It was about this time [early Spring of 1849] that he [John M. Broomall] bought the horse Harry from Jacob Tuek, a beautiful sorrell with white mane and tail. The price of one hundred dollars, was more than the wildest fancies could conceive [in 1850, the average value of a horse was $10, with a few valued up to $30 and one at $50 in the tax records.] and betokened the reckless abandonment of the old landmarks of stability. Harry lived to be old Harry, and died a very Methuselah of horses at the age of thirty-five, well cared for in his decrepitude as a partial return for his long and faithful services. Soon after his purchase he took my father and me to Chestertown, Md.

An alleged runaway slave had come to Chester. [PA] He was followed by a Maryland man who had lost a slave. He asserted that he recognized the negro as his slave, and before the town could rise to the situation, he spirited him away. The opposition to the recent fugitive slave law was intense and deep. The town was stirred with the resolution to have the matter investigated and my father was commissioned to go to Chestertown for this purpose.

To a boy of my age this was a long journey. Its events linger in my mind. A snake wriggling across the road was studiously avoided. The boy was inquisitive and was instructed never to do harm to an animate being. A nod to a man in a passing carriage drew forth the explanation and satisfactory distinction, that you should accost the man whom you knew by his name, but salute the man whom you did not know by a nod.

In order to break the trip to Chestertown, we stopped all night at the home of Thomas Garrett in Wilmington, for a conference. He was an extreme abolitionist and maintained a station on the underground railroad. It required a man of some courage to go into a slave holding State at that time on a mission of recapturing a kidnapped negro. But my father never lacked courage. Nevertheless he always insisted on everything being done regularly. He appealed to the Courts, and was successful in obtaining the release of the man from the false claim of ownership.

In his absence at the Courts, I was accustomed to play on the bank of the Chester River. Some men plied me with the inquiry as to who I was and where I was from, to whom I unwittingly replied that my home was in Chester on the Chester River. He [my father] afterward remarked that I had made a mistake for Chester was on the Delaware River, but that it was quite as well, because it indicated that we were Southern people, and that there was a movement on foot to make it uncomfortable for him, if it was ascertained that he was from the North.