No fugitive slave was ever afterwards disturbed at Springfield

”The black writer William Wells Brown visited Springfield in June of 1854 and found Brown’s group at arms, ready to fight a group of slavers who were rumored to be in the area. Sentries were posted throughout all the black neighborhoods. Women were organized in “boiling water brigades,” intent on scalding any slave-catchers who tried to accost them. “Returning to the depots”, wrote William Brown, “to take the train for Boston, we found there some ten of fifteen blacks all armed to the teeth and swearing vengeance upon the heads of any who should attempt to take them. True, the slave-catchers had been there. But the authorities, foreseeing a serious outbreak, advised them to leave, and feeling alarmed for their personal safety, these disturbers of the peace had left in the evening train for New York. No fugitive slave was ever afterwards disturbed at Springfield.” “

Renehan, Edward J. The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown. 1995


Related:

The Avenging Angel By Martin Duberman, This article appeared in the May 23, 2005 edition of The Nation.

John Brown in Massachusetts by Franklin Sanborn, Atlantic Monthly 1872.04