es. She urged him
to flee to Canada, and if he arrived there safely, he was to write to
her father who was free. This is the story as he told it to Mrs.
Haviland and it was the letter to his father-in-law that he wished her
to write.

Mrs. Haviland shrewdly suspected that a letter from Canada addressed
to a Negro related to Anderson would not likely reach its destination
and would also give a clue to the fugitive's whereabouts. Accordingly
she dated the letter from Adrian, Michigan, and asked that the reply
be sent there. The answer, which came shortly after, said that
Anderson's wife and four children were being brought to him. Mrs.
Haviland replied to this letter but warned Anderson not to cross the
Detroit River as she suspected a plot. In her message she asked the
party to come to Adrian, Michigan, and inquire for Mrs. Laura
Haviland, a widow, from whom information could be had regarding
Anderson. A few days later a white man called, very clearly a
southerner, and informed her that Anderson's family was in Detroit
staying in the home of a Negro minister named Williams. The visitor
seemed exceedingly anxious to find out where Anderson was and Mrs.
Haviland finally told him that the man was in Chatham and advised that
his family should be sent there. At this the visitor's face reddened
rather noticeably. Mrs. Haviland lost no time in sending a message to
Anderson advising him to leave Chatham. He got out none too soon for
within a few days white men were in Chatham inquiring for him. They
were told that he had gone to Sault Ste. Marie and they followed the
trail there but without success. Finally they disappeared after
leaving with Detroit people power of attorney to arrest Anderson, if
he could ever be decoyed over the river or should be found there.

Mrs. Haviland, in her memoirs, says that after this effort to capture
Anderson as a murderer she wrote a letter to Lord Elgin, the Governor
of the Canadas, setting forth the facts, and that she received this
reply from him: "In case of a demand for William Anderson, he should
require the case to be tried in their British courts; and if twelve
freeholders should testify that he had been a man of integrity since
his arrival in their dominion it should clear him."[2]

There is a rather curious similarity between the latter part of this
statement and the recent decision from Ottawa in the Bullock case,
namely, that as the latter had conducted himself well since entering