Description: Caption reads "Opening in back porch of house, located at 408 East Sixth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, where slaves are said to have been stored awaiting shipment during slavery days. Photo by Writers' Projects. District #2. 11-12-36." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped runaway slaves escape to freedom in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere outside of the United States. White and African-American "conductors" served as guides from place to place for runaway slaves. It remains unclear when the Underground Railroad began, but members of the Society of Friends, who were also known as the Quakers, were actively assisting runaway slaves as early as the 1780s. Some people living in Ohio began to help runaways by the 1810s. Several prominent abolitionists were from Ohio and they played a vital role in the Underground Railroad. Beginning in the late 1840s, Levi Coffin, a resident of Cincinnati, helped more than three thousand slaves escape from their masters and gain their freedom in Canada. Coffin's work caused his fellow abolitionists to nickname him the "president of the Underground Railroad." In Ripley, Presbyterian minister John Rankin served as a conductor and opened his home to African Americans seeking freedom. His home stood on a three hundred-foot high hill that overlooked the Ohio River. Rankin would signal runaway slaves in Kentucky with a lantern and let them know when it was safe for them to cross the Ohio River. He provided the runaways with shelter and kept them hidden until it was safe to travel further north. John Parker, Rankin's neighbor, brought hundreds of runaway slaves across the Ohio River in a boat. These men and many other people risked their lives to assist African Americans in their flight to freedom. Once they arrived in Ohio, some runaway slaves who decided to remain in the state. They usually settled in neighborhoods with other African Americans. Many runaway slaves continued on to Canada. At least eight cities, including Ashtabula, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Huron, Lorain, and Conneaut, along Lake Erie served as starting points to transport the former slaves to freedom in Canada. Historian Wilbur Siebert believes approximately three thousand miles of Underground Railroad trails existed in Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B03F05_020_001
Subjects: Cincinnati (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.; Cincinnati (Ohio)--History; Underground Railroad--Ohio
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Caption reads "Number 408 East Sixth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. A slave station of the Underground Railway System, reputed to be 115 years old. Photo by Writers' Projects. District #12." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped runaway slaves escape to freedom in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere outside of the United States. White and African-American "conductors" served as guides from place to place for runaway slaves. It remains unclear when the Underground Railroad began, but members of the Society of Friends, who were also known as the Quakers, were actively assisting runaway slaves as early as the 1780s. Some people living in Ohio began to help runaways by the 1810s. Several prominent abolitionists were from Ohio and they played a vital role in the Underground Railroad. Beginning in the late 1840s, Levi Coffin, a resident of Cincinnati, helped more than three thousand slaves escape from their masters and gain their freedom in Canada. Coffin's work caused his fellow abolitionists to nickname him the "president of the Underground Railroad." In Ripley, Presbyterian minister John Rankin served as a conductor and opened his home to African Americans seeking freedom. His home stood on a three hundred-foot high hill that overlooked the Ohio River. Rankin would signal runaway slaves in Kentucky with a lantern and let them know when it was safe for them to cross the Ohio River. He provided the runaways with shelter and kept them hidden until it was safe to travel further north. John Parker, Rankin's neighbor, brought hundreds of runaway slaves across the Ohio River in a boat. These men and many other people risked their lives to assist African Americans in their flight to freedom. Once they arrived in Ohio, some runaway slaves who decided to remain in the state. They usually settled in neighborhoods with other African Americans. Many runaway slaves continued on to Canada. At least eight cities, including Ashtabula, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Huron, Lorain, and Conneaut, along Lake Erie served as starting points to transport the former slaves to freedom in Canada. Historian Wilbur Siebert believes approximately three thousand miles of Underground Railroad trails existed in Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B03F04_001_001
Subjects: Cincinnati (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.; Cincinnati (Ohio)--History; Underground Railroad--Ohio
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph showing a house that was used as station on the Underground Railroad. The description on the back of the photograph reads: "One of the Winder Houses north of North Lewisburg where slaves were harbored [sic]." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States or across the border in Canada. Thomas Winder, a Quaker, was an operator who helped escaped slaves in the North Lewisburg, Ohio, area along with other members of his family. Quakers were strongly opposed to slavery and offered help to slaves seeking their freedom as early as the late 1700s. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_001_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad; Abolitionists; African Americans--History; Slavery; Houses; Underground Railroad--Pennsylvania
Places: North Lewisburg (Ohio); Champaign County (Ohio)
 

Description: Map of Underground Railroad stations, showing locations of stations around Ohio as well as major routes that fugitive slaves took on their escape to freedom. From "Pathways of Progress, A Short History of Ohio" by David Bowman, 1943. The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere outside of the United States. Reportedly, people living in Ohio began to help those seeking their freedom as early as the 1810s, and many prominent abolitionists from Ohio played a vital role in the Underground Railroad. Historian Wilbur Siebert believes approximately 3,000 miles of Underground Railroad trails existed in Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04138
Subjects: Underground Railroad--Ohio; Ohio History--Slavery, Anti-Slavery and Civil Rights; Fugitive slaves--Ohio--History
Places: Ohio
 

Description: Photograph showing a house that was once used as a "station" on the Underground Railroad. The description on the back of the photograph reads: "The Alexander Doty home, one of the stations on the Underground Railroad and harbor of refuge for Udney Hyde." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States or over the border to Canada. Udney Hyde was a well-known operator on the Underground Railroad in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. While aiding escaped slave Addison White, Hyde went into hiding from federal marshals, staying for a time at this home. The home has since been torn down. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_002_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad--Ohio; Abolition; Abolitionists; African Americans--History; Houses; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century
Places: Mechanicsburg (Ohio); Champaign 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: Photograph showing a house that was once used as a "station" on the Underground Railroad. The description on the back of the photograph reads: "James Hunt home on East Sandusky Street." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere outside of the United States. White and African American "conductors" served as guides from place to place for those seeking their freedom. It remains unclear when the Underground Railroad began, but members of the Society of Friends, who were also known as the Quakers, were actively assisting fugitive slaves as early as the 1780s. Once they arrived in Ohio, some former slaves decided to remain in the state. They usually settled in neighborhoods with other African Americans. Many runaway slaves continued on to Canada. At least eight cities, including Ashtabula, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Huron, Lorain, and Conneaut, along Lake Erie served as starting points to transport the former slaves to freedom in Canada. Historian Wilbur Siebert believes approximately three thousand miles of Underground Railroad trails existed in Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_005_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad; Abolitionists; African Americans--History; Slavery; Houses; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century
Places: Mechanicsburg (Ohio); Champaign County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph showing a house that was once used as a station on the Underground Railroad. The description on the back of the photograph reads: "Another of the Winder stations in North Lewisburg." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States or across the border in Canada. Thomas Winder, a Quaker, was an operator who helped escaped slaves in the North Lewisburg area of eastern Central Ohio, along with other members of his family. Quakers were strongly opposed to slavery and offered help to slaves seeking their freedom as early as the late 1700s. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_003_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad--Ohio; Quakers; Abolitionists; African Americans--History; Houses; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century;
Places: North Lewisburg (Ohio); Champaign County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photomechanical reproduction of Levi Coffin's home that was located in Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana, and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Levi Coffin (1798-1877) and his wife Catharine (1803-1881) were reputed to have harbored more than two thousand slaves from the fall of 1826 to 1846. Coffin was even referred to as the "President of the Underground Railroad." Coffin later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he continued to offer his home as an Underground Railroad stop. The person in the photograph is not identified. The image was collected by Ohio State University professor Wilbur H. Siebert (1866-1961). Siebert began researching the Underground Railroad in the 1890s as a way to interest his students in history. On the photograph written in the left hand corner is: "MARetts Prep" Next to the figure in photograph is written: "Under Ground Railway Hotel. Fountain City Ind [Indiana]" Next to the tree in the photograph is written: "Built 1839" The sign on the building reads: "HOTEL" View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL03010
Subjects: Siebert, Wilbur Henry, 1866-1961; Coffin, Levi, 1798-1877; Underground Railroad--Indiana
Places: Fountain City (Indiana); Wayne County (Indiana)
 

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: This illustration showing fugitive slaves arriving at an Underground Railroad station appears in "From Pathways of Progress, A Short History of Ohio," published by David Bowman in 1943. The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04182
Subjects: Underground Railroad--Ohio; Ohio History--Slavery, Anti-Slavery and Civil Rights
Places: Ohio
 

Description: The description on the back of the photograph reads: "Aaron L. Benedict's house, an underground station in Alum Creek Settlement." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in the north. Aaron Benedict was a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Alum Creek. Ohio. He was born on January 21, 1817, in Alum Creek, and eventually inherited his father's farm property. As a devout abolitionist, he was known for assisting fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. Slave owners eventually established a $1,000 reward for Benedict's capture. On several occasions, Benedict hired attorneys for accused fugitive slaves. He once convinced a slave owner to free a slave mother and her four children, whom the owner had recaptured near Alum Creek. Benedict threatened the owner with arrest, convincing him to leave the five fugitives alone. Benedict also helped another fugitive, John Green, to free family members still held in bondage in Kentucky. Unfortunately for Green, slave catchers eventually seized his wife and children and returned them to slavery despite Benedict's efforts. Following the American Civil War, Benedict began to raise and breed bees. He became widely respected for his bee research and eventually moved to Kelleys Island on Lake Erie, where he opened an apiary. Benedict died on February 17, 1905. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_006_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad--Ohio; Abolition; Abolitionists; African Americans--History; Houses; Antislavery movements--Ohio--History--19th century
Places: Delaware (Ohio); Morrow County (Ohio)