Sarah Kinney, a slave, daughter of her owner, in Virginia, escapes through Ohio with three small children, one 3 weeks old and finally comes to Simcoe, Canada, where she has a boy by her employer. Her two black children did not escape for another 18 years—brought out by the underground railway by the black Pimpernel, George Smith, who married Sarah's daughter and settled as a barber in Simcoe, where he continued his underground work and fought bounty hunters. The black and white communities are revealed as background to Sarah's and her children's problems and adventures, including the Duncombe Rebellion and the Anderson case. Sarah's son born in Simcoe becomes one of the richest men in New York city. The story is factual.