January 12, 1849
William Wells Brown writes to Garrison, telling of the escape of the Crafts, Ellen, 22, William, 24 years of age. “They are now hid away, within 22 miles of Philadelphia, where they will remain until the 6th, when they will leave with me for New England.” Then Brown lists four days when he will lecture about the escape, in Norwich, Ct., in Worcester, Pawtucket, and New Bedford.
February 9, 1849
A letter to Garrison, from T. Bicknell, Kingston, Feb 8th, tells of an Anti-Slavery meeting in the Town Hall. W. W. Brown, and the Crafts, and Jonathan Walker are present. Brown introduces Mr. Craft, who spoke, ” and in a very modest and becoming manner gave the details of the recent escape of himself and wife from slavery…..The crowded assembly present were deeply interested in the narrative, and frequently interrupted him with bursts of applause…..”
February 16, 1849
A note about Anti-Slavery meetings in New Bedford, two successive evenings. W.W. Brown introduced the Crafts. During the presentations by the two they were questioned by the audience.
“A lady in the audience wanted to know of Ellen if they called her ‘a nigger’ at the South. ‘Oh, yes, ‘, she said, ‘they didn’t call me anything else; they said it would make me proud’”
“William was asked what he expected to do, if any attempt was made to take him. Said he, with deep energy, ‘I knew the consequences; I made up my mind to kill or be killed, before I would be taken.’”
April 6, 1849
“The meeting at the Tremont Temple, on Sunday evening last, to extend to William and Ellen Crafts, the interesting fugitives from Georgia, a public welcome, was one of thrilling interest, and doubtless of highly beneficial results.” Garrison made introductory remarks, William W. Brown introduced the Crafts. Mr. Craft spoke, followed by Wendell Phillips, in his usual eloquent strain: “most effectively did he exhibit the criminal indifference and hypocrisy of the American Church, and the base subserviency of the political parties (Free Soil not excepted), on the subject of slavery.”
December 6, 1850
From the Georgia Constitutionalist is an account of an unsuccessful attempt to recapture fugitive slaves from Boston. It is written by Willis H. Hughes, from Macon, dated Nov. 21, 1850, and is addressed to “fellow citizens”. The fugitive is named as “Bill”, but it becomes clear it is William Craft. Hughes recounts the ways in various officials in Boston avoided assisting him by delays, postponements, jurisdictional disputes, and even at one time when he was arrested for slandering Ellen Crafts, and held to bail for $20,000. He indicates that he has leaned that the Crafts had “positively left for England”. Hughes concludes that he “went to Boston as an agent to execute a lawful trust, thinking I should be protected and assisted by the laws of my country. But, on the contrary, from the first, the laws of the country, instead of a protection, were made an engine of cruelty, oppression, injustice, and abuse; so that my life was constantly endangered, and this, without the first offer of assistance from Government, national, State, or city. I feel that every man who has a Southern heart in his bosom, and would maintain the honor of his country, should sustain the Southern right cause, by every constitutional measure, until our rights are acknowledged, and justice obtained.”
A similar account is given here by John Knight, the slave Pursuer, from Macon, who had been with Mr. Hughes.
February 28, 1851
A letter from Francis Bishop, dated Dec 28, 1850, in Liverpool, gives assurance that the Crafts have arrived safely on board the Cambria…..”they are now beyond the reach of their pursuers.” “Can it be true, as the papers report, that President Fillmore has written to Dr. Collins, the husband of the person who impiously calls herself the owner of Mrs. Craft, stating that, if necessary, the whole force of the Union shall be put in operation to bring back the fugitives? If so, what a spectacle for the world! The Chief Magistrate of a great country threatening to use all of its resources to kidnap a poor, defenceless woman, and carry her off to slavery! O could degradation further go?”
September 26, 1851
From the London Morning Advertiser, comes news that the Crafts have been received as pupils in the Ockham Schools, which were established by Lady Byron. William is giving boys instruction in carpentering and cabinet-making, while Ellen is “communicating some of her varied manual acquirements to the girls. The children are greatly attached to her, and both she and her husband are happy, industrious, and making progress in their pursuits.”
February 23, 1855
Craft writes to Garrison, from London. “I was pleased to see that it required military force to return poor Burns into slavery. I think the law would soon become a dead letter, if every fugitive would resolve to remain free, or return to slavery only in his coffin.”
August 4, 1865
Here there is a letter from Major General James Wilson, in which he indicates that Maria Smith, the mother of Ellen Craft, is now living with colored friends close to his headquarters, in Macon, GA. He has shown her a letter Garrison wrote to her. She is delighted to hear from Ellen, and is hopeful of raising travel expenses so that she might join her in England.