Lincoln          

May 6^th, 1775

To Mr. Josiah Gitney —

This morning it was feed time and we was providing the fowls with their repast when my boy comes out to me and says that there is a beast in the smokehouse. I asked him, What manner of beast, and he said he had not seen it but heard it breathing and crying, as did one of the carcasses hanging there stir from the toils of death and make plaint.

I figured ’twas some personage and mayhap one of the King’s soldiers so I repaired to the house and brought out my gun. We have slaughtered early and we are smoking now for to sell to the militia. We drew open the door to the shed, and at first our eyes were blinded by the smoke, and then we saw this uncanny sight: for it was a boy knelt upon the floor, regarding a hung swine stripped of skin as if it taught him a lesson, and his legs were curled under him. The plumes rose around him through the slats in the floor. He didn’t move just regarded the swine.

’Twas a negro boy of maybe fifteen or seventeen years. He was covered in mud but dressed fancy in breeches and an old coat and I figured he must have been a gentleman’s valet. I pointed the gun at him and said he should not move. He did not move a hair, but wiped his eyes which he couldn’t barely hold open to witness the world. His face was covered with tears from the smoke and his eyes they were red. I told him he was caught. He got up and started walking towards me. Standing he was taller than sitting, and I grew apprehensive for my safety and wondered should I have to discharge the gun?

He walked to in front of the muzzle. He stood and waited to receive the shot.

I said, I will shoot you. He stood firm. I said again that I would shoot him. He pressed his chest to the gun and closed his eyes.

I stood amazed, and I didn’t know how to threat, he offering himself.

I looked at him standing against the gun, and it was like he was dead already, there was — I known’t how to give it expression — there was a flatness in this boy and a gray; he was already dead; and the mud which was upon him it was like the integuments of the tomb.

Come with me, I said.

He didn’t move, so I drew the gun away.

His hand came out and he grabs the muzzle and points it at him again.

No, I say. That’s a sin.

We didn’t move. Fire, he says.

You come with me, I say.

He closes his eyes and pleads: Fire.

I went to hit him over the head with the gun and he attacked me and my boy he run at us to get by us. I tried to grab him and I did grab his coat but he fought me. We fought for some time but fear must have made him strong because I am no little wrestler and he threw me and run off. I said to my boy to call the neighbors and we would find him because he was escaped, but I didn’t want to send the boy alone, so we went and got the horse and raised the alarm. The neighbors they searched for him but we could not find him.

We looked through the papers for advertisements and we thought it was most likely he was yourn. We tried our best to get him for you and we hope that you will remember us financially for giving you some hint of where he might be.

God help you on your search, because he is a silent and dangerous one.

Surely as I am

Your humble servant,

Elijah Tolley