usiness this spring." On May 20,
1852, he reports "quite an accession of refugees to our numbers during
the last two weeks" and on June 17 notes the visit of agents from
Chester, Pennsylvania, preparatory to the movement of a large number
of people of color from that place to Canada. On the same date he
says: "Numbers of free persons of color are arriving in Canada from
Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, Ohio and Indiana. Sixteen
passed by Windsor on the seventh and 20 on the eighth and the cry is
'Still they come.'" The immigration was increasing week by week, for
on July 1 it was reported in _The Voice of the Fugitive_ that "in a
single day last week there were not less than 65 colored emigrants
landed at this place from the south.... As far as we can learn not
less than 200 have arrived within our vicinity since last issue."
Almost every number of the paper during 1852 gives figures as to the
arrivals of the refugees. On September 23 Bibb reported the arrival of
three of his own brothers while on November 4, 1852, there is recorded
the arrival of 23 men, women and children in 48 hours. Writing to _The
Liberator_ of November 12, 1852, Mary E. Bibb said that during the
last ten days they had sheltered 23 arrivals in their own home. The
American Missionary Association, which had workers among the fugitives
in Canada noted in its annual report for 1852 that there had been a
large increase of the Negro population during the year[6] while
further testimony to the great activity along the border is given by
the statement that the Vigilance Committee at Detroit assisted 1,200
refugees in one year and that the Cleveland Vigilance Committee had a
record of assisting more than a hundred a month to freedom.[7]

The northern newspapers of the period supply abundant information
regarding the consternation into which the Negroes were thrown and
their movements to find places of safety. Two weeks after President
Fillmore had signed the Fugitive Slave Bill a Pittsburgh despatch to
_The Liberator_ stated that "nearly all the waiters in the hotels have
fled to Canada. Sunday 30 fled; on Monday 40; on Tuesday 50; on
Wednesday 30 and up to this time the number that has left will not
fall short of 300. They went in large bodies, armed with pistols and
bowie knives, determined to die rather than be captured."[8] A
Hartford despatch of October 18, 1850, told of five Negroes leaving
that place for Canada;[9] Utica reported under date