‘Fairfield,’ says Levi Coffin, ‘was a young man without family, and was fond of adventure and excitement. He wanted employment, and agreed to take the money offered by the fugitives and engage in the undertaking. He obtained the names of masters and slaves, and an exact knowledge of the different localities to be visited, then acted as his shrewd judgment dictated under different circumstances. He would go South, into the neighbourhood where the slaves were whom he intended to conduct away, and under an assumed name and a false pretence of business, would board perhaps at the house of the master whose stock of valuable property he intended to decrease. He would proclaim himself to be a Virginian, and profess to be strongly pro-slavery in his sentiments, thus lulling the suspicions of the slaveholders, while he established a secret understanding with the slaves, gaining their confidence, and making arrangements for their escape. Then he would suddenly disappear from the neighbourhood, and several slaves would be missing at the same time. Fairfield was always ready to take money for his services from the slaves if they had it to offer; but if they had not he helped them all the same. He was equally ready to spend it in the same cause, and if necessary would part with his last dollar to effect his object.’
Often he would bring a negro or two with him, who would act as his slaves, and whom he would pretend to treat very roughly. These would act as his intermediaries with the men he hoped to rescue. On one occasion he rescued a large number of men from the salt-works on the Kanawha River in Virginia. He assumed the character of a salt-dealer, and had two large boats built on the river for his business. When the boats were finished, a crowd of negroes escaped in them down the river towards the Ohio. As soon as the alarm was given, he pretended to be very anxious to aid in recapturing his boats and the escaped slaves. He rode off at the head of the pursuers, directed the chase, and when they found the abandoned boats on the river-bank, he suggested that they should scatter in various directions, and meet in a few hours to report if they had got any traces of the fugitives. He never appeared at the rendezvous; he had joined the slaves at a previously appointed spot, and was conducting them to one of the stations on the Underground Railroad _en route_ for Canada. He generally marched at night, and rested in concealment in the daytime.