Page 158 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

154 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

have done had I stolen a sheep. I finally got safely beyond
the limits of the town; but in passing through another town, I
had necessarily to go close to the church, in passing which I
was hailed from the front door. I cast a furtive glance in that
direction, and saw a long-spliced Yankee coming towartls me.
I spurred up the pony, and kept out of Yankee's reach. Soon
finding that his long legs could not overtake my nimble horse,
he went back, and mounted a fine horse in the church shed,
and gave me chase. 13y this time my horse was on the keen
jump. Had the tithing-man been :L good rider, he would have
overtaken me; as it was, after pursuing about two miles, he
gave up the chase, and returned. We made more disturbance
along the road than an army would have made if allowed to
pass unmolested. I arrived at my sister's that night, and left
early the next morning for the State of New York. My busi-
ness took me off the main traveled road from Boston to Albany,
and when I regained it, I learned that a tithing-man and several
assistants had passed in hot pursuit, but I was too smart for
them, and evaded them all. It was at that time a violation of
law for a traveler to journey on the Sabbath in Massachusetts,
and ~f he could not be arrested on that day by the tithing-man,
he could be followed and apprehended anywhere within the
State. When I crossed the State line, and got into New York,
I felt greatly relieved. I was then in the land of freedom, and
out of the reach of oppression.
I did not re-visit my native state until twenty-four years
after my runaway. Everything had changed; the obnoxious
laws that had driven me from the land of my nativity had been
repealed, and more liberal ideas ~revailed.
After my hegira, I stopped at Troy, on the Hudson, the
population of which, at that time, was about two thousand.
Thence I went to Saratoga Springs, which had one public
house and about two hundred inhabitants; after remaining
there three months, I went to Utica, which had a population
of about twelve hundred. I tarried there a short time, and
went to Homer, Cortland county, remaining there a year;