Gorsuch then threatened to burn the house down with them in it. Parker’s wife, Eliza, sensing the full scale of the danger, ran into the garret and blew the horn, which was the warning signal for the Black Self-Protection Society, a community self-defense committee, to grab whatever they could lay their hands on to fight, because the slave catchers were far too close and hunting. Two of Gorsuch’s men, surmising that Eliza’s trumpet blast was a call to arms, immediately climbed the tree outside the house, aimed their guns at her, and began shooting. As the bullets whizzed by, she ducked down
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