The plantation had come to him from his father, and with it the family of John Gray consisting of himself and wife, known for miles around as “Prayin’ Hanner,” and several children. The father and older children, all having a slight tinge of the Caucassian about them, Mr. Jones early sold to southern dealers, retaining only the mother and her infant George.
The mother, on account of her acknowledged piety and ability to labor, was assigned a special cabin and for years had done the family laundry work and baking and discharged other duties of a similar character. Resigned to her condition, she labored on year after year, ever singing and praying and with her loyalty all unquestioned. Not so with her growing boy, however. The white blood that was in him, though limited, constantly rebelled against his condition, and as his years advanced, brought on frequent conflicts between him and his master, which invariably ended in the boy’s being severely whipped. Though feeling for him, on such occasions, as only a mother can feel, still Hannah Gray exhorted him to be obedient and submissive. Whenever the master threatened to sell him south, then it was that her prayers that one of her kin might be left to her mightily prevailed. The natural adaptability of the youth secured for him many privileges, and he had been with his master several times to the national capital and other points and had picked up much general intelligence, and his mode of expression had, to some extent, risen above the plantation vernacular.
The conflict on this particular occasion had arisen between master and slave because George had asked the privilege of visiting a young quadroon of the plantation on whom Jones had fastened his lecherous eyes. As usual the controversy ended in the young man’s being bound to a post by some of the hands and then inhumanly flogged by his owner. Stung to madness, when all were settled for the night, he left his quarters and sought the cabin of his mother, and there, as we have seen, divulged his determination to seek a land of freedom. True to his purpose, when he had gained his mother’s consent, he went down to the river and unloosing a skiff floated down with the current some distance and then landing, struck boldly across to a neighboring swamp. Entering this, he passed on a short distance until he came to a small creek which led directly to the river. He now divested himself of his clothing which he safely placed upon his shoulders, and following the cove soon reached the river into which he plunged, and being an expert swimmer, was soon on the home side again, and making his way quietly to his mother’s cabin, where he was safely secreted beneath what he had augured an impregnable citadel, her bed.