Underground Railroad
Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2017 10:17 am
Hi folks,
Long time since I've posted anything so here goes. I have been reading about the underground railroad in Massachusetts and found this interesting. Another Borden and wife named Sarah. Any thoughts?
Valley Falls, R.I.
Photo didn't copy with story.
The Chace house. Photo courtesy New York Public Library.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace was a Quaker who belonged to old and distinguished Rhode Island families, but she was distrusted and shunned because of her ardent opposition to slavery.
The clash over slavery was especially intense in Rhode Island. Newport had been the largest slave market in New England, but the city was home to many Quakers who opposed slavery.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace at 23 married Samuel Chace, the son of Oliver Chace, who founded several textile mills that became the foundation for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
She gave birth to 10 children, though the first five died. Her family would shutter the windows at their home in Valley Falls during the day when they were sheltering fugitives. She recalled in her memoirs how the Underground Railroad worked:
❝
Slaves in Virginia would secure passage, either secretly or with consent of the captains, in small trading vessels at Norfolk or Portsmouth, and thus be brought into some port in New England, where their fate depended on the circumstances into which they happened to fall. A few, landing at some towns on Cape Cod, would reach New Bedford, and thence be sent by an abolitionist there to Fall River, to be sheltered by Nathaniel B. Borden and his wife, who was my sister Sarah, and sent by them to my home at Valley Falls, in the darkness of night, and in a closed carriage.
It’s unclear whether her home in Valley Falls, a village in Cumberland, is still standing. The National Park Service, though, offers a walking tour of the area that features a historic park, train station, post office and mill buildings.
Long time since I've posted anything so here goes. I have been reading about the underground railroad in Massachusetts and found this interesting. Another Borden and wife named Sarah. Any thoughts?
Valley Falls, R.I.
Photo didn't copy with story.
The Chace house. Photo courtesy New York Public Library.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace was a Quaker who belonged to old and distinguished Rhode Island families, but she was distrusted and shunned because of her ardent opposition to slavery.
The clash over slavery was especially intense in Rhode Island. Newport had been the largest slave market in New England, but the city was home to many Quakers who opposed slavery.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace at 23 married Samuel Chace, the son of Oliver Chace, who founded several textile mills that became the foundation for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
She gave birth to 10 children, though the first five died. Her family would shutter the windows at their home in Valley Falls during the day when they were sheltering fugitives. She recalled in her memoirs how the Underground Railroad worked:
❝
Slaves in Virginia would secure passage, either secretly or with consent of the captains, in small trading vessels at Norfolk or Portsmouth, and thus be brought into some port in New England, where their fate depended on the circumstances into which they happened to fall. A few, landing at some towns on Cape Cod, would reach New Bedford, and thence be sent by an abolitionist there to Fall River, to be sheltered by Nathaniel B. Borden and his wife, who was my sister Sarah, and sent by them to my home at Valley Falls, in the darkness of night, and in a closed carriage.
It’s unclear whether her home in Valley Falls, a village in Cumberland, is still standing. The National Park Service, though, offers a walking tour of the area that features a historic park, train station, post office and mill buildings.