The Midnight Ride of ...

Everyone knows about the midnight ride of Paul Revere. But few know about the midnight ride of Lewis Hayden and Shadrach Minkins seventy-six years later. It started in the darkest hours of a cold February night in Cambridge, and the travelers, Hayden, Minkins, and a driver named Smith, rode in a carriage pulled by two horses, one black and one white.

Who were these midnight riders? Where were they going, and why was it so important that they not be detected?

A leading black abolitionist in Boston, Lewis Hayden had once been enslaved by Henry Clay, the senator from Kentucky and future architect of the Fugitive Slave Act. Hayden had escaped North after seeing his siblings, wife and child sold down river, never to be seen again.

Settling first in Canada, then Detroit, in 1846 Hayden brought his second wife and child to Boston, a relatively safe city, and joined a community of some 2,500 free blacks and former slaves. He opened a clothing store and joined the Boston Vigilance Committee, formed to protect and support other fugitives. His home on Beacon Hill became a haven for runaway slaves.

The other midnight rider was Shadrach Minkins, a fugitive from Norfolk, Virginia. Arriving in Boston in the fall of 1850, Minkins found work as a waiter. What Minkins didn’t know was that he was to become a test case for enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, a law just enacted by Congress to keep Southern states from bolting.

If Minkins could be arrested in Boston, the hub of the abolitionist movement in the North, and returned to his owner, Southern states would see that Washington was protecting their interests, muting talk of succession. Word was that even President Millard Fillmore and Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster had approved Minkins’ capture.

So it was that on Saturday morning, February 15, two marshals entered the Cornhill Coffee Shop, arrested Minkins and rushed him to the federal courthouse to be arraigned. If they hoped to avoid attention, however, they were mistaken. Word quickly spread through the abolitionist community, black and white, and a crowd gathered in front of, and inside, the courthouse.

Packed into the stairway and hallway outside the upstairs courtroom, abolitionists waited for the judge to arrive. Meanwhile, lawyers petitioned for Minkins’ release. When that was denied, two dozen black activists led by Lewis Hayden forced their way into the courtroom, surrounded Minkins, still wearing his waiter’s apron, and carried him out to the street. Mixing in with the crowd, Hayden and Minkins scurried off on foot toward East Cambridge, where they hid in the home of Rev. A. J. Lovejoy. They knew, however, they could not stay there long.

Late that night, a carriage stopped at the minister’s home, and the fugitive and the abolitionist stepped aboard. Then the carriage headed west. We don’t know what the weather was that night. We do know, from old charts, that the moon was full, and if the sky was clear, it would have lighted their way on the old Battle Road to Concord.

About 3 a.m. the carriage turned into the yard of the blacksmith, Francis Bigelow, and his wife, Ann. Ann may have looked out the window, for it was she who noted the color of the horses. Hearing the horses, Francis got out of bed, went to the door and welcomed the fugitive and his escorts. Ann Bigelow would tell the story years later in an interview with Edward Waldo Emerson.

“Mr. Bigelow, hearing the carriage, opened his door, and let in the poor fugitive, though the penalty was a thousand dollars, and six months' imprisonment, for 'aiding and abetting' a slave to escape. The blinds of the house were at once shut, and the windows darkened, to evade the notice of any passers-by.”

As Ann told it, the Bigelows then warmed the fugitive and brought him into their own bedroom, where Ann served breakfast, using the bureau for a table. Minkins, worn by anxiety and lack of sleep, could barely keep his eyes open.

Meanwhile, the Brooks, abolitionist neighbors, came over, and Nathan Brook gave Minkins “a hat of his own with which to disguise himself—the hat of a law-abiding citizen!”

Before dawn, Francis Bigelow led Minkins to a wagon outside, and the blacksmith and the fugitive drove west again, this time to a safe house in Leominster. From Leominster, Minkins was transported to Fitchburg, where he boarded a train to Montreal.

For Minkins, who had been seized in Boston, then freed from a courtroom by abolitionists, the flight to Canada was a continuation of his life in exile. Separated from his family in Virginia, he joined a small community of self-emancipated slaves. He got a job as a waiter, saved his money and opened his own restaurant. Later, he set up a barbershop.

Over time, he married, and had four children. He never returned to the United States. He was the first runaway slave arrested in Boston under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, but not the last.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hayden, who had helped rescue Minkins, and who brought him to the Bigelow house in Concord, returned to Boston. As Ann Bigelow recalled: “Mr. Hayden and Mr. Smith drove leisurely to Sudbury, stopped with friends there, went to church, and, after a good dinner, returned unmolested to Boston.”

One of several abolitionists charged with aiding and abetting Minkins’ escape, Hayden was acquitted after a jury—which included none other than Francis Bigelow himself—would not convict.

For years after, Hayden continued his militant opposition to slavery and the fugitive Slave Act, hiding and transporting fugitives and raising money. He joined the black Masonic lodge created by Prince Hall, and later served in the state legislature. He also led a successful effort to integrate Boston schools and campaigned for women’s rights.

During the Civil War, Hayden helped to convince his friend, Governor John Andrew, to form a black regiment and actively recruited soldiers for the Massachusetts 54th.

In the fight against slavery, there are heroes and villains. In Stoneham, as in Boston and Concord, there were men and women who sheltered fugitives and helped them on their way. But there were also those on the other side who sought to uphold slavery by enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.

As we mark Black History Month, we remember the courageous men and women, black and white—Minkins, Hayward, the Bigelows and others—who by their actions showed us how to walk the path of freedom.

Ben Jacques is the author of In Graves Unmarked: Slavery & Abolition in Stoneham, Mass., available at The Book Oasis in Stoneham. © Ben Jacques