Bound for Canaan (79 page)

black newspapers, self-improvement societies:
Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
, pp. 101–4.

“more than a figure of speech”:
Ripley,
The Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 3, p. 24.

“All the other speakers seemed tame”:
McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
, p. 100.

The Douglasses, who:
Ibid., pp. 93–94.

In the Spring of 1843:
Douglass, “Life and Times,” pp. 665–75; Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 168; Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, pp. 41, 62, 100–3.

“This town is one”: Richmond Jeffersonian
, reprinted in
Free Labor Advocate
, January 8, 1842.

 
Palladium
sneeringly blamed: Richmond Palladium
, January 1, 1931.

even racism among Quakers:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 230–33; Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
, p. 72; Hamm,
Antislavery Movement in Henry County
, pp. 8, 12, 22; McKivigan,
War Against Proslavery Religion,
pp. 44, 105–6; Barbour et al., eds.,
Quaker Crosscurrents
, pp. 185–88; Child,
Isaac T. Hopper
, pp. 389–97.

when Frederick Douglass arrived:
Douglass, “Life and Times,” pp. 675–76; McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
, pp. 109–12; Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, p. 129; Coffin,
Reminiscences,
p. 229; Charles Remond, letter to Isaac and Amy Post, September 27, 1843, in Ripley,
The Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 3, pp. 416–17.

routes were always in flux:
Siebert,
Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad
, pp. 47, 224, 180–81, 230; Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 119; R. S. Miller, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, April 4, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Joseph Patterson, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 19, 1895, Siebert Collection; Isaac Beck, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection; Hamm,
Antislavery Movement in Henry County
, pp. 25, 47–48; Charles M. Cummings,
Yankee Quaker, Confedederate General: The Curious Career of Bushrod Rust Johnson
(Rutherford, N. J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1971), pp. 56–59.

At a reunion: Richmond Palladium
, January 1, 1931; Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 113; Huff, “Reminiscence of Newport and Fountain City.”
231 By comparison:
Diane Perrine Coon, interview with the author, Madison, Ind., October 17, 2002; Siebert, “Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad,” pp.
226–27; Milton Kennedy, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, March 10, 1896, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

David Putnam, an underground man:
Siebert,
Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom
, pp. 55–56.

Fugitives remained with station masters:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 113, 144, 153, 158, 168; Huff, “Reminiscence of Newport and Fountain City.”

For instance, John Todd:
Coon, “Great Escapes,” p. 4; Siebert,
Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad
, pp. 50–51, 63, 105, 141, 202.

Although railroads, steamships:
Coon, “Great Escapes,” p. 5; “Token Used on the Underground Railroad in Indiana,”
Toledo Blade
, undated, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Joseph Patterson, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 19, 1895, Siebert Collection.

Coffin tried to keep a team harnessed:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 111–13; R. C. Hansell, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, undated, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; I. E. G. Naylor, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, March 27, 1896, Siebert Collection; Joseph Patterson, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 19, 1895, Siebert Collection.

 
a female fugitive was dressed: Siebert,
Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad
, pp. 141, 158.

“They were very willing:
Coffin,
Reminiscences,
p. 168.

“It often became necessary”:
Eber Pettit,
Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad
(Westfield, N. Y.: Chautauqua Regional Press, 1999), p. 41.

Isaac Beck of Sardinia:
Isaac Beck, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

while Charles Huber:
Siebert,
Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad
, p. 63.

John H. Bond of Randolph:
Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, p. 197; James O. Bond,
Chickamauga and the Underground Railroad: A Tale of Two Grandfathers
(Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1993), pp. 75–78, 83; Coffin, “
Reminiscences
”, pp. 178–86.

his new nickname:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 190.

a brand-new language:
Hagedorn,
Beyond the River
, p. 175; Coon, “Southeastern Indiana's Underground Railroad Routes and Operations,” pp. 20, 196; Coon, “Great Escapes,” p. 5; “Old Uncle Joe Mayo,”
Marysville
(OH)
Tribune
, April 27, 1881.

The country's first practical railroad:
George Rogers Taylor,
The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860
(New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968), pp. 77 ff.; Buley,
Old Northwest
, vol. 1, pp. 510–12.

“I saw today”:
Mark McCutcheon,
Everyday Life in the 1800s
(Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 1993), pp. 70–71.

almost certainly apocryphal legend:
Siebert,
Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom
, pp. 44–45.

Quite possibly:
Elijah Pennypacker,
Phoenixville Messenger
, August 28, 1880;
Village Record
, Kimberton, Pa., February 2, 1831; Emmor Kimber and Elijah Pennypacker files, Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, Pa.; Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” pp. 194, 210–11.

By 1840, about:
Taylor,
The Transportation Revolution
, pp. 79, 346; Buley,
Old Northwest
, vol. 1, pp. 510, 513.

advised “to look around”:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 175.

“Let the ministers and churches”:
Sernett,
North Star Country
, p. 54.

“I have never approved”:
Douglass, “Narrative of the Life,” p. 85.

Coffin made his first trip:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 247–53.

C
HAPTER
12: O
UR
W
ATCHWORD
I
S ONWARD

The next morning:
Henson,
Uncle Tom's Story of His Life
, pp. 129–30.

Henson began meeting:
Ibid., pp. 140, 171.

The colonial authorities:
Levi Coffin,
Reminiscences of Levi Coffin
(Cincinnati: Western Tract Society, 1879), pp. 252–53; John McLeod, historian at Fort Malden National Historic Park, Amherstburg, Ontario, interview with the author, June 8, 2003; Doris Gaspar, “Fort Malden Historical Study” (unpublished report, Fort Malden National Historic Park, 2000), pp. 16–19, 45;
Colored American
, February 27, 1841.

Henson thrived at Colchester:
Henson,
Uncle Tom's Story
, pp. 165–67.

a grander dream was taking shape:
Ibid., pp. 140–43, 167.

Alexander Hemsley, once a slave:
Statement of Alexander Hemsley, in Benjamin Drew,
The Refugee: A Northside View of Slavery
(Reading, Pa.: Addison-Wesley, 1969), p. 25.

Nowhere in the Northern:
William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease,
Black Utopia: Negro Communal Experiments in America
(Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963), pp. 7, 10–11; Jason H. Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests: Canada West's Response to American Fugitive Slaves
(Millwood, N. Y.: Associated Faculty Press, 1985), p. 53; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 154–55; Drew,
Refugee
, pp. 242–43.

“Tell the Republicans”:
Hill,
Freedom-Seekers
, p. 67.

“Is not Upper Canada”: Colored American
, June 22, 1839.

The law was color-blind:
Hill,
Freedom Seekers
, pp. 50–51, 98, 109; Donald George Simpson,
Negroes in Ontario from Early Times to 1870
(London, Ontario: University of Western Ontario, 1971), p. 396.

In the 1820s:
Siebert,
Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom
, pp. 192, 299–300; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 149, 170–73; Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests
, pp. 37–40; Michael Power and Nancy Butler,
Slavery and Freedom in Niagara
(Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario: Niagara Historical Society, 2000), p. 52.

They were staunch supporters:
John Kevin Farrell, “The History of the Negro Community in Chatham, Ontario” (thesis, University of Ottawa, 1955), pp. 35–36, 40–41, 60–63; John McLeod, interview with the author, June 8, 2003; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 151–52; Hill,
Freedom Seekers
, pp. 118–21; John A. Collins,
Monthly Offering
, Anti-Slavery Office, 1840 (otherwise undated), pp. 51–55.

For years afterward:
Victor Lauriston,
Romantic Chatham
(Chatham, Ontario: Shepherd Printing Co., 1952), pp. 163–66.

While living as a farmer:
Henson,
Uncle Tom's Story,
pp. 145–63.

A certain free black man:
Frank H. Severance,
Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier
(Buffalo, 1899), p. 243.

“a bright and determined fellow”:
M. C. Buswell, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, January 6, 1896, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

One day in June 1841:
Eliza's return is recounted in John Rankin Jr., in his interviews with both Wilbur H. Siebert and Frank Gregg, in the Rankin Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio; Hagedorn,
Beyond the River
, pp. 213–14.

“We have no means”: Free Labor Advocate and Anti-Slavery Standard
, Newport, Ind., March 8, 1841.

Unknown numbers also crossed:
Severance,
Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier
, p. 231; George C. Bragdon, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, August 15, 1896, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio; Hildegard Graf, “The Underground Railroad in Erie County,”
Niagara Frontier
(Autumn, 1954), pp. 69–71; Rush R. Sloane, “The Underground Railroad of the Firelands” (address delivered to the Firelands Historical Society, Milan, Ohio, February 22, 1888), Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

a steamboat captain named Chapman:
Pettit,
Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad
, pp. 42–43.

relied on trusted captains and crews:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 264;
Buffalo Daily Republic
, August 19, 1854; Christopher Densmore, curator of the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, email to the author, June 7, 2004; G. T. Stewart, “The Ohio Fugitive Slave Law,”
Firelands Pioneer
, July, 1888; Professor Hull, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, April 2, 1907, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Horace Ford, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert (undated), Siebert Collection; John McLeod, interview with the author, June 8, 2003; Severance,
Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier
, p. 246.

the lake crossing:
Taylor,
Transportation Revolution
, p. 62; Louis C. Hunter,
Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technical History
(New York: Dover, 1977), pp. 390–91, 400, 271, 278–82; Kathy Warnes, “Across the Lakes to
Liberty: The Liquid Underground Railroad,”
Inland Seas: Quarterly Journal of the Great Lakes Historical Society
56, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 284–93.

the busiest was Detroit:
Anna B. Jameson,
Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada
(Toronto: Thorn Press, 1943), pp. 138–42; Brian Leigh Dunnigan,
Frontier Metropolis
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001); David Lee Poremba,
Detroit: A Motor City History
(Detroit: Arcadia, 2001), pp. 65–67; Arthur M. Woodford,
This Is Detroit 1701–2001
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), pp. 55–65.