Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 92, Number 209, 2 September 1922 — Page 22

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THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM-AND 'SUN-TELEGRAM, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1922

Major Lacey Tells Stories of How as a Boy He Helped Runaway Slaves

Once upon a time not so very long ago a little boy about eight years old went out to the barn to bunt eggs. JIo was hunting around In the hay which as wo all know is a good place to find eggs when seeing a great pile of hay below .where he had been hunting, he jumped down Into It. Immediately from out of the pile looked out

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Levi Coffin Home at Fountain Railroad. black faces with large scared eyes. One look was enough for the boy. He turned and ran for the house, probably breaking all records for the 100 yard dash, straight into the kitchen where his mother was working and hurriedly told her what he had seen. Then his mother stopped her work and talked with him a long time. She told him that these faces he had seen belonged to peopie just like they were, only their skins were a different color and that they had been forced to livo as slaves, many of them being cruelly treated and made to live very, very unhappy lives. She said that they were running away, starting on a long journey to Canada where they would be free. If they were returned she said, they would be cruelly punished. She told him that under any circumstances whatsoever, he should "tell nobody" (the little boy today remembers how seriously she 'said it) but should help them when he could.Just a little while ' later the boy had gone out to the road when some men on horseback, strangers to the village, rode up. "Seen any niggers around here?" they asked the boy and at the same time one of them opened his pocketbook and taking out $100, held it toward the boy. . ' "No sir. I haven't" the little barefoot fellow answered stoutly though probably chills were running up and down his spinal column. Seeing they could get no information from the boy, the men rode on. This is a true story and the little boy was M. M. Lacey whose picture taken long after he had grownup is shown on this page. The scene of the story was laid in Fountain Citv which was a central station in the long line of hiding places by means of which thousands of slaves escaped to Canada and to freedom before the Civil war. The name given to this system of hiding places was the, "underground railroad." . . Major Lacey as he is now called, is 87 years old, a veteran of the Civil war, having been in the first and in the last battles of that con flict and he remembers many interesting' things. Knowing that boys and girls of today like very much to hear stories from , their grandfathers and grandmothers of the days when they were juniors, he kindly told some of his early experiences, in connection with sheltering fleeing slaves to the Junior Palladium Editor a few days ago. Throughout the Civil 'war Major Lacey was correspondent for the Richmond Palladium, signing his articles "Quilp". Levi Coffin Home a Center rpl,A r1rnivMin1 i 1 im 1 Iliad not really underground at all and 1 lie uiiui fti uunu j v " e--1 was not really a railroad. (Some names are queer aren't they?). It simply meant that there were certain homes known to many of the negroes where they could stop over night and be safe. The people Jn- these homes sympathized with the slaves, hid them, fed them and

cither told them the way to the

next "station" or home where friends lived or loaded them Into a wagon and took them, usually by night to that next home. Sometimes they hid in hay mows, sometimes in dark garrets, some times in woods, thickets or corn fields. The old Levi Coffin home in City, headquarter of the Underground Fountain City which Is pictured on this, page was a headquarters for the underground railroad and In the little garret room which was formerly in that home though en - tered then by a secret door behind a bed. huudreds of slaves have been hidden. The house has been remodeled since then but still looks much as it did at that time, the place where tho stairway was Major M. M. Lacey which led to the little garret be ing still visible. Major Lacey said that 3200 flee ing slaves passed through Fountain City and stopped at the Cottin home and other homes in those "exciting days" as he called them, and not a single one was ever cap tured thoush slave hunters were seen in the place nearly every day. Such excitement was "creat" for a boy to live in, Mr. Lacey said and he thought it all great fun. Saw Negro Defy Master Major Lacey as a small boy would carry food into the barn, often by night, to give to the hid den slaves. Sometimes he and his brother would hitch up the horses to the covered wagon in which tho negroes were hidden in hay and one would drive the wagon while the other brother would ride on horseback a good distance ahead of the wagon to see if the way was "clear." If he espied any slave hunters along the way he would "owl" as they called it, that is he would imitate the horned owl which could be heard over long distances and then in the major's words, "Mr. Slave would take to the woods." One night when Major Lacey was 11 years old a scene took place which he says he will never forget Five or six slaveholders from Kentucky had come to Fountain City on horseback seeking runaway slaves. Usually the slaves hid, but this time and this is the only such time he remembers, the slaves openly defied their masters. It was night and everyone In

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town had gathered at(thc principal coiner of the village. ' On one side were 25 darkies, armed to the teeth. On the other were villagers, looking on. The slave holders rode up. One of them recognized one of the negroes as his slave and ordered him angrily to come w'ith him and go home. The slave looking scared' but holding tightly to his gun advanced a little and said, "You come just one more foot and I'll blow you off that horse!" After a little talk together, the slave holders decided they valued their lives more than that slave and returned to Kentucky.

When Major Lacey was 13 or 14 years old, he was working in a brick yard "offbearing brick" or carrying away to cool, bricks made of mud which had just been molded. Working with him was a young negro whom they called "Blue eyed Jim." Now Jim could see the road and Lacey had his back to it. All at once, Jim was nowhere to be seen. The next minute a slave-holder rode up and asked for a fellow, giving an exact description of Jim. But Jim had caught sjght of his master far down the road and had made his getaway. He was never seen again. "Uncle Tom' Cabin" Characters In City Do you remember in the story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" where Eliza decides to runaway from her-home on the Shelby plantation because she overhears that arrangements have been made to sell her little boy Harry four years old, as a slave? She ran away in February Ion a cold, cold night, you remember. .Now here's a surprise for you. Eliza was really Elizabeth Harris and when she crossed the Ohio river'on the ice in her flight for safety, Major Lacey's brother was on tho other side in the eastern end of Cincinnati and assisted her and her little son to a place of safety. Eight years later when Major La cey was a Civil war soldier and was stationed along the Red River in Alabama in a beautiful home on a large plantation there, he learned that he was on one. of the very plantations named in the story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the Legree plantation. A brother of Harriett Beecher Stowe, author of that story had often come there to buy cotton, he was told. The kindly eld characters named in the story, Simeon and Rachel Halliday were really Mr. and Mrs. Ievi Coffin of Fountain City at whose home Eliza stayed for two weeks. Later, when Eliza or Elizabeth Harris is she called herself had met her husband George Harris and was safely settled in their new home in Canada, Mr. and Mrs. Coffin visited at tho home of these people who were so very grateful to tho Coffins for helping them to freedom. . So you see we are not reallv so far fi'ftm tho lnnrt nf ctorlra aa iva ' may sometimes think, since Fountain City a place so full of old-time stories, is just nine miles from Richmond.

WHO SAYS TRIPLETS ARE NOT HEALTHY HUMANS?

Mr. and Mrs. Ben Vaughn, of nineteen pounds, Fanchall and Ruth months old and each has won a first

PALLADIUM BOYS TO PICNIC AT KhRO

An all day picnic, games, conj tests, swimming and a fried chick en dinner with all the trimmings await the eighty-five boys who are carriers of The Palladium who are to be guests . of the management Sunday, September 3, at an outing held at Camp Ki-Ro. Attractive prizes have been planned for the winners in the various events. It is the plan of the Palladium management to make this picnic an annual event, this year being the first that the picnic has been held. "Perry" Wilson and "Pete" directors of the camp will be in charge of the day's program which will be as follows: j 7:30 a. m. (daylight saving time)

Recent Discovery in Asia of Long Ago Reptile Bopest Reminds Us that Models of them are in the Earlham Museum

How many fairy storres can you think of that have dragons in them? We could not begip to name all of them, counting on our fingers even if we had as many hands aj a centipede has' feet. It may bo that these dragons are not only story creatures, and that the draeon which for centuries was emblazoned on the imperial flag of China is no just an imagined animal. Perhaps these stories are written from legends of earliest time which tell of a time when huge reptiles did exist and walked over the earth for we know there was such a time, as traces of them have been found in every continent. Within tho last few months some men traveling In Asia for the American Museum of Natural History have discovered traces of thexe giant animal3 in Mongolia. They have found bones of animals of the dinosaur family, the first to be found In northern Asia. These an imals belonged to the reptile fam ily to which the lizards, crocodiles and tortoises of today belong, only then many of them were of mammoth size, some much higher, twice as high and four times a long as the mastodon skeleton in the Earlham Museum. The story of their discovery in Asia is told in the September . number of Asia, which may be seen in the city library. - May See Tiny Models of Dinosaurs In Museum Happily, juniors in Richmond and vicinity have the opportunity of getting a very good idea of what these long ago reptiles looked like. From the most perfect skeletons and bones found, drawings and fig ures have been carefully made which give some idea of their appearance. Scientists in the Smithsonian Institute connected with the National Museum in Washington, -1 Waxahachle, Texas, are the parents of

weigh seventeen pounds, but are cure to beat Ruby yet. They are 13 prize. '

All picnickers leave (he office of The Palladium in large trucks. 9:00 a. m. Arrive at Camp KiRo. Trip through the mountains. 9:30 a. m. Baseball; Hams vs. Paeons and Reefs vs. Porks. 11:00 a. m. 50 yard dash, boys 12 to 13 years old;. 100 yard dash, boys 14 to 15 years old. 11:30 a. in. 100-yard dash, boys 15 and over. 12:00 noon Fried chicken dinner with all of the trimmings. 1:30 p. m. Paul Revere race. 1:45 p. m. Swatting contest. 2:00 p. in. Tug o' War, East vs. West; North vs. South; winner of the first against the winner of tho second. 2:20 p. m. Three-logged race. 2:30 p. in. Wheelbarrow race. 2:40 p. m. Shoe race. , 2:50 p. m. Obstacle race. 3:00 p. m. Peanut scramble. 3:10 to 3:45 p. m. Swimming. 3:45 to 4:30 p. m.General recreation and return to town. The camp will be open to visitoro during the day.

D. C. have very carefully made tiny models of these creatures out of plaster paris. Two years ago Dr. Allen D. Halo of Earlham College was the guest of Professor Oliver P. Hay, one of the scientists directing work in the Institute and there he saw these models. Upon learning they could be purchased, he ordered a group of them for the Earlham Museum. They are in a case to themselves, just north of the mastodon skeleton. It is difficult from these tiny models to imagine that some of these creatures were much larger than the mastodon. Having lived so long ago they are known now only by long scientific names, but it is their appearance and not their names which interest juniors most. Footprints Seen In Stone If you are interested to know a little more about them you may look in case 19 in the Museum and there you will see a piece of a bone of a dinosaur found in Colorado. Then, too, if Dr. Hole is there ho will be glad to show you the foot prints of these reptiles (they were three-toed creatures) in some slabs of sandstone which he has there that were found In tho Connecticut River. He also has a plaster cast of an immense foot print discovered in Connecticut. If you wish to see prints in stone and drawings of the probable appearance of some of the tree-fern3 and other trees of tropical growth , which grew in this country at an earlier time though some grew here probably at tho same time that these creatures lived, go to case 3 on the south Bide of the Museum ; and look at the stones and pictures there. We promise you it will make for " you an interesting imaginary journey back into the millions of yeara ago. "the Drize trinlets." Ruhv weiehM

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