April 11, 1851
An account of Sim’s arrest, dated, April 4. He was arrested in Cooper Street; he gave “stout resistance”, was “at last overcome by a large posse of Watchmen (!), who were in readiness near by, and he was incarcerated in the Court-House about 9 o’clock…..About half-past 10 o’clock, as U. S. Deputy Marshal was passing through Court Square, he was accosted by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., Rev. Theodore Parker, Elizur Wright, and two others. Mr. Sewall addressed Mr. Riley, and demanded “to be informed whether the alleged fugitive was to be examined last night.” The article indicates that Sims had come to Boston about March 7th, and had been stopping at a boarding house on Ann street. He is 23 and has a wife and children in Savannah.
Saturday, April 5, a notice says: “The Court House is still surrounded with chains, as it was yesterday … the gathering of people around the Court House has been large all morning.
Mass Meeting on the Common — a public meeting held on the Common, on Saturday,
in which Wendell Phillips indicates that Faneuil Hall has been denied them, and the “State House yard behind us” has also been refused as a place to meet. …on motion to adjourn, that gathering then assembled at Tremont Temple.
April 18, 1851
From the Boston Courier, under the title, Massachusetts Legislature, is notice that “Mr. Keyes” has presented a petition to the Senate, on behalf of Thomas Sims, and signed by his “mark”. The petition calls for the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court to issue a writ of habeus corpus on his behalf, and calls upon the General Court to pass a law which will ascertain the right to a trial by jury, and that the petitioner “may not be surrendered , exiled, of delivered to bondage, until proved to be a slave by ‘due course of law’.”
Proceedings in Sims case
A lengthy article about the Court proceedings, concluding with the judgment that the Court has not found sufficient reason to discharge Sims, and he would be remanded to the custody of the Marshal…..then follows a “sketch of a scene never to be forgotten by those who witnessed, which we copy from the Commonwealth of Saturday”. This account tells of the conveyance of Sims, a few minutes before five o’clock in the morning, to Long Wharf, where he was placed on board the brig, Acorn, and to the steamboat Hornet. It indicates that Sims had been brought from the Court House by a guard of 15 men, and then by a “slave-guard” of men who had been “drilled for an hour and a half before the final move to the vessel”.
May 1, 1863
A notice from the Boston Traveller indicates that Sims, who had been returned to his master in Georgia, in 1851, has arrived back in Boston, with his family. He has escaped about three weeks ago, from Vicksburg, where he was employed as a bricklayer. He has escaped to General Grant’s lines in a dugout, with this wife, child, and four colored men.
May 8, 1863
A note indicates that the paper goes to press too early to give a sketch of the public meeting held at Tremont Temple to welcome the returned bondman as a freedman.
May 15, 1863
At Tremont Temple, Sims is on the platform with his wife and child, and partners in his late escape. “On arriving in Savannah, he was put in prison, and had a severe sickness there….he was not whipped at all, but was sold as soon as he was in condition to work at his trade of bricklayer…. In twelve years since his return to Savannah he has had several changes of masters…the slaveholders apprehended danger from the contact with their slaves of one who had been a fugitive, more than they derived encouragement and confidence from the surrender of that fugitive…he was constantly directed to keep silence respecting his Boston adventures …he never relinquished the purpose of attempting an escape, nor the hope of succeeding in it ….he hired the time of his master, and thus had as much freedom of locomotion as slaves ever possess…three slave friends joined him in his plan of escape… the men had arms and were determined to fight in case of interruption….they had to pass a rebel battery, but reached the pickets of General Grant in safety…..Grant gave them a paper authorizing the passage of the party to the North. Wendell Phillips and Garrison both spoke; Garrison reminds people that the Fugitive Slave Law is not yet repealed.
