John Milton Binckley, June 1859 Travel Diary, Page 29

[John Milton Binckley, June 1859 Travel Diary, page 29. Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy, Sally Young and Sue Davis for their ongoing research collaboration; specifically to William for providing scans of the original document, and in turn many thanks to Peter Johnston Binckley and Patricia D'Arcy "Trish" Binckley (1951-2007), at the source. This is my rough transcription. Extra paragraph breaks inserted for easier reading.]

[continued] small vein of inferior quality, in the road bank, 

27 miles from [Ohio] River; Lewis Mills close after Barnesville. Here entered a negro. The cars were filled (our car) with rough men. The negro found no pew un-occupied, though in many, only one passenger sat. The negro was well dressed, and evidently and keenly alive to his rights. But there he stood, an amusing spectacle of self nerved resolution and invincible trepidation and apprehension. 

The whole story was told in an instant. The negro was conscious that nobody was likely, or at least, that every body was not surely to respect his rights, and he stood terribly in need of a white man's sympathy and protection, where a white man would have scorned either.

Mother being in another car, I promptly, to try the experiment, called him up patronizingly and deigned him a seat by my side. His gratitude was that in quality and degree of a genuine negro, sensible for the moment of the value of the concession and the apparent magnanimity of the favor. This incident was the more striking, as an active conversation was in [?] about the negro  [to be continued.]  

[John Milton Binckley (1831-1878).]