History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania

Dickerson [Dickinson] fell wounded. He arose and was shot again. The old man, after fighting valiantly, was killed. The others of the slaveholders with the United States Marshal and his aids fled, pursued by the negroes. While Dickerson [Dickinson] lay bleeding in the edge of the woods, Joseph P. Scarlett, a Quaker, came up and protected him from the infuriated negroes, who pressed forward to take his life. One was in the act of shooting, when Joseph pushed him aside, saying: "Don't kill him."…
    When the fight had ended [William] Parker returned to his house. There lay Edward Gorsuch near by dead. Dickerson, he heard, was dying, and others were wounded. The victor viewed the field of his contest, but he possessed too much of the noble spirit of manhood to feel a pride in the death of his adversary. He offered the use of anything in his house that might be needed for the comfort of the wounded.
    He then went to Levi Pownall's and asked if Dickerson [Dickinson] could not be brought there and cared for, remarking that one death was enough. He regretted the killing, and said it was not he who had done it…Dr. A. P. Patterson was sent for and examined Dickerson's [Dickinson] wounds. He pronounced them serious, but not fatal. Levi Pownall put a soft bed in a wagon and had Dickerson [Dickinson] conveyed upon it to his house, where for three weeks he received as assiduous care and attention as though he had been one of their own household. He did not expect this from Quakers, whom he had learned to despise as abolitionists. As each became acquainted with the other during his stay, they grew to esteem him for the noble characteristics which he possessed, and he manifested gratitude for the kind and home-like nursing he received at their hands. They told him they had no sympathy with the institution of slavery, but that should not deter them from giving him the kind care and sympathy due from man to man.

The home of Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall, in Kennett township, near Longwood, ten miles from Wilmington, was always open to receive the liberty-seeking slave. Their station being nearest the Delaware line was eagerly sought by fugitives as soon as they entered the Free State. They were generally sent by Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, who, starting them on the road, directed them to "go on and on until they came to a stone-gate post, and then turn in." Sometimes he sent a note by them saying, "I send you three," (or four or five, as the case might be) "bales of black wool," which was to assure them that these colored persons were not impostors. No record was kept of the number they aided, but during a period of thirty-four years it amounted to several hundred. Many were well dressed and intelligent. At one time fourteen came on a Seventh-day (Saturday) night and remained over next day. The women and children were secreted in a room in the spring-house, and the men in the barn. As they usually entertained a great many visitors on First-days (Sundays), and some of these were pro-slavery Friends, the fugitives had to be kept very quiet. On Third-day (Tuesday) night Isaac and Josiah Wilson, who lived near by, took them to John Jackson's, Darby. Josiah and his wife, Mary, were ever ready to give their personal aid and counsel.

The home of Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall, in Kennett township, near Longwood, ten miles from Wilmington, was always open to receive the liberty-seeking slave. Their station being nearest the Delaware line was eagerly sought by fugitives as soon as they entered the Free State. They were generally sent by Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, who, starting them on the road, directed them to "go on and on until they came to a stone-gate post, and then turn in." Sometimes he sent a note by them saying, "I send you three," (or four or five, as the case might be) "bales of black wool," which was to assure them that these colored persons were not impostors. No record was kept of the number they aided, but during a period of thirty-four years it amounted to several hundred. Many were well dressed and intelligent. At one time fourteen came on a Seventh-day (Saturday) night and remained over next day. The women and children were secreted in a room in the spring-house, and the men in the barn. As they usually entertained a great many visitors on First-days (Sundays), and some of these were pro-slavery Friends, the fugitives had to be kept very quiet. On Third-day (Tuesday) night Isaac and Josiah Wilson, who lived near by, took them to John Jackson's, Darby. Josiah and his wife, Mary, were ever ready to give their personal aid and counsel.

Nearly all the laboring class around Christiana at that time were negroes, many of whom had formerly been slaves. Some of these were occasionally betrayed and informed upon by persons who received a pecuniary reward for the same, kidnapped, and carried back, bound or hand-cuffed, to their masters.

There was a band of "Land Pirates" known under the familiar name of the "Gap Gang," scattered throughout a section of that country, who frequently gave descriptions of these colored people to southerners which led to their capture; and when opportunity offered, they assisted in kidnapping free negroes, and carrying them into the Border States to be sold. This exasperated the colored people against all slave-hunters, and they held meetings, assisted by their white friends, to consider and adopt means for self-protection. The man who stood prominent among their race in that vicinity as one of acknowledged intelligence and indomitable will, was William Parker. He possessed a strong social nature, and would at any time put his own body in danger to protect a friend. These qualities gained for him the respect of a very large class in that community for:

He had repeatedly foiled the kidnappers in their undertakings, rushed upon them in defiance of their weapons, beaten and driven them before him out of the neighborhood, as one man may put a herd of buffaloes to flight. He was therefore the one above all others whom they wished to get rid of.