rtheless a woman of thought and
natural ability, and while she wisely kept her counsel from her mistress
she took care to make her wants known to an abolitionist. She had passed
many years under the yoke, under different owners, and now seeing a ray
of hope she availed herself of the opportunity to secure her freedom.
She had occasion to go to a store in the neighborhood where she was
stopping, and to her unspeakable joy she found the proprietor an
abolitionist and a friend who inquired into her condition and proffered
her assistance. The store-keeper quickly made known her condition at the
Anti-slavery Office, and in double-quick time J.M. McKim and Charles
Wise as abolitionists and members of the Vigilance Committee repaired to
the stopping-place of the mistress and her slave to demand in the name
of humanity and the laws of Pennsylvania that Aunt Hannah should be no
longer held in fetters but that she should be immediately proclaimed
free. In the eyes of the mistress this procedure was so extraordinary
that she became very much excited and for a moment threatened them with
the "broomstick," but her raving had no effect on Messrs. McKim and
Wise, who did not rest contented until Aunt Hannah was safely in their
hands. She had lived a slave in Moore's family in the State of Missouri
about ten years and said she was treated very well, had plenty to eat,
plenty to wear, and a plenty of work. It was prior to her coming into
the possession of Moore that Aunt Hannah had been made to drink the
bitter waters of oppression. From this point, therefore, we shall
present some of the incidents of her life, from infancy, and very nearly
word for word as she related them:

"Moore bought me from a man named McCaully, who owned me about a year. I
fared dreadful bad under McCaully. One day in a rage he undertook to
beat me with the limb of a cherry-tree; he began at me and tried in the
first place to snatch my clothes off, but he did not succeed. After that
he beat the cherry-tree limb all to pieces over me. The first blow
struck me on the back of my neck and knocked me down; his wife was
looking on, sitting on the side of the bed crying to him to lay on.
After the limb was worn out he then went out to the yard and got a lath,
and he come at me again and beat me with that until he broke it all to
pieces. He was not satisfied then; he next went to the fence and tore
off a paling, and with that he took both hands, 'cursing' me all the
tim