There is an article in the Chicago Daily Tribune dated 12 Dec 1853 about two "fugitives" who arrived here [Chicago?] "this morning" and had traveled the Underground Railroad "from the south." One was from Missouri and the other, named Robert HERMAN was from Arkansas.

After earlier being caught and confined to jail for six weeks in Illinois, where he refused to tell where he was from and not being claimed, he was sold for jail costs but then brought before a judge and released. He then took the UGRR to Canada and mentioned his former master, Richard THURSTON of Van Buren, Ark whom he thanked for his freedom; saying "that if he had kept him there with his wife and child he would never have left them, and would therefore have been today a slave."