before the public in the "Kidnapped and the Ransomed," being the
personal recollections of Peter Still and his wife "Vina," after forty
years of slavery, by Mrs. Kate E.R. Pickard; with an introduction by
Rev. Samuel J. May, and an appendix by William H. Furness, D.D., in
1856. But, of course it was not prudent or safe, in the days of Slavery,
to publish such facts as are now brought to light; all such had to be
kept concealed in the breasts of the fugitives and their friends.

[Illustration: PETER STILL ]


[Illustration: CHARITY STILL ]

The following brief sketch, touching the separation of Peter and his
mother, will fitly illustrate this point, and at the same time explain
certain mysteries which have been hitherto kept hidden--



THE SEPARATION.


With regard to Peter's separation from his mother, when a little boy, in
few words, the facts were these: His parents, Levin and Sidney, were
both slaves on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. "I will die before I
submit to the yoke," was the declaration of his father to his young
master before either was twenty-one years of age. Consequently he was
allowed to buy himself at a very low figure, and he paid the required
sum and obtained his "free papers" when quite a young man--the young
wife and mother remaining in slavery under Saunders Griffin, as also her