A story buried in the Philadelphia abolitionist William Still’s Underground Railroad a comprehensive record kept of the escapes from slavery of African Americans tells the stunning story of a married couple Barnaby and Mary Elizabeth Grigby, Frank Wanzer, and Emily Foster. All 20-something, and described in Still’s narrative as being intelligent and attractive, they had no intention of living their lives out in slavery. So they took horses and a carriage and on Christmas Eve 1855 drove themselves, along with two other fugitive men on horseback, right out of Loudon County, Virginia. They had gotten about 100 miles away and were in Maryland when a group of six armed white men and a boy demanded the six to account for why they were out on their own with a carriage and horses. When they refused to move aside and let the group pass:
“The fugitives verily believing that the time had arrived for the practical use of their pistols and dirks, pulled them out of their concealment the young women as well as the young men and declared they would not be ‘taken!’ One of the white men raised his gun, pointing the muzzle directly towards one of the young women, with the threat that he would ‘shoot,’ etc.
“‘Shoot! shoot!! shoot!!!’ she exclaimed, with a double barrelled pistol in one hand and a long dirk knife in the other, utterly unterrified and fully ready for a death struggle.”
The male leader of the fugitives by this time had “pulled back the hammers” of his “pistols,” and was about to fire! Their adversaries seeing the weapons, and the unflinching determination on the part of the runaways to stand their ground, “spill blood, kill, or die,” rather than be “taken,” very prudently “sidled over to the other side of the road,” leaving at least four of the victors to travel on their way.“
The two men on horseback were recaptured, but the four others made their way to Canada and freedom, where Emily Foster married Frank Wanzer.
—Audrey Peterson
