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Fearless Defiance j J 8 Rush and Excitement Going into 1860, the Northern and Southern sections of the nation were increasingly at odds, including in Iowa, which was trending steadily Republican. The state’s antislavery activists continued to help as many fugitives from slavery as they could even as national tensions tightened to a breaking point. By this time, runaways had less fear of getting caught, for slavehunters had become reluctant to venture into this more and more unfriendly state. Nonetheless, Iowans still helped when they could, sometimes giving such hurried assistance that “all was rush and excitement,” as Elvira Platt put it at the turn of the twentieth century.1 On February 3, 1860, four black men in their early twenties walked into Tabor after escaping from slavery on the Choctaw Indian lands in Kansas Territory.2 The names of three are known: brothers William and John Thompson and John Martin; the other has been lost to history.3 By early evening, two townsmen with a two-horse covered wagon carried their four passengers northeast over the snow-covered ground toward Lewis, Iowa. Sixteen miles out they approached Mud Creek, a tributary of the West Nishnabotna River. There, two young Democrats from a nearby settlement spotted them. Suspecting that the travelers were helping runaways, the two rushed to a local justice of the peace at the next farm. They got a warrant and sped back to take the travelers into custody, which they did with a show of arms.4 They forced the two white men to drive to the justice of the peace’s house, where the drivers were detained, and then they took the black fugitives to the jail in Glenwood, the county seat, sev- Fearless Defiance :: 173 eral miles west. Once they arrived, however, they learned that the sheriff was out of town. Unsure of what to do, they listened as a Glenwood man named Joe Foster and a couple of his friends began pushing a scheme to “run [the escaped slaves] to Missouri,” but the two slavecatchers thought that was “more than they had bargained for.”5 Joe Foster then took charge, converting the idea of jailing the prisoners and waiting for a legal resolution of their status into a kidnapping scheme. The two original captors helped Foster take the fugitives to his place eight miles away on Silver Creek, and then bowed out. So Foster recruited five men to help him make the run for Missouri.6 Another local man got wind of the plan, however , and informed a neighborhood Congregationalist who brought word to Tabor, thirteen miles south, that the wagon party had been caught. George Gaston quickly brought together several people at his house to figure out what to do. About midnight, they showed up at the Mills County jail in Glenwood, but the fugitives had already been taken to Foster’s house. Thinking the kidnappers were already transporting the runaways to Missouri, the Tabor men rode toward the anticipated route. Finding no one, they returned to Tabor and waited for news.7 Two days later, when the justice of the peace convened the court to determine whether the two men who had tried to help the fugitives were guilty of violating the Fugitive Slave Act or perhaps of stealing slaves, fourteen Tabor men were present. A Glenwood resident came up to two of them and whispered that the fugitives were at Joe Foster’s place. The two hurried down the snowy road and concealed themselves near his house. As soon as they noticed five men loading a four-horse wagon, they ran back to the court to announce that the kidnappers had started out for Missouri. It was 9:00 p.m. and the hearing was just ending. The two Tabor men who had driven the wagon carrying the runaways had been released. Grabbing clubs of fresh-cut hickory stakes from a nearby farm, the Taborites climbed into two sleds and soon found the kidnappers ’ trail heading southeast. In the light of a full moon, the track 174 :: chapter eight was easy to follow because one wagon wheel continuously cut into the unbroken snow. A hot chase ensued in the crisp chill of the night. Ten miles east of Tabor and twenty miles north of the Missouri line, the rescuers’ horse-drawn sleds overtook the kidnappers ’ tired four-horse team, which was dragging a wagon containing five white men and four black men through the deep snow. The Tabor residents got...

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