Ohio History Journal

44        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

 

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN OHIO.

PROF. WILBUR H. SIEBERT, A. M.

 

It is a rare reform movement that begins with a concensus

of opinion in favor of the reform among the thinking men of

the day. We have, nevertheless, such a movement to consider

in this paper.

It is strange, indeed, but nevertheless true, that at first

there was general agreement North and South, that slavery was

expensive, wicked, cruel, detrimental to a developing statehood,

destructive of public as well as private morality. Those who

used their eyes to see and were in localities where they could

observe, were most outspoken in their condemnation of slavery,

most favorable to its abolition. We need not be surprised then

to find southern gentlemen like Washington, Jefferson, Mason,

Gadsden, Laurence and Pickney in agreement with northern phi-

lanthropists like Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, Hamilton,

Livingston, Governor Morris and others in the declaration made

by Mr. Madison, viz., that he thought "it wrong to admit in

the Constitution the idea of property in men."* Roger Sherman

expressed, no doubt, a general hope when he stated that "the

abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States,

and that the good sense of the several States would probably by

degrees complete it." It seems clear, moreover, that in this

early period the prevailing sentiment of the people-the multi-

tude of the South, as in the North, was "decidedly opposed to

slavery." The evil was thus generally admitted to be an evil,

and "no one openly advocated its perpetuation." +

It is a sad fact, nevertheless, that slavery did perpetuate

 

Given under the auspices of The Ohio Archaealogical and Historical

Society, in the Entertainment Room, Trinity Parish House, Columbus, O.,

Tuesday evening, November 13, 1894.

* "An Hist. Research, respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the

Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, as Soldiers," by Geo. Liver-

more, 1863, p. 51.

+ Supra, p. 22.

• 1
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.          45

 

itself in the Union. This is the remarkable thing which de-

mands an explanation. In view of what has thus far been said,

it appears that human bondage was a detested interest of our

country and our statesmen--an interest it and they wanted to

disestablish. Why, then, was its disestablishment so long

deferred?

When South Carolina hesitated to confirm the Federal Con-

stitution in 1788, a member of her special convention-Mr.

Galloway, by name-declared the chief reason when he said,

"the property of the southern States consists principally of

slaves. If they mean to do away with slavery altogether, this

property will be destroyed."*

In other language, a vast amount of valuable possessions was

in question, and whether righteously held or not, was a desidera-

tum of too great moment to be left out of account;-especially

since these possessions, relieved of ownership, might become

dangerous neighbors. Such was the very natural judgment of

the wealthy and influential whites of the South. They felt they

had too much at stake. The citizens of South Carolina lacked

the moral courage,-we might call it from their standpoint the

hardihood, even if they had the sentiment, to strip themselves of

their authority over a body of slaves outnumbering themselves.

The same thing was true, though in diminishing degrees, of

Georgia and the other southern States.

Slavery was the "bad habit" (the vice) of the South, a base

usage to which she was predisposed by inheritance, which she

confirmed by practice under the incentive of favoring conditions,

an acquisition which she soon found to be profitable, though in

the long run it proved itself costly and ruinous to the whole

country. There was no likelihood that the South would give up

her established mode of life when once she found it highly lucra-

tive. The commercial sanction is one of the mightiest we have

to deal with in history. When, therefore, Whitney's cotton gin

increased the efficiency of slave labor, 150 fold and more, in the

hitherto tedious process of seeding cotton, he helped the British

inventors in the foreign cotton industries to make permanent the

*Supra, p. 81.

• 2
 

46        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

slave system of our southern States. It is said that in conse-

quence of this invention our "exports of cotton leaped from

189,000 pounds in 1791 to 21,000,000 pounds in 1801, and

doubled in ten years more." This was nothing else than a revo-

lutionizing argument-in favor of slavery. It was a practical

endorsement of the system. The clink of incoming cash began

to drown, and at length suppressed altogether the apologetic tone

in the voice of the planter, the cotton merchant and those of

allied interests. The abolition societies of the South ceased to

encourage gradual abolition, and went out of existence. Slavery

began to be talked about as a "positive good." As a matter of

fact it was just then losing the amenities of the patriarchial type

and becoming worse than a positive evil. In its degradation it

was furthered by the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803.

The acquirement of the vast stretch of the Louisiana country was

the acquirement of a region already acquainted with the usages

of slavery under French and Spanish statute, a region adapted,

especially in the alluvial tracts of the Lower Mississippi Valley,

to rice and sugar growing, and cotton raising. As settlement

progressed there, slavery spread with it. The brutal overseer

system of plantation management was introduced; and it thrived

while its suffering subjects languished. The supply of negroes

in this section could not keep up with the demand for them, both

on account of the destructive natural conditions under which the

labor was mostly performed, and on account of the steady devel-

opment of the new country. The lot of the slave in the rice

swamps and sugar plantations of the far South was the dread and

nightmare of the enslaved race; it tended to shorten the lives of

those doomed to the experience. A constant importation of

blacks consequently went on. A steady market in the lower

latitudes brought its concomitant development in the higher.

Along the southern border of the free States, slave-breeding and

auction sales of the human product found their contemptible

devotees. Enforced separations of slave families became fre-

quent, and the blacks sold were mostly sent "down South."

Such treatment was simply benumbing and bewildering to

the great mass of the slaves, no doubt; to some, those of high

spirit, it was a goad not long to be endured. These latter fled

• 3
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.          47

 

whenever they had opportunity. The mere fact of bondage,

without its grosser cruelties, was unbearable to some negroes of

the border States. These superior natures felt an " irrepressible

longing for the boon of freedom." The following incident illus-

trates this point:

"Before the war, there came into the public room of a hotel

in Canada, near the frontier, one day, a bright-looking negro.

" 'I s'pose you're a runaway slave,' said one of the men in

the room, looking sharply at the new-comer. Feeling that he

was pretty well away from bondage, the darkey responded in the

affirmative.

"'Well, we're glad enough that you've got away; but you

don't seem to look very poor. Have good clothes down South?'

"'Suttingly, sah; same clothes as my massa.'

"'But you got a good many thrashings, eh?'

"'Nebber had a whipping in my life, sah.'

"'Never thrashed? Well, but I suppose you don't always

get enough to eat, do you?'

"' Always had enough, gemmen; nebber went hungry.'

"'What?' said the persistent interrogator. 'Good clothes,

no punishment, plenty to eat? Now just think of it,' he said,

addressing a group of loungers. 'This fellow has left a position

where he enjoys all these privileges, for an uncertainty.'

"'Gemmen,' replied the darkey, 'all I'se got to say re-

spectin' dem privileges is, dat if any one ob you wants to avail

hisself ob 'em, de situation am open!'"

Several weeks ago, I talked with an old-time runaway from

Kentucky now living at Ironton, Ohio, who fretted continually

in the harness of slavery. His was a light harness, and the

master spared the lash, but the man still knew that he was being

driven and owned like the beast that he used in his work. This

man told me that when he ran away he was dressed in a suit of

black broad-cloth, and expected to keep himself thus clad thence-

forward; his purpose was to live a gentleman, thinking that is

what freedom must mean. He has come to consider that view a

huge joke; he laughingly told me he has not worn a broad-cloth

coat since the time of his self-liberation.

Do you suppose that man would exchange the present for

• 4
 

48        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

the earlier days?  Such a thing could hardly be imagined.

Asbury Parker insists that it was in him to be a free man from

the time he was a boy thirteen years old.

These cases are typical of a considerable, indeed, I might

say truthfully, the whole number of runaways. They show

that these people had minds for something higher than their

comfortable keep. The testimony of many a generous house-

holder who lodged, clothed and encouraged the foot-sore, weary

fugitive, stands as proof that the poor pilgrim's journey was

laborious, nay, even dangerous in the extreme. No leisurely

pilgrimage in congenial company to a beneficent shrine was his.

Far otherwise. He had a gauntlet-no, a series of gauntlets to

run. Lucky was he if he found those who would help him

through even a short distance in safety. He did the wise thing

-but it is a shame upon us-to make his course in the night.

Enough has been said to show how slavery sunk to lower

and lower stages of degradation. In the early days, though a

turbid stream, it had floated some fine craft, liberal, generous in

their ability to bear up numbers of enthralled beings, and to

carry those forward towards a post of intelligence and freedom.

The currents of the river were then fed by some generous tribu-

taries. Now, these were dried up or had become poisoned;

when they flowed at all they brought in contamination from the

meanest sources of the soul, through channels choked and nar-

row. The river lost its spirit of life, it became dull, death-

breeding. In increasing numbers the darkies, who had lived

and labored on this stream, left their uncertain abodes for a dis-

tant retreat. The evils of slavery were become intolerable gen-

erally, and many slaves declared boldly for freedom. If this

boon were beyond reach, they preferred death. It is tolerably

certain that a table of statistics covering the period from 1793 to

1860, would prove that the increase in the number of fugitives

was directly proportional to the progressive commercialization

of slavery. Such a table can never be made up. All we can

do is to study the conditions of the period, note certain surface

indications, and base our generalizations upon these.

If you will call to mind a little of your United States his-



• 5
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.         49

 

tory, you may remember that abolitionism early established

itself in a number of our northern States.

The State Constitution of Vermont (not yet admitted to

the Union) in 1777, of Massachusetts in 1780, and of New

Hampshire in 1783, abolished slavery; and gradual abolition was

secured by statute in Pennsylvania in 1780, in Rhode Island and

Connecticut in 1784, in New York in 1799, and in New Jersey in

1804. As the States north of the Ohio and east of the Missis-

sippi were admitted, the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787,

under which their territorial organizations had been effected,

made them free States. In 1857, the Supreme Court in the

Dred Scott decision denied the validity of this last abolition, but

its essential feature had been inserted in the constitution of the

only State as yet formed in it, lowa.*

The free States here specified--thirteen and a half-consti-

tuting about one-quarter of the present area of the Union, and

forming an irregular crescent about the great lakes, are bounded

on the south from east to west by the Atlantic Ocean, the south

line of Pennsylvania, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River from

Cairo to Keokuk, the southern boundary of Iowa, the Missouri

River and a line northwards as straight as possible from the Mis-

souri to the Red River of the North. The territory thus de-

scribed lay between the opposing conditions of bondage and

freedom for the American slave. Its width varied. It ranged

from one hundred and fifty miles at the eastern extremity to two

hundred and fifty in New York and Pennsylvania; in Ohio it

shrunk to one hundred and fifty miles and less, then broadened

to two hundred and sixty miles in Indiana, and seven hundred

in Iowa. This uneven strip was likely to become the scene of

slave migrations under the circumstances I have attempted to

set forth. It did become so, as we shall see. But we must first

consider why it did not become straightway the domain for

fugitive settlement.

The question of the status of fugitives in free regions was

first brought up by the action of the States of Vermont, Penn-

sylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, in tak-

* Encycl. Brit. Amer. Supplement. Vol. L., p. 18.

Vol. IV-4

• 6
 

5O        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

ing steps from 1777 to 1784 toward immediate or gradual eman-

cipation. Marion Gleason McDougall tells us that before "the

change of condition in the States was completely understood

the same question had arisen in the western territories."*

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 contained the first legis-

lation by Congress upon this point. It provided for the legal

reclamation, from the new territory of any person "escaping

into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in

any one of the original States." At the same moment almost,

the Philadelphia Convention, which was framing the Constitu-

tion, acceded to the demand of Mr. Butler of North Carolina,

and adopted his provision for the return of fugitives, as follows:

"No person held to service or labour in one State, under the

laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of

any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service

or labour, but shall be delivered upon claim of the party to

whom such service or labour may be due."

Thus, presumably, the delivery of the self-freed slaves into

the hands of their masters in any part of the United States was

doubly assured. At the same time, ground was furnished for

the slave-holders' argument that there existed a constitutional

sanction of slavery. But for five or six years the new sanction

remained inoperative.

A case of kidnaping in Pennsylvania brought it once more

to the public mind, and by action of Congress early in 1793, the

clause in the Constitution was given point and application. The

first fugitive slave act (1793) laid a penalty of five hundred

dollars upon any person who hindered a claimant from arresting

a fugitive owing him or his client service (either by interference

or by rescue of the chattel), or for harboring or concealing

"such person after notice that he or she was a fugitive from

labour." The certification by the party-in-search before a

United States circuit or district judge within the State where

arrest was made or before the nearest local magistrate, was to be

sufficient warrant for carrying back the fugitive to his owner.

These several provisions, together with the fair treatment re-

 

*Fugitive slaves, p. 13, Fay House Monograph.

• 7
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.          51

 

ceived in foreign parts, whether in Canada, Mexico or among

the Indian tribes, must constitute the runaway's excuse for set-

tling beyond the free zone of our northern States.

It is not to be supposed, of course, that the slaves of the

South were students of the Constitution and other of our State

papers. They did not thus gain the knowledge of their rights

or absence of rights. Their legal status in this or that region

was left for them to find out by experience or by rumor. The

small number who lived along the boundaries of free States, or

back a few miles, early learned the distinction between free soil

and slave territory. The frequent errands upon which the more

trusted were sent, took them to places where the bribe of free-

dom floated in the very air and tolled them on to flight, or sent

them back with desires that found utterance in the low, ill-built

cabins of attentive friends. Northern whites in the South were

not always tongue-locked, and sometimes gave explicit directions

to their neighbors' servants. The still small voice of nature itself

spoke encouragement to souls that panted for freedom. Every-

where in the enslaved South flights were occurring, and the

severest laws, the most alert patrol system, the most brutal plan-

tation rules, nay, even the kindliest treatment of master and

mistress could not prevent them. The instinct, the natural aspi-

ration of the human soul,-call it what you will,-is not to be

scared out of man by buffets and bluff, or lulled to sleep by petty

kindnesses. - Many, many slaves of course, knew nothing of

Canada, or had heard of it as a country too cold and barren for

the endurance of the negro. Many others, whose information

was nearer the truth, lacked courage to seek the distant but

friendly land of liberty. Many more were restrained only by the

bonds of love and kinship. When these bonds had been broken,

or rumor threatened that they soon would be, recourse must be

had either to bestial submission or to flight. The courageous

chose flight. The direction they took depended upon knowl-

edge, sagacity and circumstances. By circumstances, I mean,

(1) location; (2) proximity of the slave to natural hiding-places,

such as infrequented islands, swamps and bayous, or caves little

known; (3) the presence of intelligent friends, guides and

helpers. The success of the undertaking was determined by

• 8
 

52        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

the alacrity with which the fugitive's absence was discovered,

his description and a reward for his recovery published abroad,

and pursuit set on foot. If the fugitive had a weak-kneed pur-

pose, he soon returned of his own accord, or was caught not far

away and brought back in disgrace to receive outrageous chas-

tisement under the raw-hide, finished by the application of salt

to the bleeding back " to take out the soreness," and we may be

sure to discourage the rest of the slaves from making similar,

perhaps more successful expeditions.

But examples of this sort were vain-worse than vain. They

bred the class they were expected to foredoom. Slave-catching

became a vocation; and the use of bloodhounds to find out the

haunts of the runaway was not uncommon in the South.

The refuge of neighboring woods and swamps was often

sought by slaves. There they built them rude cabins or caves

to live in, and hunted, fished, and foraged for provisions. Marion

Gleason MacDougal mentions this class of escapes to the woods

and swamps (Fugitive Slaves, 1619-1865, p. 56), she says: "In

one of the papers of the day, an underground den is noticed, the

opening of which, though in sight of two or three houses and

near roads and fields where passing was constant, had been so con-

cealed by a pile of straw, that for many months it had remained

unnoticed. When discovered, on opening a trap-door, steps were

seen leading down into a room about six feet square, comfortably

ceiled with boards, and containing a fire-place. The den was

well stocked with food by the occupants, who had been missing

about a year."

In most cases, slaves were not so bold and preferred conceal-

ment on an uninhabited island, or a bit of land surrounded by

morasses. "We often find advertisements of the time," con-

tinues Mrs. MacDougal, "mentioning such places as the prob-

able refuge of runaways.  The Savannah Georgian of 1857

offers a reward for two men who have been out for eighteen

months, and are supposed to be encamped near Pine Grove

Plantation."

The Great Dismal Swamp, extending from near Norfolk,

Virginia, into North Carolina, was the chosen retreat of many

fugitive negroes. A large colony of them established itself there,

• 9
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.        53

 

and continued long enough for a generation of its people to be

born and to live out their lives "in its dark recesses."

On our southwestern frontier down to 1845, the set of cir-

cumstances which fixed the direction of escapes was different.

The Mexican territory that adjoined our Louisiana country had,

after the year 1829, a constitution granting "freedom and equality

to blacks." This fact soon become known to a considerable part

of the black population of Louisiana, and after 1830 complaints

began to be made by the whites of that State (1812) on account

of the western emigration of their chattels.

The great interior regions, comprising the northern parts of

Alabama and Georgia, the eastern extremities of Tennessee and

Kentucky, and the western parts of North Carolina, Virginia

and Maryland, are seamed with the three parallel ranges-the

Cumberland, Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains. The inter-

vening valleys were the natural means of egress into the northern

States. Their great protecting walls covered with virgin forests,

pierced at numberless intervals with side entries, useful for refuge,

and plenteously supplied with limestone caves, were finely adapted

to the needs of the runaway. Springs, creeks and rivers sup-

plied him water and they insured him a supply of fish and game,

and herbs with their fruits.  Safety could be found in these

mountain fortresses for months. If the fugitive felt that distance

for him would lend enchantment to the view, he had but to follow

the great northern thoroughfare-the valley where he was. His

chart was in the lay of the land, his compass the north star. His

knowledge of geography was the poorest imaginable-though he

was ready enough to learn, Heaven knows-and he remembered

with wonderful tenacity every remark that furnished an item

about the North. An incident will illustrate this. Old Rev.

Jacob Cummings, who lives on the western outskirts of Colum-

bus, ran away from a "hard master" in July, 1839. He was

befriended by a Mr. Leonard, a grocer of Chattanooga, whose

abolition principles had been instilled into him in Albany, New

York. This man, Leonard, took Cummings aside one day and

told him where Ohio and Indiana were on the map, and where

Lake Erie lay, declaring that Cummings ought to leave the

South for Canada. The negro went back to the plantation, two

• 10
 

54        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

miles distant, with a mind thoroughly open for further knowl-

edge. In a few days he engaged his master's grandson-Jim

Sommerman, a youth of sixteen-in conversation about some

flocks of pigeons seen flying northward, and was told they were

going to the lakes. To penetrate the depths of the slave's igno-

rance a map was soon brought out and a few thoughtless pencil-

marks showed the course of the birds. Mr. Cummings confesses

without much shame that he stole that map at the first oppor-

tunity, and made the beginning of a successful journey to freedom.

Better for them than this dependence upon the crude ideas

of ignorance, or at best half-knowledge, was the active aid of

friendship and leadership which secured to thousands of fugitive

slaves an easy emancipation.

Every black, who sought to liberate himself, found that he

was under an almost crushing weight. Custom had not only

made him a slave, but the law of the land and of the various

States was bound that he should remain so. His return to

slavery had been provided for in law, and the reward offered or

likely to be offered for his arrest, meant that some despicable

white, with his posse of roughs, soon would be in hot pursuit.

The slave system, commercialized with its tincture of high

profits, was disguised beyond recognition for many throats.

Thank Heaven, it remained for some, though few they were,

what Sterne so aptly calls it a "bitter draught."

These persons loved not their country less, because they

loved justice, freedom and equality more. They believed thor-

oughly in the self-evident principles of the Declaration, that all

men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable rights, that among these "are life,

liberty and the pursuit of happiness." This was, so to speak,

the official warrant for the position taken by the great majority

of them, aside from the strong natural sanction which they found

in the human breast. Most of them were religious and took

counsel of their Bibles, and had no doubt about its teachings.

The light which it gave to their believing minds was as sure

a guide as the light of the North Star for the runaway. The

conviction and practice of the friends of the fugitive seemed to

be summed up in a song sent me by my friend, Thos. H. Gray,

• 11
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.           55

 

an old-time abolitionist of Deavertown, Ohio. He says, his

daughters used to sing it "in the old slavery days, when the

Nation made it a felony to give a slice of bread or a cup of cold

water to famishing men and women fleeing from a bondage worse

than death." The last stanza gives the theme of the whole song.

It is as follows:

 

"'Tis the law of God in the human soul,

'Tis the law in the Word Divine,

It shall live while the earth in its course shall roll,

It shall live in this 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 flying slave."

Considering the derision, assaults and persecution of every

kind the friends of the fugitive had poured out upon them, the

risks they took in boldly confronting public opinion, and the

pains to evade and violate law, no one can doubt the sincerity of

their intention. Neither can one doubt their purpose to defeat

the fugitive slave laws, and the clause of the Constitution upon

which these were based. Unlike Wm. Lloyd Garrison and Wm.

Jay, with their followers, these philanthropists did not shun

"unconstitutional interference" with slavery. They believed in

the moral suasion idea, and a goodly number of them were com-

batants up to the full measure of the Garrisonian standard. But

in their labor for the slave, they acted rather on John Brown's

view; that view in his own plain language was that " Talk was

a national institution, but it did not help the slave." With Gar-

rison and Jay, they believed in immediate emancipation, with

Brown they applied the remedy frequently. Their principle of

immediate emancipation had been accepted before Garrison

enunciated it with ringing, reverberating tones in the Fall of '29.

Indeed, Garrison seems to have derived his doctrine from

one of these helpers of fugitives, Rev. John Rankin, of this State.

As proof of this statement, permit me to quote an inscription in

an autograph copy of the "Writings of Garrison," presented by

the author to Rev. Mr. Rankin. On the fly-leaf of the volume,

Mr. Garrison has written, "Rev. John Rankin, with the pro-

• 12
 

56        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

found regards and loving veneration of his anti-slavery disciple

and humble co-worker in the cause of emancipation.-Wm.

Lloyd Garrison."  This is dated "Cincinnati, April 20, 1853."

Another old fact in connection with Mr. Garrison's career,-

one which we Ohioans have a right to be proud of,-is the fact

that Benjamin Lundy, a little wiry Quaker of St. Clairsville,

Belmont county this State, was directly instrumental in enlisting

Garrison in the abolition cause in 1828, while lecturing in the

East. Filled with Rankin's idea of freedom at once for the slave,

young Mr. Garrison was sought out and supplied with the

medium for his message in the shape of the paper The Genius of

Universal Emancipation, by its editor, the Quaker Lundy. Ohio

becomes in this way the source of the anti-slavery movement of

1830 and succeeding, and her worthy citizens Rankin and Lundy,

the fathers of the new abolitionism.

This is the beginning of a renaissance of American morals.

The question of slavery which had been set at rest by the Mis-

souri compromise of 1820, needed reopening if the country was

ever to arouse from its stupor and shake off its terrible national

vice. Benjamin Lundy, as a youth of nineteen, had been

pierced to the quick at sight of slave-gangs driven in chains

through the streets of Wheeling, West Virginia. He wrote in

his diary at that time: "I heard the wail of the captive, I

felt his pang of distress, and the iron entered my soul." The

depth of his conviction is shown in his wonderful zeal for anti-

slavery work, a zeal which displayed itself in his canvass of

nineteen out of the twenty-four existing States in behalf of the

cause he advocated as lecturer, as editor, and as organizer of

numerous societies.

The voices of these men alone speak to the deaf ears of the

years from 1800-1830. The shameful silence of these decades

would have been unbroken but for them. Then Garrison heard

the call. His enlistment at once assured the quickening of the

whole country.

In the meantime, slaves were still thirsting for liberty, and

were finding relief with the secret help of a few scattered, prin-

ciple-abiding, if not law-abiding people. These were the

simon-pure abolitionists, who braved public prejudice for years,

• 13
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.          57

 

and ostracized themselves by helping the deserving negro to his

liberty. Taken together they constitute that mysterious organ-

ization known as the "Underground Railroad."*   It was the

self-imposed business of this concern "to receive, forward, con-

ceal and protect fugitives." It got its name from the hidden

methods it employed in its operations. The way the name was

received was as follows: A fugitive named Tice Davids traveled

one of the Ohio routes in 1831 from Ripley to Sandusky. The

slave set out upon his journey under unusual circumstances, no

doubt, for his master, a Kentuckian, was at his heels from the

start till the Ohio River was reached. There the master was

delayed by search for a skiff, but found one in time to keep the

runaway in sight, now swimming his best, and to land only a

few minutes later than he. His subsequent hunt failed to

secure his property, and the master was mystified. At his wits

end, he said. "That nigger must have gone off on an under-

ground road." The aptness of the title was seen at once, and

the rapid transmission of the story within and beyond the State,

soon fixed this designation on the "system."

In the nature of the case, it is difficult to tell where the

"Underground Railroad" took its rise. It is, however, prob-

able that "the first efforts towards any systematic organization

for the aid and protection of fugitive slaves" occurred "among

the Quakers in Pennsylvania." In one of the Johns Hopkins

University studies, Mr. A. C. Applegarth notes the fact that Gen-

eral Washington sought to discourage as repugnant to justice

the action of a society of Quakers in Philadelphia, in trying to

liberate a slave, who had escaped from a certain Mr. Dably, of

Alexandria. General Washington wrote under date April 12,

1786, and states that the society was "formed for such pur-

poses."+ The spirit manifest in this company was not alleviated

certainly by succeeding events in Pennsylvania. After the pas-

sage of the law of 1793, a great number of cases of kidnaping

for the purpose of enslaving free blacks roused the people in the

*Before the Thirties it was known as the "Underground Road;"

after 1835 the name naturally changed to "Underground Railroad."

+Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, Quakers in Penn., by Albert C. Apple-

garth, Ph. D.

• 14
 

58        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

State, and "their sympathies once enlisted for the colored race,

it was but a step to the aid of the fugitive negroes."+ For this

step, as we have seen, there existed precedent in the Dably case.

It is just beginning to appear how extensive the Under-

ground Railroad system was. My own researches show that its

branches ramified widely through the old free zone of our north-

ern States from New England to Iowa and Kansas. In the

southern States there were not less than four great lines of

travel to the North used by departing blacks. One was that

of the coast from Florida to the Potomac. The region through

which it ran was swampy, and more or less occupied in the in-

habitable parts by negroes who had taken refuge there. These

people were of course willing to help along their fellow-sufferers

who were working their way slowly and painfully northwards.

The second southern extension was that protected by "the

great Appalachian range and its abutting mountains, a rugged,

lonely, but comparatively safe route to freedom."

This line was one much used. Mr. Richard J. Hinton, in

his new book on "John Brown and his Men," (p. 172) tells us

that Harriet Tubman, the remarkable black woman who made

her escape unassisted from the south when a young girl, and

then gave herself to the work of fetching out others, "was a

constant user of the Appalachian route." Her people lovingly

called her " Moses," and John Brown introduced her to Wendell

Phillips by saying, " I bring you one of the best and bravest per-

sons on this continent, General Tubman, as we call her." First

and last Harriet is said to have brought out several thousand

slaves.

The valley of the Mississippi was the third great channel

for slave egress northward. It was the most westerly until

Kansas was opened to settlement.  Then the fourth route, run-

ning from the southwest slave section through Kansas, Iowa,

and northern Illinois to Chicago, was created, "a bolder way of

escape." All of the friends of the slaves were not on land.

Some of the officers of the boats engaged in the coast-wise

 

+ Fay House Monographs No. 3. Fugitive Slave 1619-1815, by

Marion Gleason McDougall.

• 15
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.         59

 

traffic between southern and New England ports, were thorough

believers in the aspirations of the blacks, and carried away slave

passengers to Newport, Providence, Boston, Portland and many

other maritime towns. Sometimes the runaway took passage

on a freight boat as a hand, or perhaps was snugly stowed away

by the colored cook and his assistants, who later in the trip saw

their protege safely landed and placed in good care. The dusky

travelers through Kentucky or western Virginia often eluded

pursuit by paddling down the tributaries of the Ohio at night in

canoes borrowed for the occasion; thus they were enabled to

land on the welcome soil of Ohio or adjacent States. If the

wayfarer was on foot, inquiry in the right quarter discovered to

him a black, or perhaps a white agent of the Underground Rail-

road ready to ferry him across the beautiful Ohio. This deliv-

ery out of bondage was accomplished in the night, as a simple

precaution. It was not an infrequent occurrence for those who

had reached the Ohio in safety, to find protection on a river

steamboat, whence they landed in a few days at Pittsburgh or

some way-station. However, the great majority of fugitives

who reached our southern border took a less circuitous but more

tedious route. They made their journey thenceforward across

country, directed or guided by friends.

A map of Ohio, which I have prepared, shows the devious

paths of fugitive travel through the State to Canada. It shows

there were certainly not less than twenty-three ports of entry for

runaways along our river front. Thirteen of these admitted the

slaves from the two hundred and seventy-five miles of Kentucky

shore on our southwest, while the other ten received those from

the one hundred and fifty miles of Virginia soil on our southeast.

From these initial depots the Ohio routes ran in zigzag lines, trend-

ing generally in a northeastern direction, linking station with

station in mysterious bond till a place of deportation was reached

on Lake Erie.

There were five such outlets along Ohio's lake frontage.

These were Toledo, Sandusky, Cleveland, Fairport Harbor (near

Painsville), and Ashtabula Harbor. Toledo and fifty miles beyond

it Detroit, were the shipping points for perhaps the oldest section

of the Road in Ohio, though by no means the longest lived.

• 16
 

60        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

Col. D. W. H. Howard, of Wauseon, Ohio, the only sur-

vivor of this branch, a gentleman over eighty years of age, thinks

its period of operation is fairly described by the years 1816 to

1835 or '40. He traces the route as follows: "I think the main

and principal route crossed the Ohio river near Northbend; thence

on as direct a line as possible (following the streams practicable)

to the upper Auglaize, and the Blanchard's fork of the Auglaize,

passing near the Shawnee village where is now the city of Wapa-

koneta, and to Ocquenesies town on the Blanchard, where is now

the village of Ottawa; thence to the Grand Rapids of the Maumee

(where the river could be easily forded most of the year), and at

the Ottawa village of Chief Kinjeino where all were friendly, and

the poor slave was treated kindly; thence by a plain trail north

to Malden, Canada."

I want to tell here an incident which Col. Howard relates,

by way of illustrating the methods used, the obstacles overcome,

and the presence of mind needed by Underground railroaders,

from the beginning to the close of the Road's activity.

Mr. Howard's story runs mainly as follows: "Ten miles

below -the Rapids at Roche Teboult * * or Standing Rock,

lived one Richardson, a Kentuckian, who made his living by

catching slaves. At one time my father, Edward Howard, was

piloting a party of slaves north, and the trail passed only three

miles west of Richardson's. * * * *  In order to avoid being

surprised by this man it was necessary to keep a close lookout;

and for greater safety the trip north from my father's was always

performed in the night. We had a whisper from an Indian

friend that this party, which we had kept concealed in the thick

swampy forest near our cabin for some time, was being watched

and would be ambushed on the way. The night they moved out

on the trail, we (I was then but a boy, but often accompanied

my father) took a circuitous route, hoping to elude pursuit.

* * * After veering to our right and re-entering the old trail,

my father left a boy to guard and bring up the rear. We had

not advanced more than three miles, when we plainly heard the

beat of horses' hoofs behind us; the guard was posted near the

trail, with orders to shoot the horse, if necessary; in a few minutes

two horsemen approached the ambuscade and in a second more,

• 17
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.         61

 

the sharp crack of a rifle echoed through the forest, and the

horse with a groan plunged to the ground. This checked the

pursuing party and gave stimulus and speed to the feet of the

fugitives. The slave-catchers were now afraid to advance, and

retreated over the trail, and the fugitives, though badly fright-

ened, were permitted to continue their march to freedom unmo-

lested."

We have seen that the line of road on which this incident

occurred was probably the oldest in Ohio. It did not long

remain the only route. The earnest teaching of Lundy and

Rankin was imparted to minds open to truth. Indeed the

Quaker settlements, scattered here and there through Ohio,

were many of them, already well grounded in abolition senti-

ments. The bands of slaves freed by conscientious or by con-

science-stricken masters and early located in sections not yet

populated by whites, and the little communities of free negroes

in different parts of the State became at once important centres

of underground enterprise. Such localities were fearless in the

defense of their visitors and sometimes induced fugitives to settle

among them. In portions of the State a goodly distance removed

from the danger along the border such persons occasionally

became the proteges of their white neighbors. When such a

relationship had arisen the conditions of a new phase of the

"Underground" system had been created. This phase seems to

have been denominated the "Subterranean Pass Way" by John

Brown. A recent biographer of Captain Brown explains this

"Pass Way" as follows: "It represented ideas and methods in

accord with and enlarging the work on the Underground Rail-

road. The essential difference was that the rescued fugitives or

runaways should be planted in or near to a northern or western

community and not brought under the British flag. One pur-

pose (in Brown's mind) was to educate northern people to defend

fugitives."

Towns and villages where Covenanters, Wesleyan Methodists

and the Free Presbyterians had churches, are found to be stations

of the Underground Road almost without exception, earlier or

later in their ante-bellum history.

Aside from the influences already hinted at, which led to the

• 18
 

62        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 4

 

propagation of lines for fugitive travel, there is, of course, the

iron-clad Ohio Fugitive-slave Law of 1823, and the cases of

arrest and kidnaping that occurred under it. Then, too, the

large strain of New England blood in the veins of our Ohio

stock must be made due allowance for. It is this element so

widely diffused over the Western Reserve that must, with the

Quaker element, be held accountable for the numerous inter-

lacing lines of that portion of the State, from Marietta to the

lake.

On the east and west sides of the State there were many

cross-line connections with Pennsylvania and Indiana routes,

respectively.

I have taken the pains to measure on a map of Ohio the

number of miles of Underground Road within our domain thus

far unearthed. An accurate statement would be from twenty-

eight hundred to three thousand miles. The most active coun-

ties in the system as shown by a table of road lengths were

Trumbull, with one hundred and fifty-three miles; Richland,

with one hundred and twenty- three; Huron and Belmont, with

one hundred and twenty each; Ashtabula and Jefferson, each

with one hundred and seventeen; Lorain, with one hundred

and eight, and Mahoning with one hundred and five. Eight or

ten counties in the northwestern corner of the State did not en-

gage in this passenger traffic. They are for the most part of too

recent date. The remaining counties, with possibly one or two

exceptions, had somewhere within their boundaries sections

longer or shorter, of this invisible, yet serviceable road. The de-

mands of secrecy were always carefully observed by those con-

nected in any way with the thoroughfare, as we have seen. It

is not strange, therefore, that records of the number of persons

who used it in securing freedom were not kept, not even in the

case of a particular branch of the road for a long enough time

to fix closely for us an estimate of the whole number rescued.

Guesses vary from forty thousand to eighty thousand. We have

pretty satisfactory evidence that the brave black guide, Harriet

Tubman, brought out several thousand, taking them through

Pennsylvania. At least one operator in Ohio, for a long time

a resident of Cincinnati, forwarded three thousand over Ohio

• 19
 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio.        63

 

and Indiana lines. I refer to the bold friend, Levi Coffin. Sev-

eral other anti-slavery workers along the Ohio River no doubt

aided between two hundred and three hundred slaves each. It

is stated on pretty good authority that one William Lambert,

who died in Detroit a few years ago, had helped not less than

thirty thousand during the thirty-three years of his devotion to

Underground operations. This seems almost incredible.  In

the present state of our knowledge it is uncertain business esti-

mating the number of those rescued from bondage by Under-

ground methods. As one unearths section after section of the

old lines, however, and learns about the faithful service of many

brave operators, one cannot avoid the conviction that the half

has not been told.

• 20