Description: Salmon Portland Chase was a prominent attorney and politician during the nineteenth century. He was born on January 13, 1808, in Cornish, New Hampshire. In 1829, he passed the bar exam and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to establish his own law practice. An ardent abolitionist, Chase represented many fugitive slaves trying to win their freedom. He held many political offices, including United States Senator, Governor of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury, and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Chase died in New York City on May 7, 1873. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04218
Subjects: Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873; Governors--Ohio; Abolitionists -- Ohio; Lawyers--Ohio; Ohio History--State and Local Government
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Salmon Portland Chase was a prominent attorney and politician during the nineteenth century. He was born on January 13, 1808, in Cornish, New Hampshire. In 1829, he passed the bar exam and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to establish his own law practice. An ardent abolitionist, Chase represented many fugitive slaves trying to win their freedom. He held many political offices, including United States Senator, Governor of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury, and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Chase died in New York City on May 7, 1873. This illustration appears in "Historical Collections of Ohio," published by Henry Howe in 1907. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04219
Subjects: Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873; Governors--Ohio; Abolitionists -- Ohio; Lawyers--Ohio; Ohio History--State and Local Government
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph of Salmon P. Chase, ca. 1865 - 1870. He served two, two year terms as Ohio Governor from 1856-1860. Abraham Lincoln appointed Chase Secretary of the Treasury in 1860 and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1864. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL00564
Subjects: Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873; Governors--Ohio; Abolitionists -- Ohio; Lawyers--Ohio; Ohio History--State and Local Government
Places: New York (New York)
 

Description: Engraved portrait of Salmon P. Chase created from a painting by F. B. Carpenter. He was elected governor of Ohio in 1855. He lectured on abolition, assisted in the establishment of the Free-Soil Party and served as Lincoln's secretary of the treasury. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL02841
Subjects: Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873; Governors--Ohio; Abolitionists -- Ohio; Lawyers--Ohio; Ohio History--State and Local Government
Places: Ohio
 

Description: In this photograph, Polly Jackson, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, is seated on a chair in front of steps leading to a building. She wears a patterned blouse and a long calico skirt. Her arms are folded. Jackson was a key figure in the Underground Railroad movement, and her name is listed on a local monument dedicated to her and others who risked their lives to help free the enslaved. During the 19th century, the migration of fugitives from the Deep and Upper South to the North accelerated. Many, like Polly Jackson, traveled to Ohio. It was difficult for women to defend themselves against male pursuers, and this sometimes discouraged them from running away. However, women driven to the end of their limits would flee and defend themselves in any manner that they could. According to legend, as a fugitive herself, Jackson fought off bounty hunters with a butcher knife and Kettle of boiling water. Jackson joined a community of free blacks in the settlement of Africa, Ohio, that was established near Ripley. Many of the local black residents served as conductors on the Underground Railroad. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05880
Subjects: African American women; Ohio History--Slavery, Anti-Slavery and Civil Rights; Underground Railroad--Ohio; Women abolitionists - Ohio;
Places: Ripley (Ohio); Brown County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph of the house of abolitionist John Rankin of Ripley, Ohio, as it appeared in the early twentieth century. The Rankin House, in Ripley, Ohio, was an Underground Railroad stop run by Presbyterian minister John Rankin with his wife and neighbors. The house stood on a 300-foot-high hill, known as "Liberty Hill," which overlooked the Ohio River. Rankin would signal fugitive slaves in Kentucky with a lantern or candle, letting them know when it was safe to cross the Ohio River. To access Rankin's home on top of Liberty Hill, those seeking their freedom had to climb 100 wooden steps. Rankin would provide the former slaves with sanctuary, keeping them hidden until it was safe for them to travel further north. John Rankin is believed to have provided shelter and food to as many as 2,000 fugitive slaves during his career with the Underground Railroad; according to several accounts, none of those whom Rankin helped were ever returned to slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe immortalized Rankin's efforts to help African Americans in her book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Rankin's home was the first stop in Ohio for Eliza, one of the book's main characters, as she sought freedom in the North. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL02871
Subjects: Ohio History--Slavery, Anti-Slavery and Civil Rights; Underground Railroad--Ohio; Abolitionists; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century
Places: Ripley (Ohio); Brown County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph showing Thomas L. Gray standing in front of his house that was once used as a station on the Underground Railroad. The handwritten caption at the bottom reads: "Thomas L. Gray and His House at Deavertown, Morgan County, Ohio, a station on the Underground Railroad." Born in 1815, Gray earned his living as a harness maker in Deavertown. Besides his economic pursuits, Gray was also active as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. It is believed that Gray helped as many as 500 fugitive slaves in gaining their freedom. His home served as a safe house for former slaves who had crossed the Ohio River between Marietta and Portsmouth. Upon leaving Gray's home, most fugitives then made their way to Zanesville. Gray remained an active conductor on the Underground Railroad until slavery's demise with the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. During the American Civil War, Gray also warned his neighbors of General John Hunt Morgan's approach, giving his neighbors time to hide their horses and valuables. Gray died in 1899. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_007_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad--Ohio; Abolitionists; African Americans--History; Houses; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century;
Places: Deavertown (Ohio); Morgan County (Ohio)
 

Description: Portrait of Betsey Mix Cowles (1810-1876) from the 1909 edition of Henry Howe's "Historical Collection of Ohio." She was known for her contributions to education, abolitionism, and women's rights in Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL03953
Subjects: Women--Ohio; Abolitionists; Women's rights; Cultural Ohio--Education
 

Description: The Friends Yearly Meeting House in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio. The presence of the Society of Friends (known colloquially as Quakers) in Ohio dates back over 200 years. The denomination became well-known for their strict disapproval of slavery in addition to their belief in pacifism. They were also known for their assistance of fugitive fleeing their owners in the slave states, and their respect for American Indians. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06838
Subjects: Quakers; Religion in Ohio; Abolitionists -- Ohio; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century
Places: Mount Pleasant (Ohio); Jefferson County (Ohio); Ohio
 

Description: Frances Dana Gage (1808-1884) of McConnelsville, Ohio, was an influential participant in the abolitionist, temperance and women's rights movements in Ohio in the years before the American Civil War. In spite of her work throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Gage did not see women gain significant ground in the years prior to the Civil War. After the war, when it became evident that women would not gain rights from the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments, women began to establish a number of national organizations to seek the right to vote. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04122
Subjects: Women's rights; Multicultural Ohio--Ohio Women; Temperance--History; Women abolitionists - Ohio
Places: McConnelsville (Ohio); Morgan County (Ohio)
 

Description: Harriet Beecher Stowe was a prominent abolitionist and author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, she later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she met her future husband, Calvin Stowe, a professor at Lane Theological Seminary. In 1852, she published "Uncle Tom's Cabin," an anti-slavery novel that depicted the harsh realities of slavery and helped fuel the abolitionist cause in the United States. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04184
Subjects: Authors, American--Ohio; Abolitionists; Slavery; Cultural Ohio--Literary Ohio; Lane Theological Seminary (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist and author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, she later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she met her future husband, Calvin Stowe, a professor at Lane Theological Seminary. In 1852, she published "Uncle Tom's Cabin," an anti-slavery novel which depicted the harsh realities of slavery and helped fuel the abolitionist cause in the United States. This illustration appears in "Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio," published in 1907. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04185
Subjects: Authors, American--Ohio; Abolitionists; Slavery; Cultural Ohio--Literary Ohio; Lane Theological Seminary (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)