side, for wood and water and the runaways walked ashore to freedom.
"The underground railroad is in fine working order," is the comment of
_The Journal_. "Rarely does a collision occur, and once on the track
passengers are sent through between sunrise and sunset." That time did
not dull the terrors of the Fugitive Slave Act is shown by the fact
that every fresh arrest would cause a panic in its neighborhood. At
Chicago in 1861, almost on the eve of the Civil War, more than 100
Negroes left on a single train following the arrest of a fugitive,
taking nothing with them but the clothes on their backs and most of
them leaving good situations behind."[18]

The Underground Railroad system was never so successful in all its
history as after 1850. Despite the law, and the infamous activities of
many of the slave-catchers, at least 3,000 fugitives got through to
Canada within three months after the bill was signed. This was the
estimate of both Henry Bibb and Hiram Wilson and there were probably
no men in Canada who were better acquainted with the situation than
these two. In _The Voice of the Fugitive_ of November 5, 1851, Bibb
reported that "the road is doing better business this fall than usual.
The Fugitive Slave Law has given it more vitality, more activity, more
passengers and more opposition which invariably accelerates
business.... We can run a lot of slaves through from almost any of the
bordering slave states into Canada within 48 hours and we defy the
slaveholders and their abettors to beat that if they can.... We have
just received a fresh lot today and still there is room." _The Troy
Argus_ learned from "official sources" in 1859 that the Underground
Railroad had been doing an unusually large business that year.[19]
Bibb's newspaper reports, December 2, 1852, that the underground is
working well. "Slaveholders are frequently seen and heard, howling on
their track up to the Detroit River's edge but dare not venture over
lest the British lion should lay his paw upon their guilty heads."
Bibb kept a watchful eye on slave-catchers coming to the Canadian
border and occasionally reported their presence in his paper.
Underground activity was also noted in _The Liberator_. "The
underground railroad and especially the express train, is doing a good
business just now. We have good and competent conductors," was a
statement in the issue of October 29, 1852.[20]

Not all those who fled to Canada left their property behind. _Th