Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

224

PIONEER HISTORY OF INGHAM COUNTY

all fixed up.' When the darkey finished his last day's work his
master appeared at the prison and demanded that he be turned
over to his owner, but the authorities said, 'No, his year is not up
until morning.'
"The next morning the man who delivered this message was
not to be found, neither was the negro, for at midnight, when his
time actually expired, he was taken over the back wall of the
prison, where the father of O. F. Miller (the latter a resident of
Mason for many years) met him with a horse and buggy and Kentucky saw that slave no more, his master returning to his Southern
home with rage in his heart."
Mr. King says he is the last man alive in Ingham county who
was "Under the Oaks" in Jackson when the Republican party was
born, and he has always taken an active part in the political history of both Jackson and Ingham counties. He relates proudly
the little part he had in conducting one of the underground railroads in this section, when one night a darkey came to his father's
house and stayed over night and the next morning "my father
sent me with a horse and buggy to carry the escaping slave to the
next station, and I left him with Aaron Ingalls."
Until crippled by a fall from a tree a few years ago, Mr. King
had annually made the trip north with the deer hunters from this
section, and his observations led him to believe that many colored
people who escaped from slavery stopped short of Canada, where
they were popularly supposed to have gone, and lost themselves
in the wilds of the northern part of the Southern Peninsula. An
old darkey that Mr. King met while on a hunting trip told him
the following story, which he said was the experience of a fellow
slave, though Mr. King had the feeling that the man was telling
of an event in his own life. He said, "During the first of the Civil
War a colored man escaped from his master's plantation and
made his way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and joined a negro
settlement there, but his master got trace of him and came into
the settlement to look for him. He was successful in his search
and one day as he had his hands on the slave ready to take him
into custody the black man in his efforts to get away from him
killed his master and made his way into northern Michigan, where
he built up a home and lived quietly and comfortably." As the
narrator had a home of about 100 acres with good buildings, and