| Notes |
- Item Type Newspaper Article
Date 1893-09-20
Library Catalog newspapers.com
URL https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-republican-born-in-slavery-th/133117898/
Accessed 10/8/2023, 3:47:04 PM
Place Monongahela, Pennsylvania
Pages 4
Publication The Daily Republican
Date Added 10/8/2023, 3:47:04 PM
Modified 11/5/2023, 3:25:42 PM
Notes:
The Pathetic Story of Esther Cochran and Her Escape
Seated in the hospitable home of her son-in-law, Captain William Catlin, Esther, wife of our aged citizen, Landy Cochran, born and reared in slavery, told a Daily representative an interesting bit of history. Mrs. Cochran's hair is frosted by the snow of many winters but her form is erect, her step as firm as when she carried her baby boy Phillip, all that long, through pouring rain and mud knee-deep, fleeing from the bitter hatred of a 'copperhead' to the shelter of a northern home; her voice is as sweet and low as when it breathed a mother's blessing over the bowed head of her daughter Mary from whom she was to be soon separated, alas! she did not know but that it was an eternal separation; her eyes are as bright as when they flashed determination and triumph in the face of a haughty, tyrannical mistress, knowing that at the door stood a U.S. wagon, with a Union soldier driver, to carry her and her children to the borderland of freedom.
In the early days of southern slavery, there stood on the outskirts of Millwood, Clarke, a few miles from Winchester, an old blacksmith shop. One bitter cold night in mid-winter, a vacant lot nearby was filled with half-clothed, half-starved negroes, men, women, and children, in charge of a slave trader on his way to a southern market. All night long the sound of hammer and the glow of the forge fire from the shop nearby struck a death knell to the hearts of the hungry, shivering negroes camped outside, as the blacksmiths fashioned the fetters that were to bind their freedom.
A negro slave, known to the entire village as 'Uncle Henry,' strolled down to the camp, as he did at every opportunity, hoping to find some trace of friends or relatives long since sold and separated from him. In one corner of the lot, he espied two little children, without sufficient clothing to cover them and crying bitterly from fright, cold, and hunger. The old negro's heart was touched and seeking his master, beseeched that the children be bought and cared for. The master came, recognized the children as those of a former slave, bought them, and took them home to his parents.
The boy and girl grew to man and womanhood in the same home, and though promised their freedom by a generous young master, never secured it. The man married a young slave girl, and these were the parents of Esther Cochran. Mrs. Cochran was owned by one Lucy Page, and at her death became the property of Mary Ann Burrows. When quite a young girl, she married Landy Cochran, a slave owned by a man named Bell. At Bell's death, Mr. Cochran, by his will, was made a free man. But now a relative disputes the will, gets possession of the slave, and the old man is well known on the streets of our city as one who gained his freedom through Lincoln's emancipation.
Esther was the mother of 12 children, but only one of them born since her days of freedom. She speaks of her days of service as those of constant drudgery, and although she was not personally abused, her children knew the pangs of hunger for many a misdemeanor of innocent childhood.
Said Mrs. Cochran, 'I have stood at the window of my little cabin near the big house in which lived my mistress, and saw her two sons tie many a slave to the 'broad tire,' as we used to call it, force them to kneel in the mud or snow, with bared back, and watch the cruel whip lash cut those bodies until the blood-stained snow was like a lake of fire. Not only that, but I have seen young Master Nat and Master Lewis wipe the blood from the deep cuts and pour in salt and water until the victim screamed in agony. I have seen husbands parted from wives, tiny children torn from mothers' arms, and brothers and sisters clinging in a last embrace before a life's separation. I have seen the slave block with negroes by fifties and hundreds sold at auction, regardless of the ties of human love and hopes of home, and I said then that the judgment will rest on this people. It did; the old master who stole my husband's freedom lies today in Winchester, a pauper, sick and helpless with not a friend to care for him. I myself lived to see the day that my haughty old mistress, who had scarcely kept myself and children in necessary food and clothing, I say I did live to see her with tears and sobs beg me to spare her at least one of my little girls to care for her in helpless old age. She was powerless, to cook even a decent meal, to care in any way for herself, and as the government wagon bore us away, stood at a little upper window crying as if her heart would break. She, the woman who scarcely deigned me a word of kindness from one year's end to another, would have given her every possession to have held my little girl in her arms, to have kept and cared for her as her own.'
'Did you pity her?' asked the listener.
'Pity her!' echoed Mrs. Cochran, 'not I. Wasn't my husband waiting for me at Martinsburg, hadn't the Union soldiers given me a pass to get all my children from service to which they were hired, wasn't I bound for Pennsylvania and freedom? Hadn't I seen my two little boys and two girls some days before follow the Yankee soldiers many miles down the road only to be driven back by the Rebels; hadn't I been compelled for days to hide my oldest son George in a friendly neighbor's cellar, to prevent his being dragged back to the farm and flogged; hadn't I in the famous Banks' retreat, lost my two tiny boys, who, child-like, followed their elders and the Yankees; hadn't I witnessed the dying breath of my mother, the mother of whom I knew but little after I was four years old, but knew her death was the result of a white slave owner's brutality; did I not know that my father had spent one year in the darkest of prison dungeons to prevent his following my mother south; wasn't I burning with a sense of injustice and wrong, and, with a stinging whip, never far from my body, hadn't I tasted the slaver's punishment many a time for infractions of discipline? Didn't I realize that slavery meant for my children a hell on earth?'
'Yes,' continued the lady, whose flashing eyes spoke of her excitement as memory held her captive, 'I very distinctly recall the meeting with my husband and little lost boys, whom he had found, our ride to Greencastle, in a Government wagon, driven by Mr. Long, the man who carried John Brown and his ammunition to Harper's Ferry months before. We arrived at the Snively farm, a friendly white man, where we lived for months; again at night to a farm near Chambersburg, where the "copperheads" again discovered us. I had hidden for days in an attic, trying as best I could to keep the restless children quiet as they lay hidden under feather beds and boxes; how I walked in the dead of night, through rain and mud, many miles back to the Snively farm. I had left one of the children there, and during a visit of the Rebel forces, she had been hidden in the bake oven, shortly after baking had been taken out, and when released was nearly smothered to death.
Mrs. Catlin had escaped all these experiences as I had managed months before to get her away from Winchester through the kindness of some northern nurses at the army Hospital. They passed her off as a white girl and took her to Indianapolis while I went about arranging to have her brought north. It was a rather bold move on my part and to get inside the Yankee lines with the girl. I first obtained a pass for Mrs. Catlin as a servant and then had the girl wait on me; she was dressed as a boy, the situation and character of our dresses being so well understood, the rebels paid little attention to our journey. The day after we left Martinsburg, I saw her safely inside the guard lines and she was soon with a Pennsylvania family. I received the kindest treatment from the nurses and officers and while the young ladies of our party were watching their wounded sweethearts on the battle field, I was fixed up inside and coo I on again to be placed in my mistress's mail. She would read them to me, rejoice with me that Mary was safe and well, and I would stand over the bread pan and nearly die with laughter at the way I had saved my girl and missed a flogging. Swollen eyes brought about by vigorous rubbing gave Mrs. Burrows the idea I took Mary's disappearance pretty hard.
We had down south three classes of people, what we called 'big bugs,' the 'half strainers' and the 'poor white people.' They hated each other and each other's slaves. Thirty years residence in this town where every man is equal and treated so, enjoying the comforts of home and friendship, has taught a woman born and raised in slavery, that freedom is the one foretaste given her of the Heaven she hopes to reach."
Mrs. Cochran is an intelligent, entertaining talker, a woman who has made the best of her opportunities since the close of the terrible struggle that gave her freedom, and many an interesting story can she tell of her early hardships and perils.
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