CHAPTER IV.
LIFE AT PETERBORO.
The year, with us, was never considered complete without a visit to Peterboro, N.Y., the home of Gerrit Smith.

Though he was a reformer and was very radical in many of his ideas, yet, being a man of broad sympathies, culture, wealth, and position, he drew around him many friends of the most conservative opinions.

He was a man of fine presence, rare physical beauty, most affable and courteous in manner, and his hospitalities were generous to an extreme, and dispensed to all classes of society.
Every year representatives from the Oneida tribe of Indians visited him.
His father had early purchased of them large tracts of land, and there was a tradition among them that, as an equivalent for the good bargains of the father, they had a right to the son's hospitality, with annual gifts of clothing and provisions.

The slaves, too, had heard of Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist, and of Peterboro as one of the safe points _en route_ for Canada.

His mansion was, in fact, one of the stations on the "underground railroad" for slaves escaping from bondage.