, and others in their
terror plunged into the Conhocton River. In this manner the majority of
the negroes escaped, but not all; and those were so unfortunate as to get
caught were instantly thrown into a large covered "Pennsylvania wagon,"
and hurried off, closely guarded, to Olean Point. Among those taken were
Harry Lucas, his wife, Lucinda, and seven children; Mrs. Jane Cooper and
four children, with some others, were also taken.

When Capt. Helm arrived at Olean Point with his stolen freight of human
beings, he was unexpectedly detained until he could build a boat,--which,
to his great dismay took him several days.

The sorrow and fearful apprehension of those wretched recaptured slaves
can not be described nor imagined by any one except those who have
experienced a like affliction. They had basked for a short season in the
sunshine of liberty, and thought themselves secure from the iron grasp of
Slavery, and the heel of the oppressor, when in the height of their
exultation, they had been thrust down to the lowest depths of misery and
despair, with the oppressor's heel again upon their necks. To be snatched
without a moment's warning from their homes and friends,--hurried and
crowded into the close slave wagon, regardless of age or sex, like sheep
for the slaughter, to be carried they knew not whither; but, doubtless
to the dismal rice swamp of the South,--was to them an agony too great for
endurance. The adult portion of the miserable company determined at last
to go no farther with their heartless master, but to resist unto death if
need be, before they surrendered themselves to the galling chains they had
so recently broken, or writhed again under the torturing lash of the
slave-driver.

Harry Lucas and wife, and Jane Cooper, silently prepared themselves for
the conflict, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. When
they were nearly ready to start, Jane Cooper sent her oldest daughter and
younger sister, (she who is now our worthy friend Mrs. P. of Bath), into
the woods, and then when the men undertook to get Lucas and the two women
on board the boat the struggle commenced. The women fought the Captain and
his confederates like a lioness robbed of her whelps! They ran and dodged
about, making the woods ring with their screams and shouts of "Murder!
Murder! Help! Help! Murder!" until the Captain's party, seeing they could
do nothing to quell them, became so exceedingly alarmed lest they should
be de