Memphis (TN) Appeal, "An Abolitionist in Trouble," July 20, 1854

AN ABOLITIONIST IN TROUBLE. - Among the passengers who arrived here on Tuesday by the steamer Northerner, was a southern gentleman hailing from West Feliciana, Louisiana, accompanied by a colored woman and four mulatto children, who all bore some resemblance to the southerner, who, when the boat touched the wharf, stepped a shore to find a residence, leaving the women and children on board. The woman mentioned in confidence to someone on board, that the southerner was the father of the children, as well as their master, and that he designed keeping them for a short time in Cincinnati, and then transporting them to Canada. This came to the ears of the officers on the boat, and supposing that the southerner was some conductor on an underground railroad in disguise, they put the woman and children in a yawl, and carrying them across the river to Kentucky, deposited them in the Covington jail. When the southerner returned to the boat and found that his chattels had been thus summarily removed he became greatly troubled. He visited the jail in Covington and told his story, but his auditors were slow to credit it, and he was about to leave his family in jail until he could return to Louisiana and obtain proof that he was the owner of the woman and children, when luckily he found an acquaintance that vouched for his ownership. The testimony was not altogether satisfactory, but the mayor of Covington finally released the woman and children, and put them in the care of the Louisianian upon condition that he would keep them upon the Kentucky side of the Ohio, which he promised to do.

[Cin. Columbian.