Mark’s House

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Fear. [PAUSE] What a word. [PAUSE] Fear is a word that I can use to describe how I felt every single day for the first eighteen years of my life that I spent on the Aaron plantation. [PAUSE] Fear is a word that I can use to describe how I felt every time Master Aaron returned to the plantation in one of his moods. [PAUSE] Fear is not a word I can use to describe how I felt at the thought of being separated from my sister or to describe how I felt on the journey I am about to take you on. I have yet to find a word that can complete those tasks, and I don’t believe I ever will.

Throughout this story, I will use the real names of the people and places I encountered on my journey. Given that it has been fifty-three years since my journey, the people who helped me are long gone. There is no fear of retaliation.

My name is Gloria Jones, daughter of Mary Jones. My mother had me and my little sister Hazel two years apart. My mother was with us until I was ten years old and then she was sold to a man named Willie Thomas. When it was time for my mother to depart, she hugged both me and my sister as we sobbed begging her to stay. She held us so tight and whispered the last words I would ever hear from her: [NEW TONE OF VOICE?] “Stay together, children. [PAUSE] Whatever it takes, stay together.” I will never forget the pain I felt that day watching my mother be sold right out of my life. [PAUSE] My sister and I luckily were never the ones that Aaron thought to sell, but our luck ran out when he became ill and within two weeks passed away. With the man of the house gone and the many debts that needed to be paid going nowhere, Aaron’s wife was forced to sell a lot of her “property” including us. I thought back to what my mother told me and knew I had only one option. [PAUSE]

I had never thought of running away. Not after any of those scorching hot days in the field, or after I watched as Aaron beat a poor old lady to death, or not even after almost being beat to death myself. I had never thought of running away, but now with the threat of my sister and me being separated upon us, running away was the only thing I could think about. [PAUSE] So, about five days after Aaron had died, I heard some slaves singing a tune that I had heard numerous times. [SING-SONGY TUNE] “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.” The song I had previously hummed now enticed me to sing along, and so I did: [SING-SONGY WITH MORE EMOTION]“Sweet low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.”

That Sunday we met after church to discuss the plan. There was Lorain, a woman in her early thirties, Lorain’s husband Solomon, Suzette, who was about four months pregnant, Harold an older man, whose daughter had escaped to New York months earlier, Jackson McClain, a fifteen-year-old boy who it was speculated was Aaron’s son and, because of this, was always treated horribly by his wife. Then, [SHORT BREATH] there was me and Hazel. We were met by Mr. Simon Smith, a black conductor who had traveled many times to the Aaron plantation and other neighboring plantations already having led nineteen of us to freedom. Mr. Simon began telling us about some but not all of the plan. We were set to meet in two days’ time at the back corner of the church in the dead of night. When it was time to leave, we would hear seven distinct knocks at the door of where we slept. Mr. Simon explained that the journey to freedom would be long and indescribably hard, but he assured us that it would be even more rewarding.

Even though Mr. Simon tried to prepare us for the journey the best that he could, I don’t think that anyone or anything was capable of preparing a person for this journey. It is something you have to experience to understand. Mr. Simon also expressed that once we start the journey with him there is no option to go back, for if we went back, we could be forced to reveal the road to freedom and ruin it for everyone else. Once you start on the journey, you must either finish it [BREATH] or die. Throughout the meeting, I could feel the emotions radiating off of my little sister. We had seen what happened to a slave that attempted to run away but had been captured, and we couldn’t fathom that happening to us. When the night of our escape came, I laid on the ground next to my sister wide awake, waiting to hear the seven knocks that would signal our time of departure. I laid there and prayed. [PAUSE] I prayed that my sister and I would be free at last, together, as my mother wished for us.

[KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!] There it was. The sound I had been waiting for and dreading at the same time. I shook my sister awake and we gazed at each other with a look of many things mixed together. [PAUSE, SLOW] Our eyes mirrored fear, determination, and love. [PAUSE] We crept out of the cottage and around to the back corner of the church as quietly as we could. The night sky shone above us, and the wind picked up. [NIGHT SOUNDS] Mr. Simon was waiting for us and asked all of us one last time if we were sure that we wanted to go. We all answered yes and began a journey on which many had set off before us.

Because we were in Maryland, we would need to pass through Pennsylvania, and New York to get to Canada, about an eight-hundred-mile journey. We crept off the plantation, hearts pumping, into the dark. [NIGHT SOUNDS] We needed to get as far away from the plantation as possible, for when the sun rose and those who stayed behind set off into the fields for another day of labor, we would be missing [BREATH] and the hunting for us would begin. Mr. Simon had told us that the first week and a half of the journey would be the most brutal and that we had to get through Maryland and Pennsylvania with little to no stops.

We moved swiftly, as these were some of the most critical hours of the journey. Running as fast and as quietly as we could among the trees, feet stomping in the dirt. [FOOTSTEPS] “Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving,” I repeated to myself with my sister in front of me. Whenever she would slow down, I would be behind her to push her forward. Suzette, who was four months pregnant was having some trouble keeping up, as we expected, but she continued to move along. [HEAVY BREATHING] She relied heavily on our words of encouragement and on the life that she carried in her that deserved a better one than the one she had been dealt. It had been about five hours since we set off and I could see the sun trying to peek through above us. [RIVER SOUNDS] We came across a river, and Solomon explained that we would have to wade through it. Mr. Simon also said that it would help to make anyone looking for us lose our trail. Both my sister and I were deadly afraid of water, and she argued that she could not go on. Even though I was afraid I knew we had to move along, we had no option to go back.With tears rolling down her cheeks, she finally began to walk, with me following right behind her. As the water began to get deeper, I thought I would drown in the depths of the water, but I kept moving. At the deepest part of the river, the water touched my mouth, but I kept moving. Once we crossed the river, we were relieved. I continued hoping to be out of Maryland in the next day or two.

We were about ten miles from Pennsylvania when we heard dogs barking. [BARKING] Mr. Simon told us to run fast and never look back. We were running as fast as we could, but so were the dogs. [PANTING] They were catching up, and our journey to freedom seemed as though it was coming to an end. Then Harold stopped, I turned and looked him right in his eyes and he yelled “Keep going!” He began running in another direction and making a lot of noise to get the dogs to follow him. I couldn’t believe it. He might have been sacrificing himself and his chances of finding his daughter for us. Did he know it? If he did, I would be forever grateful. We continued to run and took short breaks while journeying through Pennsylvania. About a week later, we had finally made it out of Pennsylvania.

It was only when we got way up into New York that we began to feel safer. In Naples, we split into threes, Lorain, her husband Solomon, and Suzette went to one stop. Jackson McClain, me, and Hazel went to a two-story frame house that had one-story additions on each side and was the home and funeral parlor of someone they called Uncle Billy. We arrived at Uncle Billy’s at night, and there we were fed and given a fresh set of clothes. We slept in the loft over his furniture shop adjacent to the house. Our beds were loose straw, and though a bit uncomfortable we were very grateful. [PAUSE] The next night after being fed again and saying our final goodbyes and thanks to Mr. Simon, we were put into Uncle Billy’s horse-drawn hearses to be transported to Pultneyville. Uncle Billy didn’t usually take freedom seekers all the way to Pultneyville, but if we wanted to make it in time for the next departure to Canada, we would have to go straight to Pultneyville. On the way there, Uncle Billy was stopped, but we were prepared for this as he had told us to go out of the trapdoor he had installed if we were ever stopped and needed to get away quickly. We were stopped for about two minutes and we could faintly hear the conversation that was happening outside. [INHALE, HOLD] Holding our breath, we waited to see what would happen. [SUSPENSE] My sister was squeezing my hand so hard I almost whimpered.[LEADING UP MUSIC] As suddenly as we stopped, we began to move again, continuing on our way to Pultneyville.

We were traveling for what felt like days, but it only took us a little over a half a day to reach Putneyville. When we started our journey to get there it was dark, and it was still dark when we arrived. [NIGHT SOUNDS, COASTAL SOUNDS] When we exited the hearse a cobblestone house stood in front of us along with a white man by the name of Captain Horatio Throop. Uncle Billy greeted Captain Throop and said: “I have some passengers for you,” to which Captain Throop responded, “My boat runs for passengers.” Captain Throop then greeted Jackson, me, and Hazel. We were swiftly led to the Captain’s vessel, the Steamer Express. Once on board we were led to a room on the lower deck where we were met by two other freedom seekers. As I sat on the ship holding Hazel’s hand, I didn’t know whether to be scared or excited. I didn’t know if we were going to Canada, where we would be free, or if we were being transported right back to a place where we would be someone else’s property for the rest of our lives. I didn’t know if Captain Throop could be trusted, but I had faith that he was a good man, and so I sat back and waited to see what fate had in store for us.

The boat came to a stop and, shortly after, the door to the room in which we sat opened. Jackson stepped out of the room first, followed by the other two freedom seekers, and then I stepped out holding my sister’s hand tight. We climbed down off the ship and onto the shore of Presque Isle. Here it was: Freedom! [LONGER PAUSE?] I knelt on my knees still holding my sister’s hand and I prayed. I prayed and cried and hugged my sister for a couple of minutes. I then began to think about my mother and Harold, [DOGS BARKING] two people who would probably never know freedom. Then I began to think about the people we left behind on the Aaron plantation [WORKING NOISES] and how they may never be able to see freedom. I looked into my sister’s eyes and began to cry for the second time because no matter what was yet to come, we were together as our mother wished. And free. [SHORT BREATH/EXHALE?] What a word.