USA > Indiana > Wayne County > Richmond > Memoirs of Wayne County and the city of Richmond, Indiana; from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Wayne County, Volume I Pt. 1 > Part 17
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There were still some in the South who held that slavery was wrong and felt justified in helping the slaves to get away from their bondage. It was usually the most intelligent class of slaves that wished their freedom. The method adopted was to wait for a favorable opportunity, then at dark slip away and get as far as possible before the dawn. They had to be very cautious in choos- ing a hiding place for the day. While south of the Ohio river. thickets, cornfields, ravines, and such served as the best hiding places ; but usually when north of the Ohio they were able to find either colored or white families who were friendly toward them. and who were able to direct them on to some other friendly family.
Siebert's "History of the Underground Railroad" contains a map with red lines indicating the routes traveled by the fugitive slaves. There is simply a net work of these lines, but the only ones that concern us at present are those leading into and out of Nen - port. Three lines converged at Levi Coffin's house. There was one from Cincinnati, one from Madison, Ind., and one from Jeffer- sonville, Ind. "The roads were always in running order, the con- nections were always good, the conductors active and zealous, and there was no lack of passengers;" and almost every week brought some of them. A light tap at the door almost any time of night "was the signal announcing the arrival of a train of the Under- ground Railroad, for the locomotive did not whistle nor make any unnecessary noise." A train was made up of one or more of the covered wagons used in those days in traveling. Since there was a continuous stream of immigration from the South to the North, transportation in this way was very safe and easy. The number varied from two or three to seventeen. Aunt Katie, as they called Levi Coffin's wife, always got up and prepared food and beds for them, no matter what time of night it was. The Coffins continued this work all the time they lived at Newport, which was about twenty years. The annual average was more than 100. Generally the fugitive slaves were destitute of clothing and often barefooted. Clothing had to be collected and money raised to buy shoes and to purchase goods to make clothing for the women and children. The length of time that the fugitive slaves remained at Newport depended upon the danger in which they were. If hotly pursued they were hurried on, and if not some remained two or three months. The method of hiding through the day and traveling at night was in use long before it was given a name.
The name "Underground Railroad" is very misleading. Many seem to have the idea that there were secret passages under the
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ground, but this was not the case. John Wright Johnson, a nephew of Levi Coffin, gives the following circumstance as the origin of the name, "Underground Railroad": Seventeen slaves, valued at $1,000 each, escaped from the South and had gotten as far north as William Beard's, in Union county, Indiana. William brought them on to Levi Coffin's. Knowing that they were valuable slaves and that their masters would soon be on the track of them, Levi sent them as promptly as possible to Canada, via Adrian and De- troit, Mich. There were fifteen on the hunt of them. When the hunters reached Richmond, Ind., they divided into three parties, putting five in each one. One party was to take the route east of Newport, i. c., the Ripley-Sandusky line ; a second leading through Newport, and a third going through Economy, Cabin Creek, Mun- cie and on north. John Wright Johnson said they were to meet at Detroit, but in his book Levi Coffin says Winchester. However, when they returned to Richmond and were comparing notes, so to speak, the party passing through Newport were the only ones who had gotten any clue of the runaways. While in Newport they pretended to be hunting fine horses and cattle. One day one of them asked a little boy, whom they had met on the street, if he had seen anything of some runaway slaves? He answered that there had been seventeen at Levi Coffin's, but that was all they were able to find out about them. After relating their experience, one of the Newport party said he did not see what had become of them, but he believed they had been sent on by an underground railroad, and that Levi Coffin must be president of the road. This expression was overheard by a bystander and then published in the papers. Ever afterwards, Levi Coffin was known as the presi- dent of the Underground Railroad. It is said of him that while at Newport and Cincinnati, over 3,000 fugitive slaves were under his protection, and none were ever captured while under his care, al- though frequently the slaves and masters were in Newport at the same time.
Space will permit the insertion of only a few of the many, many interesting stories that were told of the escape and struggle of those poor fugitive slaves for freedom. All are familiar with the book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but probably all are not familiar with the fact that the good Simeon and Rachel Holliday, spoken of in Chapter XIII, were Levi and Catherine Coffin, and that Eliza and her little boy spent two weeks with them at Newport. Eliza's home. it is understood, was about twenty or thirty miles south of Ripley, Ohio. Her master was very kind to her, but had gotten
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into financial difficulties and was going to sell her little son, two years old. The mother, having lost her other two children, could not bear the thought of parting with this one. She decided to risk her chance of escape. When she reached the Ohio river she found the ice was melting and went back to a house that was a short distance from the bank. Later she saw the master close on her track. She rushed to the river bank, stepped on a large block of slowly floating ice, and went from block to block, often sinking almost out of sight ; but she preferred death in this way to parting with her child. After some time of desperate struggling she suc- ceeded in reaching the northern bank with her child; both mother and child were soaked with the ice cold water and nearly frozen. She was assisted up the bank by William LaceyI and directed to the "white house on the hill," where she was well cared for and later sent to Newport, thence on to Canada. Eliza reached the land of freedom in safety, and some years later was visited by Levi and Aunt Katie. We must remember that the Ohio was not bridged then, as now, and that each hour the river was becoming more dangerous, which prevented the master from making further advance.
Another story is that of two colored girls who ran away from their master and succeeded in getting as far north as their grand- mother's, at Cabin Creek, about twenty miles northwest of Foun- tain City. There were many colored people in this settlement. They had some sort of signal to give when any one was in need of help. The grandmother lived in a small cabin, having only one door. When the master and guides2 were seen coming, the signal was given and in a short time a great crowd, mostly black, had gathered at the grandmother's cabin. The uncle of the girls was fairly well educated, and when the master presented his search warrant,3 he (the uncle) picked every possible flaw he could imagine in it, taking up as much time doing so as he possibly could. Finally he told the master if he would give the girls a fair trial at Winchester, Ind., he might search the house. While the uncle was carrying out his part the grandmother was standing in the door with a very sharp corn cutter in her hand, threatening the life of the first stranger who crossed her threshold. In the mean- while several colored people had been passing in and out of the
1. William Lacey was a brother of Maj. M. M. Lacey, of Fountain City.
2. The master usually hired guides who were pro-slavery men.
3. Each master must have a search warrant and be able to prove his so-called property.
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cabin. Many of the outsiders expected to hear the screams and pleadings of the girls when the master entered, but none were to be heard, for there were no girls within. The master was even more bewildered than the crowd. The girls had put on boys' clothes and slouch hats, passed out of the door by their master, gone into a nearby thicket, mounted swift horses, and were taken in hot haste to Newport. It was a hard journey and the girls were very tired, for they had been closely pursued. When they reached Levi Coffin's, Aunt Katie conceived the idea of concealing them in one of her beds. They were placed between the straw and feather ticks and the bed was made up as usual. The thought of how they had evaded their master, and that of being made up in the bed, set them to giggling and Aunt Katie had to separate them. At first they were placed in the south room, upstairs.
In the summer of 1907 a visit was made with John Wright Johnson to the old Levi Coffin home, known as the grand central station of the Underground Railroad. There was but one hiding place in this house, that being in the garret, off the upstairs room, over the dining room. The front part of the house is two-stories, with gables to the north and south. There is an east wing, the north side of which is two-stories, but sloping down to one on the south side. In this wing was the basement kitchen, with a large fireplace in the east end and a milk room off to the south, where there was an everflowing fountain. Above this is the dining room, where several hundred fugitive slaves were fed at different times. There is a stairway at the west end of this room leading to the one above, which was always known as the hired girl's room. Since they usually kept two or more hired girls there were necessarily two beds in the room. This is the room with the shed roof. There was a south partition in this room at the place where the roof was about three or four feet from the floor. There is a small door in this partition, but the bed the farthest to the west stood with the head against this small door, completely hiding it from view. When it was necessary to put the slaves in hiding they often resorted to this place. The bed was pulled away and the door was opened, but the fugitives had to stoop to enter. However, they were per- fectly willing to do so, and the door was then closed and the bed put to its proper place. This house stands at the southeast corner of North Main and what was then Mill street. There is another house at Fountain City, then old Newport, which at times also served as a station. This one is across the creek east, now the El- wood Boren home. This house has been changed somewhat. The
R
HOTEL
837
MARIUS Prop
Under Ground Bulgar Hotel. Fountcon Gier Ind
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THE LEVI COFFIN HOUSE AT FOUNTAIN CITY.
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west part of the two stories is new and in its place was a one-story kitchen, a large attic above with a roof shedding to the west. In the southwest corner, on the second floor of the old part, is a closet under a stairway leading to the attic above. This closet is ceiled, and in the west wall is a door which to the causal observer would escape notice. This door leads into the attic above the one-story kitchen. This was the William (or "Billy" as they called him) Hough home during anti-slavery times. Levi Coffin spoke of it as a "noted stopping place on the Underground Railroad." The fol- lowing is taken from a paper written by Dr. O. N. Buff, in 1905, entitled "The Unnamed Anti-Slavery Heroes of Old Newport":
"His (William Hough's) daughter, Mary H. Goggard, late of Muncie, speaks of the time when a number of Kentuckians came with a search warrant to search her father's house. 'It was a bright, moonlight night,' she says, 'and they could be seen very plainly. The man with the search warrant read it aloud. We lis- tened and heard father say, "Now I tell thee, thee will not find thy darkey, for he is not in my house, but thee may look all thee wants to." So then, brother Daniel went with the old man all over the house, carrying the light. When they came to the attic over the old kitchen, my brother opened the little attic door and said, "Here is where we keep our runaway darkies, but there is none there to- night." Then the old gentleman put his head in and looked all round. When they came to our bed room door he was going to come in, but brother Daniel said, "This is my mother's bed room, you cannot go in there," and the old man replied: "Maybe he is under the old lady's bed." This was the last of the search warrant and father again said to him: "Didn't I tell thee he was not there."' Mrs. Goddard says they were in search at this time of the famous Louis Talbert, the slave who escaped from the South and afterwards made a number of trips back to the South and piloted many from the land of bondage to freedom."
Later he was captured at Indianapolis, while on his way back to lead others from bondage. His old master was glad to capture him and declared he would make an example of him, for, he said "Talbert had led away $37,000 worth of slave property." However, he let him off by selling him farther south, since his mistress had pleaded so earnestly for him. "On the way down the Mississippi he leaped from the boat and made his escape in the darkness, and after many trials and hardships again came in the night to William Hough's." They never heard from him but once afterwards, and therefore came to the conclusion that he had been caught and either killed or sold.
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Daniel Hough, a son of William Ilough, says, in a letter writ- ten in 1874: "One time I conducted, on a very rainy day, sixteen runaway slaves to Winchester and out to William Rinchard's." Mrs. Goddard says she remembers the old slave woman who slept with the hogs to keep from freezing and later came to her father's house for aid.
Major Lacey, in a paper entitled "The Underground Railroad," says Richard Haworth and Stephen Gardner, of Union county, came to William Hough's one morning just before daybreak with twenty-one fugitive slaves. They found William's house full of the same kind of tourists and were directed to Benjamin Thomas's house, a mile east of the town, and the following night were for- warded to John and Levi Bond's near Farmland, Randolph county, which was the next station. The following are of Mr. Lacey's boy- hood experience : It was one day, in 1843, when he was playing in the barn on the hay, that he became frightened. Once, when he jumped, he lit upon a mass of moving hay, under which he found a number of black faces and shining eyes. It was then that his mother took him into her confidence and related to him the awful- ness of slavery, and with it gave him the injunction to keep quiet and tell no one at any time about the fugitive slaves who might chance to come, and especially to beware of strangers who might by chance be passing. This same day lie was brought to the test. While playing along the road some strange men came riding by. They tarried awhile and asked him some questions, one of which was whether he had seen any "niggers" up that way. When one of the men noticed that he hestitated he pulled out a roll of bills and offered him $100 if he would tell them about the "niggers." But he remembered his mother's warning and finally they passed on. Afterward he found out that one of the negroes who had been in the hay was viewing the scene from a crack in the barn and recognized one of the men as his master. Much cooking had been going on in the house that day, and at nightfall the covered wagon was made ready and fourteen negroes were safely transported to Levi Bond's, at Cabin Creek.
Another experience was that of the coming of four men, a woman and an infant. The wife and mother, who was much whiter than the husband and father, who was only half colored, had over- heard her master talking. He was going to sell her husband be- cause he was too intelligent. She told her husband of their condi- tion, so they, with the child and three men, made ready to escape. They were hotly pursued, but hid in the thicket about 400 rods
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from the house' and escaped being captured. It seemed strange to the Lacey family that the little one was never heard to cry, but it seemed to understand.
George Unthank2 tells of his father keeping a store in New- port and how the children were cautioned to keep perfectly quiet about the runaway slaves they kept. He tells of one time when a colored woman was concealed in the cellar. "The word came that the crowd was after her. Some one rapped on the window and said she must be hidden. The crowd was there immediately. She was brought up from the cellar under a feather bed and put in bed with mother. While the house was being searched mother could hear her praying to herself, 'O Lord have mercy, O Lord don't let them get me.' The crowd did not find her and she escaped to Canada. She came back and was married in Ohio. Once she came on horseback to see mother. Her name was 'Aunt Mellie.'"
It must be remembered that not all the people of Newport were Abolitionists, and when a load of slaves was brought to the town or neighborhood it was kept very quiet, except to those most inter- ested. There were also many who believed in helping the slaves to freedom, and they would help haul, feed and clothe them, but were afraid to conceal them in their homes. Besides those already mentioned in giving special aid to the slaves were Dr. Henry Way, old "Billy Bush" (colored), Harvey Davis, Robert Green, Samuel Clark, Harmon Clark, William R. Williams, Robert Bailey, and many others.
All who were the driving force in the anti-slavery cause be- lieved in an unconditional emancipation. There were others who believed in freeing the slaves by the colonization method. These two opinions were apparent for years and each became stronger as time went on, until finally a clash came. In 1842 the "Meeting for Sufferings,"3 in the Indiana Yearly Meeting, held at Richmond, re- ported to the Yearly Meeting that Charles Osborn, Jacob Graves, William Lock and Benjamin Stanton, members of the "Meetings for Sufferings," were no longer qualified for service in that body. The Yearly Meeting then removed them from this body, which was very humiliating to those removed and to those in sympathy with them. The anti-slavery faction immediately proceeded to
1. Mr. Lacey's home was about two miles north of Newport.
2. Taken from a paper written by Prof. Walter S. Davis, of the Rich- mond High School, 1902, for the Wayne County Historical Society.
3. For explanation of the term "Meeting for Suffering," see Permanent Board, in the new Discipline.
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hold a conference in the Yearly Meeting House at the close of that session, which was near the close of the Yearly Meeting. They were ordered to disband or leave the house. Here they quickly de- cided to adjourn to meet at 9 o'clock next morning at Newport. Only those who were present ever realized what a meeting that first one was at Newport. Their feelings were those of disgrace and shame and yet those of joy and peace, because they had done what they felt was their duty. They were not able now to come to any definite decision as to what action they would take, i. c., whether they should separate from the Yearly Meeting or give up the work that lay so close to their hearts. They adjourned to meet early the next year for further decision. This meeting took the form of a convention and assembled Second month, 6th, 1843, with Henry Il. Way appointed to serve as clerk. "After a free and full expression of sentiment on the subject of the call for Con- vention," a committee was appointed "to take the whole subject, in all its bearings, under solid consideration and report the result of their deliberations to a later sitting of this convention." They then adjourned to meet the next day at 10 o'clock. The following is a report of this committee:
"The committee appointed yesterday to take into consideration the subject for which this convention was called reports that, after mature and solid deliberation, we agree in judgment that it would be right for this convention not to proceed to recognize Indiana Yearly Meeting on the true principles of the Society of Friends; that a committee be appointed to afford such assistance as they may be enabled to give, in reorganizing and maintaining Quarterly, Monthly and Preparative Meetings; that a time and place be ap- pointed to hold a Yearly Meeting, to which those subordinate meet- ings may report, and that this body take such other measures as may be necessary for the advancement of the cause of truth." Signed on behalf of the committee by Benjamin Stanton and Phebe Macy.
"The above report, after mature and deliberate consideration, was unanimously adopted with the exception of two individuals."
"Friends then proceeded to the transaction of business in the capacity of a Yearly Meeting. The following are the minutes of its proceedings," or rather their substance:
"We therefore, now, the 7th day of Second month, 1843, asso- ciate ourselves together as a religious society in the capacity of a Yearly Meeting, under the title of Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti- Slavery Friends, embracing in its limits all those meetings which
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adhere to the genuine principles of the Society residing in the dis- trict described in the discipline of the Yearly Meeting, from which we now separate ourselves." Walter Edgarton was appointed clerk and Newton Stubbs assistant.
A committee was then appointed to meet with a similiar com- mittee from the women's meeting, "to draft an instrument declara- tory of the causes which have rendered it necessary for us as mem- bers of Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends to adopt the course we are now pursuing in regard to our present organization." The fol- lowing committees were appointed :
Ist. One "to propose to a future sitting of the names of Friends to constitute a Meeting for Sufferings on the part of this Meeting."
2d. One "to propose to a future sitting the names of Friends to constitute a committee to have the care of the concerns of the people of color."
3d. Another "to appoint a suitable time and place to hold the meeting in the future."
The following quotation will give some idea as to the nature of the Declaration they drew up: "We wish it distinctly under- stood that we have adopted no new doctrine nor any new system of church government; that we claim to be in the strictest sense of the word a Society of Friends, with no other nominal distinctions in the title which we have adopted than that which is necessary to distinguish us from those from whom we have separated, and to express our adherence to our well known testimony against slav- ery."
One argument they put up was that Friends had almost done away with slavery until the invention of the cotton gin, and then they took it up again, simply for the gain they were able to receive. Friends desired that their members "abstain from mixing with others in benevolent associations," etc. Here the anti-slavery fac- tion disagreed. They said that "ever since the issuing of the ad- vices repudiating the colonization scheme there were some of their prominent members, Friends, open advocates of that institution, who appeared to have been fired with indignation at the expression of such sentiments, evidently entertaining a settled purpose to prostrate the anti-slavery cause and its advocates in the society, if ever a favorable opportunity should present."
"In ISHI the opposition became very emboldened, it was again repeated, and confined to anti-slavery societies altogether ; and even the use of our meeting houses was refused to such societies for their accommodation in the transaction of their business."
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It seems that a committee had been appointed by the Yearly Meeting to determine the propriety of using slave labor products, and when one branch of the committee reported the "impropriety and inconsistency of Friends sustaming a market for such produc- tions, they (the Yearly Meeting ) spurned it and rejected it with manifest contempt and bitterness," and prohibited the subject "being introduced again into the committee upon the allegation that it was foreign to the subject."
When Henry Clay was making his electioneering speech at Richmond, it was announced that he was going to attend one of the public sessions which was in session at that time. At this meeting he was presented with a petition which had "near 2,000 signatures appended, requesting him to give liberty to those of his fellow beings whom he had long deprived of their just and inaliena- ble rights." He said in reply: "I own about fifty slaves; I con- sider them my property. We have an idea that whatever the law secures as property is property." * He owned that slavery was an evil but, said he, "the slaves must be prepared for freedom before they can receive that great boon; they must have moral cultivation. The Society of Friends take the right stand in relation to this subject." After this a few Friends in behalf of those who desired to "retain their place and influence," took an opportunity to inform him that the Society had no hand in the getting up of this petition ; they had no unity with its presentation; it was the work of a few Abolitionists, or words to that effect. And then they told how the clerk took him in his carriage to the meeting and "took care to seat him in the most conspicuous place in the house, and then, after meeting, how they all gathered around him to shake hands." Farther on they said: "In order properly to estimate the whole of this transaction, it would be remembered that Henry Clay was only a private man." He was not an office holder, simply an office seeker, and they were under no obligation to him as a ruler.
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