to you than to me I should suppose from the physical resemblance. Will such a visitor upset your Mother & Brother terribly? I shall send him with a note in my hand so you will know him. He will see if your Uncle can be brought to a location where he might be better cared for.

I look forward to swift receipt of your reply. I hope I have not said too much nor too little as you know this matter is quite delicate inside both of our families.

Yours

Mary Van Lew