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CHAPTER IV. -
UNDERGROUND AGENTS,
STATION-KEEPERS, OR CONDUCTORS
Pg. 87 -
PERSONS opposed to slavery were, naturally, the friends
of the fugitive slave, and were ever ready to respond to
his appeals for help. Shelter and food were
readily supplied him, and he was directed or conveyed,
generally in the night, to sympathizing neighbors, until
finally, without any fore-tought or management or his
own part, he found himself in Canada a free man.
These helpers, in the course of time, came to be called
agents, station-keepers, or conductors on the
Underground Railroad. Of the names of those that
belonged to this class of practical emancipationists,
3,211 have been catalogued;1 change of residence and
death have made it impossible to obtain the names of
many more. Considering the kind of labor performed
and the danger involved, one is impressed with the
unselfish devotion to principle of these emancipators.
There was for them, of course, no outward honor, no
material recompense, but instead such contumely and
seeming disgrace as can now be scarcely comprehended.
Nevertheless, they were rich in courage, and their
hospitality was equal to all emergencies. They
gladly gave aid and comfort to every negro seeking
freedom; and the numbers befriended by many helpers
despite penalties and abuse show with what moral
determination the work was carried on. It has been
said that the Hopkins, Salsbury,
Snediger, Dickey and Kirkpatrick
families, of southern Ohio, forwarded more than 1,000
fugitives to Canada before the year 1817.2
Daniel Gibbons, of Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, was engaged in helping fugitive slaves
during a period of fifty-six years. "He did not
keep a record of the number he passed until 1824.
---------------
1. See Appendix E, pp. 405-439.
2. William Bimey, James G. Birney and His Times, p.
436.
[Page 88]
But prior to that time, it was supposed to have been
over 200, and up to the time of his death (in 1853) he
had aided about 1,000." 1 It has been
estimated that Dr. Nathan M. Thomas, of
Schoolcraft, Michigan, forwarded between 1,000 and 1,500
fugitives.2 John Fairfield,
the abductor, "piloted not only hundreds, but
thousands."3 The Rev. Charles T. Torrey
went to Maryland and "from there sent —as he wrote
previous to 1844 —some 400 slaves over different routes
to Canada."4 Philo Carpenter,
of Chicago, is reported to have escorted 200 fugitives
to vessels bound for Canada.5 In a
letter to William Still, in November,
1857, Elijah F. Pennypacker, of Chester County,
Pennsylvania, writes, "we have within the past two
months passed forty-three through our hands."6
H. B. Leeper, of Princeton, Illinois, says that
the most successful business he ever accomplished in
this line was the helping on of thirty-one men and women
in six weeks' time.''7 Leverett B.
Hill, of Wakeman, Ohio, assisted 103 on their way to
Canada during the year 1852.8 Mr.
Van Dorn, of Quincy, in a service of
twenty-five years, assisted "some two or three hundred
fugitives."9 W. D. Schooley, of
Richmond, Indiana, writes, "I think I must have assisted
over 100 on their way to liberty."10
Jonathan H. Gray, Milton Hill and
John H. Frazee were conductors at Carthage,
Indiana, and are said to have helped over 150 fugitives.11
"Thousands of fugitives found rest" at Ripley, Brown
County, Ohio.12 During the lifetime of
General Mclntire, a Virginian, who settled
in Adams County, Ohio, "more than 100 slaves found a
safe retreat under his roof." Other helpers in the
same state
---------------
1 Smedley, Underground Railroad, p.
56.
2 Letter of Mrs. Pamela S. Thomas,
Schoolcraft, Mich., March 25, 1896.
3 Letter of Mrs. Laura S. Haviland,
Englewood, Ill., June 5, 1893.
4 Letter of M. M. Fisher, Medway,
Mass., Oct. 23, 1893.
5 E. G. Mason, Early Chicago and
Illinois, 1890, p. 110.
6 Letter of Sarah C. Pennypacker,
Schuylkill, Pa., June 8, 1896.
7 Letter of H. B. Leeper, Princeton,
Ill., Dec. 19, 1895.
8 Letter of E. S. Hill, Atlantic,
la., Oct. 30, 1894.
9 Wilson, Bise and Fall
of the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 67.
10 Letter of W. D. Schooley, Nov. 15,
1893.
11 Letter of James H. Frazee, Milton,
Ind., Feb. 3, 1894.
12 Henry Howe, Historical Collections
of Ohio, Vol. I, p. 335. See also History of Brown
County, Ohio, p. 443.
[Page 89]
rendered service deserving of mention. Ozem
Gardner, of Sharon Township, Franklin County,
“assisted more than 200 fugitives on their way in all
weathers and at all times of the day and night.”1
It is estimated by a friend of Dr. J. A. Bingham
and George J. Payne, two operators of Gallia
County, that the line of escape with which these men
were connected was travelled by about 200 slaves every
year from 1845 to 1856.2 From 1844 to
1860 John H. Stewart, a colored station-keeper of
the same county, kept about 100 fugitives at his house.3
Five hundred are said to have passed through the hands
of Thomas L. Gray, of Deavertown, in Morgan
County.4 Ex-President Fairchild
speaks of the “ multitudes” of fugitives that came to
Oberlin, and says that “not one was ever finally taken
back to bondage.”6 Many other stations
and station-agents that were instrumental in helping
large numbers of slaves from bondage to freedom cannot
be mentioned here.
Reticent as most underground operators were at the time
in regard to their unlawful acts, they did not attempt
to conceal their principles. On the contrary, they
were zealous in their endeavors to make converts to a
doctrine that seemed to them to have the combined
warrant of Scripture and of their own conscience, and
that agreed with the convictions of the fathers of the
Republic. The Golden Rule and the preamble of the
Declaration of Independence they often recited in
support of their position. When they had
transgressed the Fugitive Slave Law of Congress they
were wont to find their justification in what
ex-President Fairchild of Oberlin has aptly called
the Fugitive Slave Law of the Mosaic institutions:
6 “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the
servant which hath escaped unto thee; he shall dwell
with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall
---------------
1
History of Franklin and Pickaway Counties, Ohio,
p. 424.
2 Letter of Dr. N. B. Sisson, Porter,
Gallia Co., O., Sept. 16, 1894.
8 Letter of Gabe N. Johnson, Ironton,
O., November, 1894.
4 Article in the New Lexington (O.)
Tribune, signed “ W. A. D.,” fall of 1886 ; exact
date unknown.
5 Henry Howe, Historical
Collections of Ohio, Vol. II, p. 380.
6 Fairchild, The Underground
Railroad, Vol. IV; Tract No. 87, Western Reserve
Historical Society, p. 97.
[Page 90]
choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best;
thou shalt not oppress him.”1 They refused to
observe a law that made it a felony in their opinion to
give a cup of cold water to famishing men and women
fleeing from servitude. Their faith and
determination is clearly expressed in one of the old
anti-slavery songs:—
" 'Tis the law of God in
the human soul,
'Tis the law of the Word Divine;
It shall live while the earth in its course shall roll,
It shall live in the soul of mine.
Let the law of the land forge its bonds of wrong,
I shall help when the self-freed crave;
For the law in my soul, bright, beaming, and strong,
Bids me succor the fleeing slave." |
Theodore Parker
was but the mouthpiece of many abolitionists
throughout the Northern states when he said, at the
conclusion of a sermon in1850: It is known to
you that the Fugitive Slave Bill has become a law .
. . . To law framed of such iniquity I owe no
allegiance. Humanity, Christianity manhood
revolts against it. . . . For myself I say it
solemnly, I will shelter, I will help, and I will
defend the fugitive with all my humble means and
power. I will act with any body of decent and
serious men, as the head, or the foot, or the hand,
in any mode not involving the use of deadly weapons,
to nullify and defeat the operation of this law. . .
2
Sentiments of this kind were cherished in almost
every Northern community by a few persons at least.
There were some New England colonies in the West
where anti-slavery sentiments predominated. These,
like some of the religious communities, as those of
the Quakers and Covenanters, became well-known
centres of underground activity. In general it
is safe to say that the majority of helpers in the
North were of Anglo-American stock, descendants of
the Puritan and Quaker settlers of the Eastern
states, or of Southerners that had moved to the
Northern states to be rid of slavery. The
---------------
1 Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.
2 Delivered in Melodeon Hall, Boston, Oct.
6, 1850. The Chronotype, Oct. 7, 1850. See
Vol. II, No. 2, of the Scrap-book relating to
Theodore Parker, compiled by Miss
C. C. Thayer, Boston Public Library.
[Page 91] -
NATIONALITY OF OPERATORS
many stations in the eastern and northern parts of Ohio
and the northern part of Illinois may be safely
attributed to the large proportion of New England
settlers in those districts. Localities where the
work of befriending slaves was largely in the hands of
Quakers will be mentioned in another connection.
Southern settlers in Brown County and adjoining
districts in Ohio are said to have been regularly
forwarding escaped slaves to Canada before 1817.1
The emigration of a number of these settlers to Bond
County, Illinois, about 1820, and the removal of a few
families from that region to Putnam County in the same
state about a decade later, helps to explain the early
development of secret routes in the southern and north
central parts of Illinois.2
In the South much secret aid was rendered fugitives, no
doubt, by persons of their own race. Two colored
market- women in Baltimore were efficient agents for the
Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia.3
Frederick Douglass’s connection with the
Underground Railroad began long before he left the
South.4 In the North, people of the
African race were to be found in most communities, and
in many places they became energetic workers.
Negro settlements in the interior of the free states, as
well as along their southern frontier, soon came to form
important links in the chain of stations leading from
the Southern states to Canada.
In the early days running slaves sometimes sought and
received aid from Indians. This fact is evidenced
by the introduction of fugitive recovery clauses into a
number of the treaties made between the colonies and
Indian tribes. Seven out of the eight treaties
made between 1784 and 1786 contained clauses for the
return of black prisoners, or of “negroes and other
property.”6 A few of the colonies
offered rewards to induce Indians to apprehend and
restore runaways. In 1669 Maryland “ordered that
any Indian who
---------------
1 William Birney, James
G. Birney and His Times, p. 435.
2 Letter of H. B. Leeper, Princeton,
Ill., Dec. 19, 1895.
3 Smedley, Underground Railroad,
p. 355.
4 Letter of Frederick Douglass, Cedar
Hill, Anacostia, D.C., Mar. 27, 1893. Mr.
Douglass escaped from slavery in 1839.
5 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves,
pp. 13, 104, 105
[Page 92]
shall apprehend a fugitive may have a ‘match coate’ or
its value. Virginia would give ‘20 armes length of
Roanake,’ or its value, while in Connecticut ‘two yards
of cloth’ was considered sufficient inducement.”1
The inhabitants of the Ottawa village of Chief
Kinjeino in northwestern Ohio were kindly disposed
towards the fugitive;2 and the people of
Chief Brant, who held an estate on the Grand
River in Ontario west of Niagara Falls, were in the
habit of receiving colored refugees.3
The people of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent were
naturally liberty loving, and seem to have given hearty
support to the anti-slavery cause in whatever form it
presented itself to them. The small number of
Scotch communities in Morgan and Logan counties, Ohio,
and in Randolph and Washington counties, Illinois, were
centres of underground service.
The secret work of the English, Irish and German
settlers cannot be so readily localized. In
various places a single German, Irishman, or Englishman
is known to have aided escaped slaves in cooperation
with a few other persons of different nationality, but
so far as known there were no groups made up of
representatives of one or another of these races engaged
in such enterprises. At Toledo, Ohio, the company
of helpers comprised Congressman James M. Ashley,
a Pennsylvanian by birth; Richard Mott, a
Quaker; James Conlisk, an Irishman;
William H. Merritt, a negro; and several others.4
Lyman Goodnow, an operator of Waukesha,
Wisconsin, says he was told that “in cases of emergency
the Germans were next best to Quakers for protection.”5
Two German companies from Massachusetts enlisted for the
War only when promised that they should not be required
to restore runaways to their owners.6
---------------
1 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves,
pp. 7, 8, and the references there given.
2 Letter of Colonel D. W. H. Howard,
Wauseon, O., Aug. 22, 1894.
3 See Chapter VII, p. 203.
4 Conversation with the Hon. James M.
Ashley, Toledo, O., August, 1894.
5 Narrative of Lyman Goodnow in
History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, p. 462.
6 See p. 365, Chapter XI.
[Page 93] -
CHURCH CONNECTION OF AGENTS.
Some religious communities and church societies were
conservators of abolition ideas. The Quakers
deserve, in this work, to be placed before all other
denominations because of their general acceptance and
advocacy of anti-slavery doctrines when the system of
slavery had no other opponents. From the time of
George Fox until the last traces of the
evil were swept from the English-speaking world many
Quakers bore a steadfast testimony against it.1
Fox reminded slaveholders that if they were in
their slaves’ places they would consider it “very great
bondage and cruelty,” and he urged upon the Friends in
America to preach the gospel to the enslaved blacks.
In 1688 German Friends at Germantown, Pennsylvania, made
an official protest “against the traffic in the bodies
of men and the treatment of men as cattle.” By
1772 New England Friends began to disown (expel) members
for failing to manumit their slaves; and four years
later both the Philadelphia and the New York yearly
meetings made slaveholding a disownable offence. A
similar step was taken by the Baltimore Yearly Meeting
in 1777; and meetings in Virginia were directed, in
1784, to disown those that refused to emancipate their
slaves.2 Owing to obstacles in the way
of setting slaves free in North Carolina, a committee of
Quakers of that state was appointed in 1822 to examine
the laws of some of the free states respecting the
admission of people of color therein. In 1823 the
committee reported that there was “nothing in the laws
of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to prevent the
introduction of people of color into those states, and
agents were instructed to remove slaves placed in their
care as fast as they were willing to go.” These
facts show the sentiment that prevailed in the Society
of Friends. Many Southern Quakers moved to the
North on account of their hatred of slavery, and
established such important centres of underground work
as Springboro and Salem, Ohio, and Spiceland and New
Garden, Indiana. Quakers in New
---------------
1 S. B. Weeks, Southern Quakers
and Slavery, p. 198.
2 American Church History, Vol. XII;
see article on “The Society of Friends,” by Professor
A. C. Thomas, pp. 242-248; also Weeks, Southern
Quakers and Slavery, pp. 198-219.
[Page 94]
Bedford and Lynn, Massachusetts, and Valley Falls, Rhode
Island, engaged in the service. The same class of
people in Maryland cooperated with members of their
society in the vicinity of Philadelphia. The
existence of numerous Underground Railroad centres in
southeastern Pennsylvania and in eastern Indiana is
explained by the fact that a large number of Quakers
dwelt in those regions.
The Methodists began to take action against slavery in
1780. At an informal conference held at Baltimore
in that year the subject was presented in the form of a
“Question,— Ought not this conference to require those
travelling preachers who hold slaves to give promises to
set them free?” The answer given was in the
affirmative. Concerning the membership the
language adopted was as follows: “We pass our
disapprobation on all our friends who keep slaves; and
advise their freedom.” Under the influence of
Wesleyan preachers, it is said, not a few cases of
emancipation occurred. At a conference in 1785,
however, it was decided to “suspend the execution of the
minute on slavery till the deliberations of a future
conference. . . Four years later a clause appeared in
the Discipline, by whose authority is not known,
prohibiting “The buying or selling the bodies or souls
of men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave
them.” This provision evidently referred to the
African slave-trade. In 1816 the General
Conference adopted a resolution that “no slaveholder
shall be eligible to any official station in our Church
hereafter, where the laws of the state in which he lives
will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated
slave to enjoy freedom.” Later there seems to have
been a disposition on the part of the church authorities
to suppress the agitation of the slavery question, but
it can scarcely be doubted that the well-known views of
the Wesleys and of Whitfield remained for
some at least the standard of right opinion, and that
their declarations formed for these the rule of action.
In 1842 a secession from the church took place, chiefly
if not altogether on account of the question of slavery,
and a number of abolitionist members of the
uncompromising type founded a new church organization,
which they called the “Wesleyan Methodist Connection of
America.” Slave-
[Page 95] - CHURCH
CONNECTION OF AGENTS.
holders were excluded from fellowship in this body.
Within two or three years the new organization had drawn
away twenty thousand members from the old.1
In 1844 a much larger secession took place on the same
question, the occasion being the institution of
proceedings before the General Conference against the
Rev. James O. Andrew, D.D., a slaveholding bishop of
the South. This so aggravated the Methodist
Episcopal societies in the slave states that they
withdrew and formed the Methodist Episcopal Church
South. Among the members of the Wesleyan Methodist
Connection and of the older society of the North there
were a number of zealous underground operators.
Indeed, it came to be said of the Wesleyans, as of the
Quakers, that almost every neighborhood where a few of
them lived was likely to be a station of the secret Road
to Canada. It is probable that some of the
Wesleyans at Wilmington, Ohio, cooperated with Quakers
at that point. In Urbana, Ohio, there were
Methodists of the two divisions engaged.2
Service was also performed by Wesleyans at Tippecanoe,
Deersville and Rocky Fort in Tuscarawas County,3
and at Piqua, Miami County, Ohio.4 In
Iowa a number of Methodist ministers were engaged in the
work.5
The third sect to which a considerable proportion of
underground operators belonged was Calvinistic in its
creed. All the various wings of Presbyterianism
seem to have had representatives in this class of
anti-slavery people. The sinfulness of slavery was
a proposition that found uncompromising advocates among
the Presbyterian ministers of the South in the early
part of this century. In 1804 the Rev. James
Gilliland removed from South Carolina to Brown
County, Ohio, because he had been enjoined by his
presbytery and synod “to be silent in the pulpit on the
subject of the emancipation of the African.”6
Other ministers of prominence, like Thomas
---------------
1 H. N. McTyeire, D.D., History of
Methodism, 1887, pp. 375, 536, 601, 611.
2 Conversation with Major J. C. Brand,
Urbana, O., Aug. 13, 1894.
3 Conversation with Thomas M. Hazlett,
Freeport, Harrison Co., O., Aug. 18, 1895.
4 Conversation with Mrs. Mary B. Carson,
Piqua, O., Aug. 30, 1895.
5 Letter of Professor F. L. Parker,
Grinnell, la., Sept. 30, 1894.
6 Wm. B. Sprague, D. D., Annals of
the American Pulpit, Vol. IV, 1858, p. 137;
Robert E. Thompson, D.D., History of the
Presbyterian Churches in the United States, 1895, p.
122.
[Page 96]
D. Baird, David Nelson and John Rankin,
left the South because they were not free to speak
against slavery. In 1818 the Presbyterian Church
declared the system “inconsistent with the law of God
and totally irreconcilable with the gospel of Christ.”
This teaching was afterwards departed from in 1845 when
the Assembly confined its protest to admitting rather
mildly that there was “evil connected with slavery,” and
declining to countenance “ the traffic in slaves for the
sake of gain; the separation of husbands and wives,
parents and children, for the sake of filthy lucre or
the convenience of the master; or cruel treatment of
slaves in any respect.” The dissatisfaction caused
by this evident compromise led to the formation of a new
church in 1847 by the “New School” Presbytery of Ripley,
Ohio, and a part of the “ Old School” Presbytery of
Mahoning, Pennsylvania. This organization was
called the Free Church, and by 1860 had extended as far
west as Iowa.1 It is not strange that
the region in Ohio where the Free Presbyterian Church
was founded was plentifully dotted with stations of the
Underground Railroad, and that the house of the Rev.
John Rankin, who was the leader of the
movement, was known far and wide as a place of refuge
for the fugitive slave.2 At Savannah,
Ashland County, Iberia, Morrow County, and a point near
Millersburgh, Holmes County, Ohio, the work is
associated with Free Presbyterian societies once
existing in those neighborhoods.3 In
the northern part of Adams County, as also in the
northern part of Logan County, Ohio, fugitives were
received into the homes of Covenanters. Galesburg,
Illinois, with its college was founded in 1837 by
Presbyterians and Congregationalists, who united to form
one religious society under the name of the
“Presbyterian Church of Galesburg.” Opposition to
slavery was one of the conditions of membership in this
organization from the beginning. This intense
anti-slavery feeling caused the
---------------
1 Robert E. Thompson, D.D.,
History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United
States, 1895, pp. 136, 137.
2 Address by J. C. Leggett, in a
pamphlet entitled Rev. John Rankin, 1892, p. 9.
3 Letter of Mrs. A. M. Buchanan,
Savannah, O., 1893; conversation with Thomas L. Smith,
Fredericksburg, Wayne Co., O., Aug. 15, 1896.
[Page 97] - OBERLIN AS
AN ABOLITION CENTRE.
church to withdraw from the presbytery in 1855.1
From the starting of the colony until the time of the
War fugitives from Missouri were conducted thither with
the certainty of obtaining protection. Thus
Galesburg became, probably, the principal underground
station in Illinois.2 Joseph S.
White, of New Castle, in western Pennsylvania, notes
the circumstance that all the men with whom he acted in
underground enterprises were Presbyterians.3
The religious centre in Ohio most renowned for the aid
of refugees was the Congregational colony and college at
Oberlin. The acquisition of a large anti-slavery
contingent from Lane Seminary in 1835 caused the college
to be known from that time on as a "hotbed of
abolitionism." Fugitives were directed thither
from points more or less remote, and during the period
from 1835 to 1860 Oberlin was a busy station, 4
receiving passengers from at least five converging
lines.5 So notorious did the place
become that a guide-board in the form of a fugitive
running in the direction of the town was set up by the
authorities on the Middle Ridge road, six miles north of
Oberlin, and the sign of a tavern, four miles away, “was
ornamented on its Oberlin face with a representation of
a fugitive slave pursued by a tiger.”6 On
account of the persistent ignoring of the law against
harboring slaves by those connected with the
institution, the existence of the college was put in
jeopardy. Ex-President Fairchild
relates that, “A Democratic legislature at different
times agitated the question of repealing the college
charter. The fourth and last attempt was made in
1843, when the bill for repeal was indefinitely
postponed in the House by a vote of thirty-six to
twenty-nine.”7 The anti-slavery
influence of Oberlin went abroad with its
---------------
1 Professor George Churchill, in
The Republican Register, Galesburg, Ill., Mar. 5,
1887.
2 Charles C. Chapman & Co.,
History of Knox County, Illinois, 1878, p. 210.
3 Joseph S. White, Note-book
containing “Some Reminiscences of Slavery Times,” New
Castle, Pa., Mar. 23, 1891.
4 James H. Fairchild, D.D., The
Underground Railroad, Vol. IV of publications of the
Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract No. 87, p.
111.
5 See the general map.
6 James H. Fairchild, D.D.,
Oberlin, the Colony and the College, p. 117.
7 Ibid., p. 116. See also
Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio,
Vol. II, p. 383.
[Page 98]
students. Ex-President W. M. Brooks, of
Tabor College, Iowa, a graduate of Oberlin, says, “The
stations on the Underground Railroad in southwestern
Iowa were in the region of Civil Bend, where the colony
from Oberlin, Ohio, settled, which afterwards settled
Tabor. . . . From this point (Civil Bend, now Percival)
fugitives were brought to Tabor after 1852; here the
entire population was in sympathy with the escaped
fugitives; . . . there was scarcely a man in the
community who was not ready to do anything that was
needed to help fugitives on their way to Canada.”1
The families that founded Tabor were “ almost all of
them Congregationalists.”2 Professor
L. F. Parker of Grinnell, Iowa, names Oberlin
students in connection with Quakers as the chief groups
in Iowa whose houses were open to fugitives.3
Grinnell itself was first settled by people
that were mainly Congregationalists.4
From the time of its foundation (1854) it was an
anti-slavery centre, “ well known and eagerly sought by
the few runaways who came from the meagre settlements
southwest... in Missouri.”5
There were, of course, members of other denominations
that befriended the slave; thus, it is known that the
Unitarian Seminary at Meadville, Pennsylvania, was a
centre of underground work,6 but, in general,
the lack of information concerning the church
connections of many of the company of persons with whom
this chapter deals prevents the drawing of any inference
as to whether these individuals acted independently or
in conjunction with little bands of persons of their own
faith.
There seems to have been no open appeal made to church
organizations for help in behalf of fugitives except in
Massachusetts. In 1851, and again in 1854, the
Vigilance Committee of Boston deemed it wise to send out
circulars to the clergymen of the commonwealth,
requesting that contribu-
---------------
1 Letter of President W. M. Brooks,
Tabor, la., Oct. 11, 1894.
2
I. B. Richman, John Brown Among the Quakers,
and Other Sketches, p. 15.
3
Letter of Professor L. P. Parker, Grinnell, Iowa,
Sept. 30, 1894.
4
J. B. Grinnell, Men and Events of Forty Years,
p. 87.
5
Letter of Professor L. F. Parker, Grinnell, Iowa,
Sept. 30, 1894.
6
Conversation with Professor Henry H. Barber, of
Meadville, Pa., in Cambridge, Mass., June, 1897.
[Page 99] - APPEAL TO
CHURCHES OF MASSACHUSETTS
tions be taken by them to be applied in mitigation of
tbe misery caused by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave
Law. The boldness and originality of such an
appeal, and more especially the evident purpose of its
framers to create sentiment by this means among the
religious societies, entitle it to consideration.
The first circular was sent out soon after the enactment
of the odious law, and the second soon after the passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The results secured by
the two circulars will be seen in the following letter
from Francis Jackson, of Boston, to his
fellow-townsmen and coworker, the Rev.
Theodore Parker.
Boston, Aug. 27, 1854.
THEODORE PARKER:
Dear Friend, —The contributions of the churches
in behalf of the fugitive slaves I think have about all
come in. I herewith inclose you a schedule thereof,
amounting in all to about $800, being but little more
than half as much as they contributed in 1851.
The Mass. Register published in January, 1854, states
the number of Religious Societies to be 1,547 (made up
of 471 Orthodox, 270 Methodist, and all others 239).
We sent circulars to the whole 1,547; only 78 of them
have responded—say 1 in 20— from 130 Universalist
societies, nothing, from 43 Episcopal $4, and 20 Friends
$27—the Baptists—four times as many of these societies
have given now as gave in 1851, this may be because
Brynes was a Baptist minister.
* *
* * *
* * *
The average amount contributed by 77
societies (deducting Frothingham of Salem) is $10 each;
the 28th Congregationalist Church in this city did not
take up a contribution, nevertheless, individual members
thereof subscribed upwards of $300; they being infidel
have not been reckoned with the churches.
Of the cities and large towns scarce any have
contributed. Of the 90 and 9 in Boston all have
gone astray but 2 —I have not heard of our circular
being read in one of them; still it may have been.
Those societies who have contributed, I judge were least
able to do so.
FRANCIS JACKSON1
The political affiliations of underground helpers before
1840 were, necessarily, with one or the other of the old
---------------
1Theodore
Parker’s Scrap-book, Boston Public
Library.
[Page 100]
parties—the Whig or the Democratic. As the Whig
party was predominantly Northern, and as its sentiments
were more distinctly anti-slavery than those of its
rival, it is fair to suppose that the small band of
early abolitionists were, most of them, allied with that
party.1 The Missouri Compromise in
1820, one may surmise, enabled those that were wavering
in their position to ally themselves with the party that
was less likely to make demands in the interests of the
slave power. In 1840 opportunity was given
abolitionists to take independent political action by
the nomination of a national Liberty ticket. At
that time, and again in 1844, many underground operators
voted for the candidates of the Liberty party, and
subsequently for the Free Soil nominees.2
But it is not
to be supposed that all friends of the fugitive joined
the political movement against slavery. Many there
were that regarded party action with disfavor,
preferring the method of moral suasion. These
persons belonged to the Quakers, or to the Garrisonian
abolitionists. The Friends or Quakers refused as
far as possible to countenance slavery, and when the
political development of the abolition cause came they
regretted it, and their yearly meetings withheld their
official sanction, so far as known, from every political
organization. Nevertheless, there were some
members of the Society of Friends that were swept into
the current, and became active supporters of the Liberty
party.3 The most noted and influential
of these was the anti-slavery poet, Whittier.4
When, in 1860, the Republican party nominated Lincoln,
“a large majority of the Friends, at least in the North
and West, voted for him.”5
The followers of Garrison that remained steadfast
to the teachings and the example of their leader shunned
all connection with the political abolitionist movement.
Garrison
---------------
1 This view agrees with the testimony
gathered by correspondence from surviving abolitionists.
2 This statement is based on a mass of
correspondence.
3 Professor A. C. Thomas on “The
Society of Friends,” in American Church History, Vol.
XII, 1894, pp. 284, 285.
4 Oliver Johnson,
William Lloyd Garrison and His Times,
1879, p. 322.
5 Professor A. C. Thomas, in
American Church History, Vol. XII, p. 285.
[Page 101] - CHARACTER
OF UNDERGROUND HELPERS.
never voted but once,1 and by 1854 had gone
so far in his denunciation of slavery that he burned the
Constitution of the United States at an open-air
celebration of the abolitionists at Framingham,
Massachusetts.2 To his dying day he seems to
have believed “that the cause would have triumphed
sooner, in a political sense, if the abolitionists had
continued to act as one body, never yielding to the
temptation of forming a political party, but pressing
forward in the use of the same instrumentalities which
were so potent from 1831 to 1840.”3
The abolitionists were ill-judged by their
contemporaries, and were frequently subjected to harsh
language and occasionally to violent treatment by
persons of supposed respectability. The weight of
opprobrium they were called upon to bear tested their
great strength of character. If the probity,
integrity and moral courage of this abused class had
been made the criteria of their standing they would have
been held from the outset in high esteem by their
neighbors. However, they lived to see the days of
their disgrace turned into days of triumph. “The
muse of history,” says Rhodes, “has done full
justice to the abolitionists. Among them were literary
men, who have known how to present their cause with
power, and the noble spirit of truthfulness pervades the
abolition literature. One may search in vain for
intentional misrepresentation. Abuse of opponents
and criticism of motives are common enough, but the
historians of the abolition movement have endeavored to
relate a plain, honest tale; and the country has
accepted them and their work at their true value.
Moreover, a cause and its promoters that have been
celebrated in the vigorous lines of Lowell and sung in
the impassioned verse of Whittier will always be
of perennial memory.”4
Contempt was not the only hardship that the
abolitionist had to face when he admitted the fleeing
black man within his door, but he braved also the
existing laws, and was some-
---------------
1 Life of Garrison, by his children,
Vol. I, p. 455.
2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 412.
3 Oliver Johnson, William Lloyd
Garrison and His Times, p. 310.
4 History of the United States from the
Compromise of 1850, Vol. I, p. 75.
[Page 102]
times compelled to suffer the consequences for
disregarding the slaveholder’s claim of ownership.
In 1842 the prosecution of John Van Zandt, of
Hamilton County, Ohio, was begun for attempting to aid
nine slaves to escape. The case was tried first in
the Circuit Court of the United States, and then taken
by appeal to the Supreme Court. The suits were not
concluded when the defendant died in May, 1847.
The death of the plaintiff soon after left the case to
be settled by administrators, who agreed that the costs,
amounting to one thousand dollars, should be paid from
the possessions of the defendant.1 The
judgments against Van Zandt under the Fugitive Slave Law
amounted to seventeen hundred dollars.2
In 1847 several members of a crowd that was instrumental
in preventing the seizure of a colored family by the
name of Crosswhite, at Marshall, Michigan, were
indicted under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1798. Two
trials followed, and at the second trial three persons
were convicted, the verdict against them amounting, with
expenses and costs, to six thousand dollars.3 In
1848 Daniel Kauffman, of Cumberland
County, Pennsylvania, sheltered a family of thirteen
slaves in his barn, and gave them transportation
northward. He was tried, and sentenced to pay two
thousand dollars in fine and costs. Although this
decision was reversed by the United States Supreme
Court, a new suit was instituted in the Circuit Court of
the United States and a judgment was rendered against
Kauffman amounting with costs to more than four
thousand dollars. This sum was paid, in large part
if not altogether, by contributions.4
In 1854 Rush R. Sloane, a lawyer of Sandusky,
Ohio, was tried for enabling seven fugitives to escape
after arrest by their pursuers. The two claimants
of the slaves instituted suit, but one only obtained a
judgment, which amounted to three thousand dollars and
---------------
1 Letter of N. L. Van Sandt,
Clarinda, Iowa. (Mr. N. L. Van Sandt is the
son of John Van Zandt.) See also Wilson’s
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. I, pp.
475, 476; T. R. Cobb, Historical Sketches of Slavery,
p. 207 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 42.
2 See pp. 274, 275, Chapter IX.
3 Pamphlet proposing a “Defensive League of
Freedom,” signed by Ellis Gray Loring and others,
of Boston, pp. 5, 6. See Chapter IX, p. 275.
4 Ibid.
[Page 103] - DEFENSIVE
LEAGUE OF FREEDOM PROPOSED
costs.1 The arrest of the fugitive,
Anthony Burns, in Boston, in the same year,
was the occasion for indignation meetings at Faneuil and
Meionaon Halls, which terminated in an attempt to rescue
the unfortunate negro. Theodore Parker,
Wendell Phillips and T. W. Higginson
took a conspicuous part in these proceedings, and were
indicted with others for riot. When the first case
was taken up the counsel for the defence made a motion
that the indictment be quashed. This was sustained
by the court, and the affair ended by all the cases
being dismissed.2
These and other similar cases arising from the
attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in
various parts of the country led to the proposal of a
Defensive League of Freedom. A pamphlet, issued
soon after the rendition of Burns, by Ellis
Gray Loring, Samuel Cabot, Jr., Henry J. Prentiss, John
A. Andrew and Samuel G. Howe, of Boston, and
James Freeman Clarke, of Roxbury, Massachusetts,
stated the object of the proposed league to be “to
secure all persons claimed as fugitives from slavery,
and to all persons accused of violating the Fugitive
Slave Bill the fullest legal protection; and also
indemnify all such persons against costs, fines, and
expenses, whenever they shall seem to deserve such
indemnification.” The league was to act as a “
society of mutual protection and every member was to
assume his portion of such penalties as would otherwise
fall with crushing weight on a few individuals.”
Subscriptions were to be made by the members of the
organization, and five per cent of these subscriptions
was to be called for any year when it was needed.3
How much service this association actually performed, or
whether, indeed, it got beyond the stage of being merely
proposed is not known; in any event, the fact is worth
noting that men of marked ability, distinction and
social connection
---------------
1 5 McLean’s United States Reports,
p. 64 et seq.; see also The Firelands Pioneer,
July, 1888; account by Rush R. Sloane, pp. 47-49;
account by H. F. Paden, pp. 21, 22; Chapter IX,
pp. 276, 277.
2 Commonwealth, June 28, 1854; M.
G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves,
pp. 45, 46; Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave
Power, Vol. II, pp. 443, 444.
See Chapter X, pp. 331-333.
3 Pamphlet proposing a “Defensive League of
Freedom,” pp. 1, 3, 11 and 12.
[Page 104]
were forming societies, like the Defensive League of
Freedom, and the various vigilance committees, for the
purpose of defeating the Fugitive Slave Act.
Among the underground helpers there are a number of
notable persons that have admitted with seeming
satisfaction their complicity in disregarding the
Fugitive Slave Law. A letter from Frederick
Douglass, the famous Maryland bondman and
anti-slavery orator, says: "My connection with the
Underground Railroad began long before I left the South,
and was continued as long as slavery continued, whether
I lived in New Bedford, Lynn [both in Massachusetts], or
Rochester, N. Y. In the latter place I had as many
as eleven fugitives under my roof at one time." 1
In his autobiography Mr. Douglass declares
concerning his work in this connection: "My agency was
all the more exciting and interesting because not
altogether free from danger. I could take not a step in
it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment, . .
. but in face of this fact, I can say, I never did more
congenial, attractive, fascinating,
and satisfactory work:2 Dr.
Alexander M. Ross, a Canadian physician and
naturalist, who has received the decorations of
knighthood from several of the monarchs of Europe in
recognition of his scientific discoveries, spent a
considerable part of his time from 1856 to 1862 in
spreading a knowledge of the routes leading to Canada
among the slaves of the South.3 Dr.
Norton S. Townshend, one of the organizers of the
Ohio State University and a conductor on the Underground
Railroad while he was a student of medicine in
Cincinnati, Ohio.4 Dr. Jared P.
Kirtland, a distinguished physician and scientist of
Ohio, kept a station in Poland, Mahoning County, were he
resided from 1823 to 1837.5
Harriet Beecher Stowe gained the intimate
knowledge of
---------------
1 Letter of Frederick Douglass,
Anacostia, D.C., Mar. 27, 1893.
2 Life of Frederick Douglass, 1881,
p. 271.
3 Ross, Recollections and
Experiences of an Abolitionist, pp. 30-44, 67-71,
121-132 ; also letters of Alexander M. Ross,
Toronto, Ont.
4 Conversations with Professor N.
S. Townshend, Columbus, O.
5 Conversation with Miss Mary L. Morse,
Poland, O., Aug. 11,1892; letter of Mrs. Emma
Kirtland Hine, Poland, O., Jan. 23, 1897.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
[Page 105] - NOTABLE
PERSONS AMONG UNDERGROUND HELPERS
the methods of the friends of the slave she displays in
Uncle Tom's Cabin through her association with
some of the most zealous abolitionists of southern Ohio.
Her own house on Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, was a refuge
whence persons whose types are portrayed in George
and Eliza, the boy Jim and his mother,
were guided by her husband and brother a portion of the
way towards Canada.1 Colonel
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the
essayist and author, while stationed as the pastor of a
free church in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1852 to
1858, often had fugitives directed to his care. In
a recent letter he writes of having received on one
occasion a “consignment of a young white slave woman
with two white children” from the Rev. Samuel J. May,
who had put her '‘into the hands, for escort, of one of
the most pro-slavery men in Worcester.” The
pro-slavery man, of course, did not have a suspicion
that he was acting as conductor on the Underground
Railroad.2
Joshua R. Giddings, for twenty years in Congress
an ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery, kept a
particular chamber in his house at Jefferson, Ohio, for
the use of refugees.3 Sometimes when
passing through Alliance, Ohio, Mr. Giddings
found opportunity to call upon his friend, I. Newton
Peirce, to whom he contributed money for the
transportation of runaway slaves by rail from that point
to Cleveland.4 What his views were of
the irritating law of 1850, he declared on the floor of
the House of Representatives, Feb. 11, 1852, in the
following words: “. . . Let me say to Southern men; It
is your privilege to catch your own slaves, if any one
catches them. . . . When you ask us to pay the expenses
of arresting your slaves, or to give the President
authority to appoint officers to do that dirty work,
give them power to compel our people to give chase to
the panting bondman, you overstep the bounds of the
Constitution, and there we meet you, and there we stand
and there we shall remain. We shall protest
---------------
1 See Chapter X, pp.
2 Letter of T. W. Higginson, Dublin,
N.H., July 24, 1896.
3 Conversation with J. Addison Giddings,
Jefferson, O., Aug. 9, 1892.
4 Letter of I. Newton Peirce,
Folcroft, Sharon Hill P.O., Pa., Feb. 1, 1893.
[Page 106]
against such indignity; we shall proclaim our abhorrence
of such a law. Nor can you seal or silence our
voices.”1
James M. Ashley, member of Congress from Ohio
for over nine years, and his successor in the House,
Richard Mott, a Quaker, were confederates in
their violation of the Slave Act at Toledo, Ohio.
Mr. Ashley began his service in behalf of
the blacks early in life. As a youth of seventeen
in Kentucky, he helped two companies across the Ohio
River, one company of seven persons, and the other of
five.3 Sidney Edgerton,
who was elected to Congress from Ohio on the Free Soil
ticket in 1858, and four years after was appointed
governor of Montana Territory by President Lincoln,
assisted his father in the befriending of slaves at
Tallmadge, Summit County, Ohio.4 Jacob
M. Howard, afterwards United States senator from
Michigan, was one of the principal operators at Detroit.5
General Samuel Fessenden, of Maine, who received
the nomination of the Liberty party for the governorship
of his state, and later for Congress, and was during
forty years the leading member of the bar in Maine, gave
escaped bondmen reaching Portland a hearty welcome to
his house on India Street.6 In Vermont
there were a number of men prominent in public affairs
that were actively engaged in underground enterprises.
---------------
1 George W. Julian, The Life of
Joshua B. Giddings, 1892, p. 289.
2 Smedley, Underground Railroad,
pp. 36, 38, 46.
3 Conversation with the Hon. James M.
Ashley, Toledo, O., July, 1894.
4 Conversation with ex-Governor Sidney
Edgerton, Akron, O., Aug. 16, 1895.
5 Conversation with Judge J. W. Finney,
Detroit, Mich., July 27, 1895.
6 Letter of S. T. Pickard, Portland,
Me., Nov. 18, 1893.
[Page 107] - NOTABLE
PERSONS AMONG UNDERGROUND HELPERS
Colonel Jonathan P. Miller, of Montpelier, who
went to Greece, and assisted that country in its
uprising in the twenties, served as a member of the
Vermont legislature in 1883, and took part in the
World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, was among the
early helpers in New England. Lawrence
Brainerd, for several years candidate for governor
of Vermont, and later chosen to the United States Senate
as a Free Soiler, gave shelter to the wanderers at St.
Albans, where they were almost within sight of “the
Promised Land.”1 Others were the Rev.
Alvah Sabin, elected to Congress in 1853,
who kept a station at the town of Georgia, the Hon.
Joseph Poland of Montpelier, the Hon. William
Sowles of Swanton, the Hon. John West of
Morristown and the Hon. A. J. Russell of Troy.2
Gerrit Smith, the famous philanthropist,
kept open house for fugitives in a fine old mansion at
Peterboro, New York. He was one of the prime
movers in the organization of the Liberty party at
Arcade, New York, in 1840, and was its candidate for the
presidency in 1848 and in 1852. He was elected to
Congress in 1853 and served one term. It is said
that during the decade 1850 to 1860 he “aided habitually
in the escape of fugitive slaves and paid the legal
expenses of persons accused of infractions of the
Fugitive Slave Law.” 3 The Rev. Owen
Lovejoy, brother of the martyr Elijah P. Lovejoy,
served four terms in the national House of
Representatives. On one occasion he was taunted by
some proslavery members of the House with being a
“nigger-stealer.” In a speech made February 21,
1859, Mr. Lovejoy, referring to these
accusations, said: “Is it desired to call attention to
this fact—of my assisting fugitive slaves? . . .
Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois,
three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he
aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it.
Thou invisible demon of slavery, dost thou think to
cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread
to the hungry and shelter to the houseless! I bid
you
---------------
1 Letter of Aldis O. Brainerd, St.
Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.
2 Letter of Joseph Poland,
Montpelier, Vt., April 7, 1897.
3 O. B. Frotliingham, Life of
Gerrit Smith; National Cyclopedia of
American Biography, Vol. II, pp. 822, 323.
[Page 108]
defiance in the name of my God!”1 Josiah
B. Grinnell, who represented a central Iowa district
in the Thirty-eighth and the Thirty-ninth congresses,
had a chamber in his house at Grinnell that came to be
called the “liberty room.” John Brown,
while on his way to Canada with a band of Missouri
slaves, in the winter of 1858-1859, stacked his arms in
this room, and his company of fugitives slept there.2
Mr. Grinnell relates of the members of
this party, “They came at night, and were the darkest,
saddest specimens of humanity I have ever seen, glad to
camp on the floor, while the veteran was a night guard,
with his dog and a miniature arsenal ready for use on
alarm. . . 3
Thurlow Weed, the distinguished journalist and
political manager, even in his busiest hours had time to
afford relief to the underground applicant. One who knew
Mr. Weed intimately relates the following incident: “On
one occasion when several eminent gentlemen were waiting
[to see the journalist] they were surprised and at first
much vexed, by seeing a negro promptly admitted. The
negro soon reappeared, and hastily left the house, when
it was learned that he was a runaway slave, and had been
aided in his flight for liberty by the man who was too
busy to attend to Cabinet officers, but had time to say
words of encouragement and present means of support to a
flying fugitive.”4 Sydney Howard Gay,
for several years managing editor of the New York
Tribune, and subsequently on the editorial staff of the
New York Post and the Chicago Tribune, was an efficient
agent of the Underground Railroad while in charge of the
Anti-Slavery Standard, which he conducted in New York
City from 1844 to 1857.5
Among the clergymen that made it a part of their
religious duty to minister to the needs of the exiles
from the South, were John Rankin, Samuel J. May and
Theodore Parker.
---------------
1 Pamphlet of the Rev. D. Heagle, entitled
The Great Anti-Slavery Agi/tator, Hon. Owen Lovejoy,
pp. 16, 17, 34, 35.
2 J. B. Grinnell, Men and Events of Forty
Tears, p. 207.
3 Ibid., pp. 217, 218.
4 T. W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, 1884, Vol.
II, p. 238.
5 Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,
Vol. II, p. 52.
[Page 109] - NOTABLE
PERSONS AMONG UNDERGROUND HELPERS
Mr. Rankin, a native of Tennessee, early
developed his anti-slavery views in Kentucky, where from
1817 to 1821 he served as pastor of two Presbyterian
churches at the town of Carlisle. During the next
forty-four years he resided at Ripley, Ohio, in a
neighborhood frequented by runaways.1
Doubtless he became a patron of these midnight visitors
at the time of his location in Ripley. In 1828 he
established himself in a house situated upon the crest
of a hill just back of the town and overlooking the Ohio
River. For many years the lights beaming through
the windows of this parsonage were hailed by slaves
fleeing from the soil of Kentucky as beacons to guide
them to a haven of safety.2
Samuel J. May, for many years a prominent
minister in the Unitarian Church, writes: “So long ago
as 1834, when I was living in the eastern part of
Connecticut, I had fugitives addressed to my care. . . .
Even after I came to reside in Syracuse [New York] I had
much to do as a station-keeper or conductor on the
Underground Railroad, until slavery was abolished by the
proclamation of President Lincoln. . . .
Fugitives came to me from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee and Louisiana. They came, too, at all hours of
day and night, sometimes comfortably, yes, and even
handsomely clad, but generally in clothes every way
unfit to be worn, and in some instances too unclean and
loathsome to be admitted into my house.”3
Theodore Parker, the learned theologian
and iconoclast of Boston, often deserted his study that
he might work in the cause of humanity. In his
Journal, under the date Oct. 23, 1850, Mr.
Parker wrote: “. . . The first business of the
anti-slavery men is to help the fugitives; we, like
Christ, are to seek and save that which is lost.”4
In an unsigned note written in 1851 to his friend Dr.
Francis, Mr. Parker says:—
... I have got some nice books (old ones) coming across
the water. But, alas me! such is the state of the
poor fugitive
---------------
1 William Birney, James
G. Birney and His Times, p. 435.
2 J. C. Leggett, in a pamphlet
entitled Rev. John Rankin, 1892,
pp. 8, 9; see also History of Brown County, Ohio,
p. 443.
3 Recollections of the Anti-Slavery
Conflict, p. 297.
4 John Weiss, Life and
Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 1864, p. 95.
[Page 110]
[Page 111]
- THOMAS GARRETT AND LEVI COFFIN
though sixty years of age when misfortune befel him,
Mr. Garrett was successful in again acquiring a
competence, through the kindness of fellow-townsmen in
advancing him capital with which to make a fresh start.
Though satisfied, he was wont to think that his real
work in life was never finished. “The war came a
little too soon for my business. I wanted to help
off three thousand slaves. I had only got up to
twenty-seven hundred!”
Mr. Coffin was a native of North
Carolina. Born in 1798, he was while still a boy
moved to assist in the escape of slaves by witnessing
the cruel treatment the negroes were compelled to
endure. In 1826 he settled in Wayne County,
Indiana, on the line of the Underground Road, and such
was his activity that his house at New Garden (now
Fountain City) soon became the converging point of three
principal routes from Kentucky. In 1847 Mr.
Coffin removed to Cincinnati for the purpose of
opening a store where goods, produced by free labor only
should be sold. His relations with the humane work
were maintained, and the genial but fearless Quaker came
to be known generally by the fictitious but happy title,
President of the Underground Railroad. It has been
said of Mr. Coffin that “for thirty-three
years he received into his house more than one hundred
slaves every year.”1 In 1863 the Quaker
philanthropist assisted in the establishment of the
Freedmen’s Bureau. In the following year and
again in 1867, he visited Europe as agent for the
Western Freedmen’s’ Aid Commission. When the
adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution
was celebrated in Cincinnati by colored citizens and
their friends, Mr. Coffin was one of those
called upon by the chairman to address the great
meeting. In response, the veteran station-keeper
explained how he had obtained the title of President of
the Underground Road. He said, “The title was
given to me by slave-hunters, who could not find their
fugitive slaves after they got into my hands. I
accepted the office thus conferred upon me, and . . .
endeavored to perform my
---------------
Underground Railroad, pp. 237-245; M. G.
McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 60.
1 Reminiscences of Levi Coffin,
2d ed., p. 694
[Page 112]
duty faithfully. Government has now taken the work
out of our hands. The stock of the Underground
Railroad has gone down in the market, the business is
spoiled, the road is now of no further use.”1
He then amid much applause resigned his office, and
declared the operations of the Underground Railroad at
an end.
---------------
1 Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p.
712.
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