escape.pilotonline.comEscape | The Underground Railroad, Part 1

NEWS CITIES OPINION BUSINESS MILITARY SPORTS LIFE WEATHER TRAFFIC OBITUARIES ESCAPE PART I HIDEOUT PART II STOWAWAY PART III FREEDOM PART IV REBIRTH PART V Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Top Extra (Map designed by C.K. Hickey. Text written by Gary A. Harki | The Virginian-Pilot) Tweet T he men bound Robert Irving’s hands with rope. They pulled it taut, stretching his tall, lean body. His naked back was exposed. A man stood behind him with a cowhide lash. Whipping slaves in 1854 was a routine job. Robert heard the crack, then felt leather dig into flesh. A moment’s pause, and the lash came again. The reason for Robert’s punishment is lost to history. It could have been anything. But as bad as the whipping was, there was worse to come. It was November, and soon the slave jails in Norfolk would be filling up with men, women and children to be sold at the start of the new year. Slaves were one of the area’s top exports. At 27, Robert was in his prime – bright and healthy. The widow who owned him knew he was worth a lot on the open market, more than $500 (that’s $18,000 in today’s money). Somehow, he learned that she planned to sell him. Robert thought of escape. The Underground Railroad thrived despite vicious efforts to stamp it out. But someone bound him to Portsmouth in a way his owner never could. Julia Irving's master, Gen. John Hodges, owned this house on North Street in Portsmouth. (Thé N. Pham | The Virginian-Pilot) Julia Irving lived in a stately white house at the corner of North and Middle streets, the favorite of the elderly general and his wife who owned her. Robert had loved Julia since he was a teenager. She was pretty despite the large scars on her head, reminders of some brutality. Nine years earlier, the general had married them in his front parlor. They weren’t allowed to live together, but Robert stayed a few blocks away at the naval hospital where he worked. They had three sons, many friends, a respected place in their community. Robert faced a terrible choice and didn’t have much time. He could wait to be sold and torn from his family, or tear himself from them. Escape meant entering a world of spies and slave hunters, missionaries and mercenaries. Few details of that world remain – the railroad’s survival depended on secrecy and subterfuge – but the path to freedom cut right through Hampton Roads. The harbor here was a beacon for men like Robert. Those men would spend the rest of their lives reflecting on what they gained and what was lost. Norfolk and Portsmouth in the early 1850s. On the Portsmouth side of the Elizabeth River, right, stands the United States Naval Hospital in the foreground, where Robert Irving lived and worked as a slave. (Courtesy of the Mariners' Museum, Newport News) In 1854, Portsmouth was a town of about 8,500 people, nearly a quarter of them enslaved. In Norfolk, nearly a third of the city’s 14,000 residents were slaves, with a small population of free blacks. Portsmouth sat on just over a half-square-mile, from North Street and what is now Olde Towne to the Gosport Navy Yard, and from the wharf back about eight blocks. A train ran down High Street to the docks. Norfolk was crowded around the wharf on an anvil-shaped peninsula on the opposite side of the Elizabeth River. It was framed on the west by Smith’s Creek, near what is now the Hague, and to the east by the marshy Newtons Creek a few blocks past Church Street. In total, it covered about a mile. Congested downtown streets eventually widened and gave way to farmland. Together, the communities had the largest port in Virginia, bringing in goods from Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York while exporting cotton, wheat and tobacco. With that port came a collection of sailors – rogues, world travelers and pirates. Along Crawford and Water streets in Portsmouth, prostitutes peered out of saloons with names like “The Globe.” Traders haggled with merchants. "Secret agencies are in our midst for the purpose of offering inducements to our slaves to make their escape North." (An April 1854 editorial in the Southern Argus of Norfolk) Anxious travelers to the north waited for their always tardy ships, and locals traveled back and forth across the Elizabeth on a graffiti-marred ferry crewed by slaves. Everywhere, slaves moved among the whites, deferring to their masters by day and at night, gathering privately in kitchens and anywhere else they could with families and friends. Sometimes, the talk turned to escape. (mikesblackhistory.zoomshare.com) Around the turn of the 19th century, the system of routes and safe houses known today as the Underground Railroad began to take shape. Written accounts have survived that document the escapes of about 100 slaves from Portsmouth and Norfolk, but no one connected to the railroad was foolish enough to keep a complete log. The exact number who fled will never be known. Slaveholders grew more enraged and paranoid with each passing year. “There is no doubt but that secret agencies are in our midst for the purpose of offering inducements to our slaves to make their escape North,” an April 1854 editorial from the Southern Argus in Norfolk reads. “Slaves are allowed far too much liberty by their masters. We ourselves can plead guilty of the charge; but this is a time when we may awake and repent.” Slave laws had been more relaxed at the turn of the 19th century, but by 1854, they had tightened. Slaves couldn’t have black preachers in their churches for fear they would incite rebellion. They had to carry papers from their owners giving them permission to be out on the streets. There was a small industry built around “Negro Repositories” – in essence, private jails – to more securely house slaves awaiting auction and to capture and punish those who tried to escape. As Robert Irving struggled over whether to flee, he would have known the risks, as well as the stories of those who’d successfully traveled along the railroad. Already, two fugitives from Hampton Roads had drawn national attention, becoming lightning rods for abolitionists and slaveholders across the country. George Latimer George Latimer was born in Norfolk on the Fourth of July. By 1842, he was 23 years old and had passed through a succession of owners. Twice, he was thrown into prison because of an owner’s debts. He wound up in the hands of James Gray, an ill-tempered storekeeper and sawmill owner who was quick to punch, kick and whip him. Latimer decided to escape with his pregnant wife, Rebecca. After several failed attempts, they finally stowed away aboard a steamer. They hid in a compartment next to the boilers – it was dark and excruciatingly hot, and through cracks in the partition, they could see the ship’s barroom, with men who would have gladly turned them in for a bounty. Latimer arrived in Boston days later and was soon spotted by an acquaintance of Gray. He was captured, and his wife had to stay hidden. The slave owner came to take him back. Gray told police that Latimer had stolen from his store. That was enough to get Latimer thrown in jail, giving Gray time to start the extradition process. But the arrest stirred passionate abolitionists in Boston and nearby New Bedford. They met several times in late October and early November, trying to figure out how to prevent Latimer from being sent back. Among the speakers at the rallies was Frederick Douglass, who had escaped Maryland less than five years before. The abolitionists started two petitions, one requesting that the state legislature ban public officials or public property from being used to detain or arrest escaped slaves and another demanding that a law be passed severing any connection between Massachusetts and slavery. (Massachusetts Historical Society) Gray eventually agreed to sell Latimer after the sheriff told him he would no longer hold fugitive slaves. Latimer’s supporters bought his freedom for $400, and he was cleared of the theft charges. Back in Norfolk, a committee formed to disc...