LUNSFORD LANE.
It is a fit thing that this series of sketches should close with the story of the career of a member of the enslaved race itself. This story will illustrate many sides of the slavery question in the South. Here is the blight of slavery on white and black, the exceptionable negro, who, by admirable
perseverance and endurance, struggles on to freedom, the mass of thoughtless and unambitious negroes in the background, the touch of human sympathy on the part of the better class of whites, and the maddened roar of the ignorant and infuriated larger class. How truly was this a picture of slavery and its surroundings. Lunsford Lane[28] was a slave of Mr. Sherwood Haywood, a prominent citizen of Raleigh, N. C. His master was the owner of two plantations, one in Wake county, near the city of Raleigh, the other in Edgecomb county. Lunsford was born in the early part of the century, and grew to manhood before the beginning of the severer attitude toward the
slaves which came after the Northampton insurrection of 1831. His parents, of pure African descent, had been kept in the town for family service, and thus their offspring had opportunities beyond the other negroes. Lunsford early learned to read and write, a privilege that would not legally have been allowed him a few years later. Many men of political prominence visited at his master's house, and from waiting on these he acquired much general information. He also learned a great deal from the speeches of great politicians. He heard speeches from Calhoun, Preston, of South Carolina, Badger, Mangum, and many others of less note. He waited on La Fayette when he passed through Raleigh in 1824, and was greatly impressed by the distinguished
Frenchman's devotion to liberty. Once he heard Dr. McPheeters, the Presbyterian minister in Raleigh, say: "It is impossible to enslave an intelligent people." This made an impression which he never forgot. His desire to gain his freedom grew daily, and all the spare money that he
received as fees from his master's guests was put away toward that end.
In the hope of acquiring liberty there was not a little encouragement for him in the life of the negroes of the town. At that time a strict surveillance had not been established over the religious and social meetings of slaves. They accordingly often in their chance meetings discussed means
of improving their condition. The natural inclination of the negro to speech-making helped in this process. The following illustration of this faculty will be of value here.
The colored boys of the town had a custom of assembling every Sunday afternoon at a certain mineral spring in
the suburbs of the place and discussing, in imitation of the whites, the issues of the day. Some of them, especially the slaves of prominent men, could repeat with great exactness speeches that they had heard during the week. The whites were often present at these meetings, and the master of a bright slave boy would feel a pride in the prowess of his negro and encourage him to improve. At last, however, they came to see that the effect of this was to turn the minds
of the slaves toward freedom, and they forbade the meetings. In such conditions the boy Lunsford found himself placed.
His early savings for the purpose of buying his freedom had reached a considerable sum by the time the boy became' a man. A part of this he lost through bad investments, and the balance he was forced to spend on his wife. As soon as he was grown he had married a slave of Mr. William Boylan, a most excellent citizen of Raleigh. Shortly afterwards Mr. Boylan had to sell this woman, but he gave her the privilege of selecting for her new master anyone who would buy her. Lunsford was a Baptist and his wife a Methodist. True to the instinct of the race, she decided
the matter according to church affiliations. His wife concluded that she would be better off if she were owned by a member of her own church, and he prevailed upon Mr. Benjamin B. Smith, a wealthy Methodist, to purchase her and her two children, the price paid being $560.
Lunsford
charged that Mr. Smith neglected to feed and clothe the woman properly, knowing that her husband, who was known to have some money, would not let her suffer. In this way he exhausted the balance of his early savings.
Lunsford had been taught by his father the secret of making a superior kind of smoking tobacco, and this the father and son now began to manufacture for the market. To have free opportunity for this he hired his time, paying for it from $100 to $120 a year. It was some time near this date that his master died. Mr. Haywood had been an indulgent master. He had assured Lunsford that he should be allowed to buy himself. Lunsford now found himself the property of his former master's widow, and he feared that she would not be willing to fulfill the promise. He
says, however, that she valued the good opinion of her neighbors, and that they would expect the fulfillment [sic] of Mr. Haywood's promise. Stifling his doubts, he worked all the harder. The demand for his tobacco was growing. He enlarged his plant and made arrangements to sell the product in the neighboring towns of Fayetteville, Salisbury and Chapel Hill. At the end of about eight years he had saved $1000. With much anxiety he approached his mistress to propose the purchase of his liberty. Of this negotiation he says: "I casually asked her price, provided I should desire my freedom. She said she would be satisfied with $1000. I then very frankly told her I greatly desired my freedom, and asked if she was ready to execute the deed, provided I could find some person whom I could trust by whom the purchase in my behalf could be made." A slave, it should be said, had no standing in law, and could not make a contract. Lunsford, therefore, had to get some trusted white man to buy and then emancipate him. He decided to entrust the affair to Mr. Smith, his wife's master. That gentleman, after making the purchase, applied to the courts for leave to emancipate Lane.
Now by law slaves could be freed for meritorious services only. No such services could be shown in this case, and the application
was refused. Mr. Smith, who was a merchant, then proposed that Lane should accompany him on his next trip to the North and have the freedom papers issued there. This was agreed to, and a year later the emancipation papers Lunsford Lane were recorded in New York city.
Lunsford was, like most negroes, religious by nature. He says that attendance on church services was a means of much instruction for him. He got the written permission of his mistress to join the Baptist Church. Every Sunday there was one sermon for the slaves preached by a white parson—a law of 1831 forbade any slave or free negro to preach to slaves. These sermons, he says, were usually on the duty of the slaves to obey their masters. The texts were usually like these: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters," and "not with eye-service, as men
pleasers." One kind-hearted preacher, whom all the slaves liked, became very unpopular when he preached a sermon in which he argued that God had predestined the negroes to be slaves. Lunsford found a friend in Dr. Heath, a Presbyterian minister, who afterwards became a popular temperance lecturer. He was a Virginian, and before coming to Raleigh had liberated a large number of slaves, and through the Colonization Society had sent them to Africa. His views on slavery were liberal, and he helped Lunsford in many ways.
The business sense of Lane now began to expand his lines of labor. Although he kept to the manufacture of tobacco, he added the making of pipes, and began to sell almost everything kept in an ordinary village store. He also opened a wood yard, and bought horses and wagons for use
in connection with it. He was patronized by whites as well as by blacks. In 1839 he bought a house and lot, for which he paid $500. It had long been his object to buy his wife and children, the latter of whom now numbered six. Mr. Smith offered to sell them for $3000. This was thought to be too much, and after negotiating it was reduced to $2500, at which sum the purchase was effected. [sic] He gave Mr. Smith five notes for $500 each, and received in return that gentleman's obligation that when the notes were paid he would sign a bill of sale for the slaves. It is impossible not to notice here the rapid appreciation in the value of slave property. This woman and two of her children had been bought not more than eight years earlier for $560, and were
now sold at an advance of $1940, and in the meantime the master had had her services. It was a happy day for the former slave when he brought his wife and children out from the house of bondage and gathered them around his own fireside with good hope of seeing them soon as free as himself. His achievement had been wonderful, and is an indication of what a policy of gradual emancipation might have done in developing his race, could circumstances have been so shaped that it might have been entered upon. He had paid $1000 for his freedom. He had paid another $1000 in yearly wages while he was hiring his time, had supported himself and helped to support his family in the meantime, had paid $500 for his home, and had a good business in his own name.
All this prosperity was beginning to attract the notice of the whites. Several other negroes in the place were making progress in the same way. Some of the whites thought this was likely to have a bad effect on the slaves generally. Fearing something like this, Lunsford had been careful, as he said, not to intrude his intelligence, but to seem to know less than he did know. He dressed as poorly and fared as simply as if he were still a slave. He also said that he was careful never to do anything which looked like leadership of the other negroes, that he had done nothing disorderly, and that he had never plotted to free the slaves. The good opinion in which he was held by some of the best men in the place is evidence that this is true. On the evidence of his biographer none of these things were alleged against him. Everything indicates that he devoted himself quietly to the one object of purchasing his family. Certainly with that object in view it would have been a most unwise thing to appear to be an agitator. Throughout the administration
of Governor Dudley, and through part of that of Governor Morehead, he was janitor and messenger in the office of the Governor's private secretary. Both the Governor and the private secretary testified to his great efficiency and integrity. To one class of whites, however, his presence and his success were becoming exceedingly objectionable. These were the younger and more adventurous members of the community. They were in most cases the poorer classes, although some reckless sons of the leading families acted with them. They inherited one effect of the system of slavery in the ignorance that all this class shared for lack of common schools. With untaught minds their passions were often the impulse of action, and such seems to have been the condition now. They were unable to see far enough to understand that an industrious and progressive negro like Lane would be an advantage to the negro race, making them more conservative and restraining the tendency to excesses. They became alarmed, and soon convinced themselves that it would be a great calamity if every negro could buy himself and his family at the good round prices that Lane had paid. They determined to run him out of the community. Inasmuch as he had been freed in New York, they concluded that he came within the provision of a statute which forbade free negroes from other States from coming into North Carolina to live. Free negroes violating this act and not removing out of the State within twenty
days after notice of it had been served on them were liable to a fine of $500, in default of which they should be sold for ten years. About the first of November, 1840, Lane received notification from two justices of the peace as follows: "Unless you leave and remove out of this State within twenty days you will be proceeded against for the penalty prescribed by the said Act of Assembly, and be otherwise dealt with as the law directs."
There seems to have been no question that under the law Lane was indictable. He, for his part, appealed to his white friends. He went to see Mr. C. C. Battle, private secretary to Governor Dudley, who took up the matter with energy. Mr. Battle wrote to the attorney on the opposite side, mentioning the services of Lane, especially during the session of the Legislature, which was then about to begin, and asking that the prosecution might be suspended until January 1. No objection was made to this, and the matter was dropped for the time. The object was to stay proceedings until the Legislature met, and then to get a private law allowing the defendant to stay in the State until he had finished paying for his family, he agreeing to leave when that was accomplished. On the day the Legislature convened he was again summoned to appear before the same magistrates and show cause why he should not be punished for remaining in the city twenty days after notice had been given. He easily gave bail to appear at court thirty days later. At the meeting of the court the prosecution was not ready for trial, and the case was postponed until the next court, three months later. He thus gained four months. In the meantime his petition was before the Legislature. The other free negroes in the town who were buying their families had received notices similar to that of Lunsford, and they, too, had petitioned the Legislature. The petitions were referred to a committee, which brought in a bill favorable to the negroes. The fate of this bill was a matter of great concern to Lunsford. No negro was allowed to enter the chambers of the two houses when the Assembly was in session. He found out the committee to whom the matter was referred, and then patiently traced it through its several stages until the
day on which it was set for final decision. He waited anxiously around the Statehouse, he interviewed the members as he could approach them, and he awaited the result with
great concern. Finally a member came out and said: "Well, Lunsford, the negro bill is killed." It was a severe blow to the poor man. To us, who view the matter after passions have cooled and the false theories of slavery are gone, it seems certainly to have been the doing of a great cruelty. It is to the great credit of Lunsford Lane and the other men who were in the same position that they bowed quietly and without open complaint to the decision. Slavery demanded, above all things, the certainty of its own perpetuation. Before that, all else—sympathy, confidence, generous sentiments, industrial skill, and public intelligence— must go down. It accordingly developed a hundred eyes with which to discover, and a hundred hands with which to
stop, any movement of the slave that looked toward his freedom.
Nothing was now left for Lunsford but to make his preparations for leaving, and for leaving without his family. He thought of some friends he had made in the North when he had gone there to be liberated. Thither he now turned his steps. When he reached Washington City he called on Mr. Joseph Gales, formerly the editor of the Raleigh Register, but then living in Washington with his son, who was one of the editors of the National Intelligencer. Mr. Gales received him kindly, and undertook to help him on his journey. He gave him some recommendations, and warned him that he might have trouble in getting through Baltimore, since the railroad station in that place was being watched closely to stop runaway slaves from the South. As it turned out he did have some difficulty in Baltimore, though not exactly the same kind that he had been warned against. He came near falling victim to what seems to have been a plot to kidnap and sell him into the far South from whose depths, if he ever reached there, his voice would probably never have been able to make itself heard by his friends. Shortly after he had reached the city he and a traveling companion were arrested, at the instance of a negro trader named Slatter, of rather unfavorable reputation, on the charge of being runaway slaves from the South. The case was tried before a
magistrate named Shane, whom the negro friends of Lunsford considered an accomplice of Slatter. Regardless of the fact that the two men had their freedom papers properly signed, the justice was about to give judgment against them, when a Mr. Walsh, a rising young lawyer of the city, who was gaining some note as being on the side of the slaves, rose and made so strong an argument in favor of the men that the magistrate was constrained to release them. Lane then
proceeded to Philadelphia, where he found friends, who, in turn, sent him on to other friends in New York. Here it was agreed that he should be given countenance in going through the North to make appeals for funds to liberate his family. Returning at once to the South, he settled his affairs preparatory to his departure. He had already paid Mr. Smith $560 on his indebtedness, and he had received one boy, whom he took North and left with friends. Mr. Smith now agreed to accept the house and lot in Raleigh for $500, provided, the balance of $1440 should be paid
in cash. It was arranged that the case then pending against him should be dropped, he paying the cost and leaving the State. With these things done, he left for the North just as the court to which he was bound over was convening. His hopes of assistance were not in vain. By lecturing in
many places, chiefly in New England, presenting the simple facts of his experience, he was able to collect in about one year the amount he wanted to raise. Early in 1842 he wrote to Mr. Smith, asking him to get the Governor to give him a written permission to come back to Raleigh to get his family. The Governor replied that he had no authority to grant such a privilege, but that he thought it would be perfectly safe for Lane to come to Raleigh, provided he stayed no longer than twenty days. This seems to have been good law under the statute. On Saturday, April 23, 1842, the ex-slave arrived in Raleigh. He remained quietly with his family during Sunday, and Monday morning went to the store of Mr. Smith to have a settlement, hoping to be off as soon as possible. Before he could transact his business he was arrested and taken before the Mayor on the charge of "delivering abolition lectures in the State of Massachusetts." When asked to plead he said he did not know whether he was guilty or not. He recounted his early life in Raleigh, and recalled the story of his struggles, his persecution, and his expulsion. This story, he said, he had been telling in Massachusetts. He had told it privately, in churches, or wherever he could get a hearing. He had asked help in rescuing his family. The people had responded to his appeals. He had never asked a contributor whether he was an Abolitionist or not; but it was likely that he had received some money from that source. He closed by reminding them that he would not come back until the Governor had said that he thought it would not be a violation of the law. The Mayor then called for further evidence. None was offered, and the case was dismissed. This course by the Mayor was eminently proper. The action which Lane had no doubt committed would have had the effect of exciting the slaves if it had been committed in the South; but it was not in the State, and accordingly entirely without the jurisdiction of North Carolina courts; besides, the evidence against him was absolutely nothing-. Nothing but the blindest feeling could have brought such a charge.
After the trial, Lunsford was about to leave the courtroom, when he was warned that he would be killed in five minutes if he went into the crowd that was collected in front of the door. The Mayor tried to pacify the crowd, but was unsuccessful. He advised Lane to leave the town the next day. Lane said he was willing to go at once, and would trust Mr. Loring, the Mayor, to take his money, settle with Mr. Smith and send on the liberated wife and children to Philadelphia. This was agreed upon, and Lane succeeded in reaching the station as the train was about to leave. The crowd, however, followed him, surrounded the train and declared that it should not leave with the object of their wrath on board. The Mayor was present and appealed to
the mob, but in vain. They demanded that the negro's trunk should be searched for abolition literature. While they turned their attention to this task, Lane's friends were glad to hurry him off to the safety of the jail. This moment is described by Lunsford himself. He says: "Looking from my prison window I could see my trunk in the hands of officers Scott, Johnston and others, who were taking it to the City Hall for examination. I learned afterwards that they broke open my trunk, and as the lid flew up the mob cried out, 'a paper, a paper.' A number seized it at once,
as hungry as hounds after a passing fugitive in the Southern swamps. They set up a yell of wild delight, and one young man of profligate character, a son of one of the most respectable families in the place, glanced upward toward my prison window and by signs and words expressed his gratification." The sheet, however, proved to be a local publication and entirely inoffensive. After the trunk was fully examined the carpet bag was searched. In neither could the crowd find anything that was criminating, and they were temporarily quieted.
Lane was advised to stay in the jail until night, and then go to the home of Mr. William Boylan, who was so highly esteemed in the community that his house, it was thought, would be a safe asylum. To this he assented. Between nine and ten o'clock at night he left the jail; but he had gone only a few yards when he was seized by a large number of people and rudely drawn away to an "old pine field," where the gallows stood, it being then a permanent institution in Raleigh. He thought they intended to hang him. At length they stopped. They began to question him about his abolition lectures. Finally a bucket and a feather pillow were brought. "A flood of light and even joy sprang up within me," says he. It was to be tar and feathers. A journeyman printer put on the first daub of tar. When the dressing had been applied in regular style, he was given his watch and his clothes and allowed to go his way. He went to his home. Some of his persecutors went with him. They had given an outlet to their passions in the great rough joke they had just played, and now they were in a good humor again. They laughingly watched him remove the tar and feathers, and told him that so far as they were concerned, he might stay in town as long as he chose.
In the meantime his friends had become alarmed, and had appealed to the Governor for protection. A detail of soldiers was accordingly furnished, which guarded him at Mr. Smith's house all night. Next morning he settled his business matters and made ready to start with his family for Philadelphia. His old friends now showed him the greatest kindness. One gave him food enough to last on his journey, and another sent a carriage to take him and his family to the station. He went to say farewell to his former mistress, Mrs. Haywood, who was then very old. She was much grieved at what had happened, and ended by giving him his aged mother to take with him. She added that he might pay her $200 for the old woman if he ever felt himself able, and if not the loss should be her own. A great crowd had assembled to see the family off. Most of the mob of the day before were there, and appeared to be hostile still. Mr. Boylan had arranged with the conductor of the train to stop on the edge of the town and take up Lane, who was to wait there while his wife and children got on at the station. The mob, not finding the object of their hatred, concluded that he would not leave on that day, and allowed the train to go. When Lunsford did get on he found one of them a passenger on the train. The rioter of the day before
was very angry at the escape of his victim, and ran out as the train stopped at the stations, trying to excite the bystanders to go in and drag out the escaping Abolitionist. These attempts were unsuccessful, and in due time the fugitives arrived in Philadelphia.
Of Lunsford Lane's residence in the North but little need be said here. After a short stay in Philadelphia he went to New York, and from there he went to the annual May meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society. Later he settled in Boston. For some time he was engaged as a lecturer for the anti-slavery cause in New England. In this work he was said to have been very successful. On account of the severe climate of Boston, where he had lost three of his children, he at length removed to Oberlin, Ohio. Here another child died, and he lost through bad investments in real estate most of the money that he had been able to save. On the occurrence of the notable Oberlin Rescue Case he returned to Boston. Early in life he had learned something of the medicinal value of the ordinary herbs in the fields of the South. Relying on such knowledge, he began the manufacture of a medicine which he called ''Dr. Lane's Vegetable Pills." In the sale of this he had some success. Later he removed to Worcester, and there remained for some time. He continued to be active in the anti-slavery cause until the war. When or where he died it has been impossible
to learn.
The fact that he rose from slavery to freedom, and to some note as a lecturer, against the most discouraging opposition, is evidence that Lunsford Lane was a remarkable man. He was a true son of toil. He was patient, and when he was reviled, reviled not again. His biographer has given too little of a picture of his character. The annals of his native State, even when he was thought worthy of being mobbed, have dropped his name. The little glimpse that we have of his real self shows what a promise of hope he was for the race he represented. We know enough to be certain that it was a most short-sighted policy in his State that drove him and a number of others out of the community, and made impossible the development of other negroes like unto him. Since the war we have sadly missed such strong characters in our negro population. Twenty-five years before the war there were more industrious, ambitious and capable negroes in the South than there were in 1865. Had the severe laws against emancipation and free negroes not been passed, the coming of freedom would have found the colored race with a number of superior individuals who in every locality would have been a core of conservatism for the benefit of both races.
Under such conditions Lane would have been of great beneficent influence. This thought was impressed on the writer in a striking way during the past autumn. He was attending a fair of the negro race in a North Carolina city. Going the rounds of the exhibit of live-stock his attention
was attracted by a placard which read: "Horses Owned and Exhibited by Lunsford Lane." Approaching a respectable-looking negro farmer, he said: "Who is Lunsford Lane?" "I am, sir," was the reply. "What kin are you to the original Lunsford Lane?" "Don't exactly know, sir; reckon he was my uncle." "What became of him?" said the writer, thinking to draw the colored man out. "Think he must 'a' emigrated," came the answer. Here was thrift enough to become the owner of a pair of very good farm horses, but not enough of intelligence to remember the fate of the most remarkable member of the man's family, who was still alive thirty years ago. How
much did that family lose in the emigration of Lunsford Lane.
(Source:Anti-slavery Leaders of North Carolina, By John Spencer Bassett, Ph.D., J.H.U, Publisher: The John Hopkins Press , Baltimore, June 1898 - Transcribed and Submitted by: Michelle Kennedy Byrd)
