Arson Threats on the Antislavery Route: An 1850 Lancaster Letter Amid Pennsylvania Underground Railroad Fugitive Slave Tensions Crisis, 1850

Lancaster Underground Railroad Fugitive Slaves

Manuscript & Autographs

[Slavery & Abolition] [Underground Railroad] [ Fugitive Slave] Signed letter mentioning threats of arson against an abolitionist community in Pennsylvania, 1850. Lancaster stood on a volatile antislavery route in 1850, with fugitives moving west toward Columbia and the Susquehanna River while pro slavery men targeted communities accused of sheltering escapees. Mary Louisa Harbaugh, the young wife of Rev. Henry Harbaugh of the German Reformed Church, wrote to her mother that “a party of fellows from Phil. came up here and threatened to burn this place down,” and that residents had kept watch after “a great many alarms of fire.” Lancaster was the home of Thaddeus Stevens, the lawyer and future Radical Republican congressman who defended fugitives and attacked slavery in public life. Columbia, eleven miles west, had a large free Black population and served as a crossing point for people escaping slavery before and after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Harbaugh, M. L. Autograph Letter Signed. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, June 15, 1850. Three manuscript pages plus stampless address leaf, addressed to her mother, Mrs. Margaret A. Linn, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Harbaugh reports household matters, children’s clothing, local health, and the arson threat in one domestic letter, writing that the city was “very healthy” except for “a few old people” before describing the men from Philadelphia who threatened to burn Lancaster. The address leaf preserves the Lewisburg destination, manuscript postal markings, and remains of the original red wax seal. The part concerning the arsonists reads as follows:

"Dear Mother, …This place is very healthy now. I know of no disease or sickness at all except among a few old people. We had a great many alarms of fire a few days ago, a party of fellows from Phil. came up here and threatened to burn this place down but they were discovered too soon. They have had a watch out since and nothing is heard of them now. The place is not large enough for such persons to do any injury to it..."

Mary Louisa Harbaugh’s husband, Rev. Henry Harbaugh, was a prominent German Reformed minister and writer who avoided public antislavery controversy, while her family in Lewisburg was connected to abolitionist politics through her father’s break with the Democratic Party for James G. Birney’s Free Soil candidacy. Local newspapers, such as the June 19, 1850 issue of The Lancaster Examiner and Herald, reportedly attributed the fire as "no doubt the work of incendiaries, as two men were seen running from the Cooper Shop, just as the alarm was given," in which they made their escape. It was reported that a young black man by the name of "Gilmore" was arrested and imprisoned on suspicion but was released the next day for insufficient evidence. Other newspapers reportedly minimized the incident without attribution to racial tension, all while Columbia suffered a fire that destroyed nine houses and the offices of the Columbia Spy. Folded as mailed, with light toning, minor edge wear, one small seal tear, and clean, legible manuscript throughout. Overall very good condition.

Item #23500

Price: $985.00