HE HAD MET the woman on his rounds for the druggist, Millspaugh, delivering medicines to the back doors and kitchens of the city. She too was a slave.
I must leave her, Anthony realized, after setting his new arrangement for work and payment with Millspaugh. I cannot help it. I cannot stay in Richmond any longer. How would I take her away with me? Best not even to say, “Fare thee well, my love.” Oh, mercy! I will give her up. I must. But I swear, I will never have any other, for as long as I shall live.
Anthony roomed in Mr. Millspaugh’s own house above the man’s bedroom. One night, in the early part of February 1854, he put on four outfits of clothing, with the worn, coarse work clothes he dressed in each day as the topmost layer. Next, he wrapped food and some belongings in a small bundle, which he meant to carry with him. Then he lay down to sleep. There was another slave who shared the room with him, a young clerk. Luckily, he never awoke the whole night. For this was the night that Anthony would run.
An hour before dawn, Anthony left the house and made his way over to the docks. Arriving unseen, he boarded an old Baltimore clipper.
Anthony had a sailor friend on board the ship. At their last meeting they had talked about keeping secrets. “Now you musn’t call me by my real name again, Anthony,” his friend told him. “Forget you ever knew it. And after this trip, I will forget I ever knew your name.”
So Anthony made up a new name. He called his friend Cal Cross. Cal was Calvary, the hill where Jesus died upon the cross.
Cal quickly stowed him away in a place he had prepared. Anthony never knew where it was on the ship, they had gone so stealthily and made so many twists and turns up and down corridors. It was a damp, dark place, no better than a hole and just barely big enough for Anthony, smelling of oil and slime. He could hear the sea slapping against the hull outside. “Let there be no rats in this place!” he asked Jesus.
Hours and hours later, the ship had not moved. Lord! When will she sail? thought Anthony. His hiding place was so small, he couldn’t stretch out. It grew hot and uncomfortable, and at last he fell into an exhausted sleep.
Some time later Anthony awoke with a start, barely able to move in his cramped position. The ship, now under full sail, pitched and tossed in the rough water and heavy, contrary winds. Lying on one side with no room to turn, Anthony became seasick. By the time Cal came to see him, Anthony was miserable.
“At the next port,” he begged, “put me off, please. I cannot stand it any longer. Put me off the ship!”
“And what becomes of freedom?” asked Cal.
“It dies, because surely I am dying!” Anthony said.
“You are sick, but you will not die,” Cal told him. “Here is some fresh water. And I have bread for you—make it last. I’ll try for meat tomorrow.” Cal left him to his misery.
Two days later the ship docked in Norfolk, Virginia, where it stayed half a day. Then it continued on toward its destination, Boston. Though the passage was to take ten days to two weeks, it took nearly three. Anthony was sick almost the whole time. He was unaccustomed to the February cold and commenced to shiver and shake violently. Not once could he leave his hiding place or change his position from his side. Never was he able to moan or cry out in his pain. Bread and water were what he lived on; he received the nourishment every three or four days when Cal was able to give it to him. At no time was anyone else, the captain or any officer, aware that he was there in hiding.
The ship was headed north. Anthony had never experienced February cold. And before the end of the voyage, his feet were frozen in his boots.
Finally, sometime near the final days of February or the first of March, the ship made the wharf at Boston harbor. After giving Cal a grateful, if hurried, good-bye, Anthony managed to get to shore unnoticed. The morning was gray. Not many people were about. He took on the appearance of an ordinary seaman—who limped. So stiff was he. He found his way to a boardinghouse, where he was able to find a room. After a week he was pretty much recovered from bruises, cold, sickness, and hunger. He could toss and turn on his bed as often as he pleased. And he took particular pleasure in sleeping on the opposite side from the one he’d had to keep to on the ship.
He found work, and it was good work. He became a cook on a flat-bottomed square-end boat called a mud scow. He did well with his new duties, except for one important chore. He was to bake the bread. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not make it rise. And after a week Anthony was let go.
His next employment was with the Mattapan Works in South Boston.