Click on the audio link below to hear Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee's comments on a letter from Hiram Wilson, who ran an outpost for fugitive slaves in Canada.
Transcription of Elgersman Lee's comments:
Hiram Wilson to Elizabeth Mountfort, 29 November 1848
Hiram Wilson's letter to Elizabeth Mountfort does several things. First, it illustrates the ties between New England and Canada West - which is in present-day Ontario -in the abolitionist struggle.
In addition, Wilson's words encourage two levels of interpretation. The "Box" for the "Canada Mission" may have been an actual box of supplies. The language, however, also encourages one to wonder if Mountfort and the Portland Anti-Slavery Society members assisted a runaway in escaping to the Black settlement managed by Wilson in Canada West.
The terminology and the couched language bring to mind Henry Brown's escape from slavery in a wooden box transported from the South to the North.
Wilson's disappointment with the lack of support and empathy for the plight of the enslaved is almost palpable. However, his encouraging report about the social and educational gains of Blacks at the Dawn Settlement must have cheered Mountfort's heart and convinced her that her labors in the Portland Anti-Slavery Society had not been in vain.
