Underground railroad. Archives

Beyond the River

Beyond the River, Ann Hagedorn. Simon & Schuster. (ISBN: 9780684870663) 2004.

Summary: A history of the Underground Railroad line passing through Ripley, Ohio, featuring the Rankin family and other townspeople.

One of the aspects of Ohio history of which I am most proud is our efforts to end slavery. From the advocacy of countless individuals to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the numerous lines of the Underground Railroad, moving slaves to freedom in Canada, Ohio was on the forefront of opposing this form of human bondage. We are the home of the National Underground Freedom Center in Cincinnati. When I was a campus minister at Ohio State, I learned that one of those lines ran through the land that would become Ohio State, with a stop where the main library would later be located. The newest iteration of the student union features a three-story octagonal structure at the south end, an architectural representation of a lantern, a symbol for a stop on the underground railroad. Incidentally, The Lantern is also the name of the student newspaper.

Enough for giving kudos to my home state. Or not quite, because this review features a small Ohio town on the Ohio River that played a major role in underground railroad history. Ripley, Ohio is about as far south as you can get and still be in Ohio. Early settlers to the town included a number from the South who abhorred slavery. The town sat just across from Kentucky, a slave state on the north edge of the South. In between sat the river, which would sometimes freeze over in the city or run shallow in the summer.

Ann Hagedorn writes a vivid account of the townspeople who rescued and sheltered slaves, setting them on their way to Canada through a network of stops spanning the state. In order to write this history, Hagedorn moved to Ripley. Thus, she interviewed descendants, mined local archives, and saw the lay of the land, largely unchanged.

A figure who looms large in the account is Rev. John Rankin. He was among those moving from the South, not only because he opposed slavery, but had the temerity to do so in his preaching. The call to Ripley brought him to a small church more amenable to his views. The church not only served as a platform for his views but also a springboard to abolitionist advocacy and organizing throughout the state and nationally. Hagedorn chronicles how he “walked the talk” in helping fugitive slaves on their way north. He moved out of town to build a house atop the hill with a lantern that could be seen from across the river. Slaves knew to make for the lantern. Rankin’s whole family was involved and Hagedorn chronicles how mother and sons, toting guns repelled slave hunters seeking fugitives.

With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, aiding fugitives was illegal. Hagedorn describes the ways “stationmasters” avoided detection. For example, they usually knew only the next stop so that they limited exposure of the line. Fugitives were moved quickly. Often, townspeople did not know who else was involved.

But some paid heavily. John Mahan was one. Hagedorn describes how slave hunters from Kentucky trapped him. Subsequently, officials extradited him to Kentucky. After months in jail, the jury acquitted him of criminal charge, allowing him to return home. However, legal costs, and a subsequent civil trial for damages from the slave owner led to bankruptcy.

Ripley had its own Harriet Tubman. John Parker was a former slave, who made frequent forays into Kentucky to bring slaves across the Ohio. All this was at great risk, especially when he saw wanted posters with his picture. But he never got caught.

Hagedorn shows the connections those in Ripley had to a wider network, particularly abolitionists in Cincinnati. One winter, the rescue, over melting ice of a slaved named Eliza and her children, contributed to one of the most memorable narratives in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The narrative also traces the intensification of the hostility as more slaves crossed the river that mirrored the rising hostility between north and south. This included increasing incidents of violent attacks on Ripley residents.

Hagedorn combines scrupulous scholarship with vivid storytelling. She introduces us to “everyday heroes” as well as dominant figures like John Rankin. Also, behind this story is the question of when moral conviction and the laws of the land conflict. Hagedorn draws out the “higher law” that drove people like Rankin to courageously subvert the legal structures supporting slavery. Again, the local situation illustrates how untenable it is to sustain such a conflict. Something to think about.

Strock Stone House, a reputed stop on the underground railroad. Photo courtesy of the Austintown Historical Society.

Last week, I re-posted an article on Jared Potter Kirtland, an early resident of Poland, Ohio. His home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. I mentioned that a post on the Underground Railroad would be a good idea for another time. Re-reading that article and a few requests led me to the conclusion that it is time to write that article.

The Underground Railroad was the clandestine effort of a abolitionists in Northern States to help fugitive slaves escaping the South find refuge and make their way to Canada, where they were not subject to capture by fugitive slave hunters. It was illegal to hide or aid fugitive slaves to escape, and so precautions were taken including keeping no records and partitioning the routes so that no one could reveal the whole network of escape routes. The terminology reflected the Underground Railroad analogy.

Fugitive slaves were “passengers.”
Those who helped escaping slaves find the railroad were “agents.”
Guides along the way were known as “conductors.”
Hiding places were “stations” and those who hid slaves were “station masters.”

Because Ohio was separated from the slaveholding South by the Ohio River, many slaves escaped across the Ohio River at various points from Cincinnati to Ripley, to Southpoint, Portsmouth, Gallipolis, and Marietta, and to Steubenville. One of the most famous stations was the home of Reverend John Rankin in Ripley, on a hill above the river. The Rankins were the first stop for 2200 fugitive slaves and the likely source of a story of a slave woman and her infant child who escaped across the ice floes on the Ohio River, captured memorably in Uncle Tom’s Cabin by their friend, Harriet Beecher Stowe. The state is crisscrossed with Underground Railroad routes running from the Ohio River to the Lake Erie port cities of the north where people could get boats to Canada: Toledo, Sandusky, Cleveland, Painesville, and Ashtabula among them. There are several markers on the Ohio State campus tracing the route through the campus. In recognition of this, the southeast corner of the new Ohio Union is configured architecturally in the form of a lantern, a sign of a “station,” recognizing the Underground Railroad history associated with the campus.

Compiled from *“The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom*” by Wilbur H. Siebert, Public Domain

You will notice that several of the Underground Railroad routes ran from the river up the eastern border of Ohio. One of the most famous of these that ran up through Mahoning County began at Wellsville, following what is present day Route 45 up through Salem, Ellsworth, just west of what is now Meander Reservoir up to Warren, on to North Bloomfield and up to Ashtabula. Another branched further east through Canfield, into Youngstown, up to Brookfield and Hartford and then up to Ashtabula. Some may have connected with this by crossing over from Pennsylvania by Poland (the Kirtland House), and then headed north.

In Salem, The Daniel Howell Hise home was one of the stations along the Route 45 line. The Hises were Quakers (as were many abolitionists and those involved in the Underground Railroad). Salem at that time had a high percentage of Quakers and hosted many national events. In the 1850’s, the Hises bought a Gothic Revival Farmhouse that included many hidden rooms under the house and in a nearby barn. Slaves could stay in hiding, rest, and eat until a conductor would take them to the next station.

That next station may have been in Ellsworth, a center of abolitionist activity, or in Canfield, the home of Chauncey Fowler. Fowler was a physician who provided food, clothing, and no doubt, medical care to slaves on the way to Canada. On the way home from an abolitionist meeting in Ellsworth, Fowler narrowly escaped an attack by a band of pro-slavery men. Being an abolitionist and a station master were dangerous activities.

The Strock Stone House, a bit south of Mahoning Avenue was also not far from Route 45. Francis Henry lived in the house from 1851 to 1863, and this was the likely time it was used as a station. The house was isolated and allowed fugitives and their conductor to approach unseen.

One of the conductors, from Bazetta Township, was Levi Sutliff, who possibly brought slaves to the house of Judge Leicester King whose house was along Route 45 by the Mahoning River in Warren. King was a statewide leader in anti-slavery efforts. From there, they went north to North Bloomfield, the site of slave rescue in 1823, when slaves were hidden by the residents and then protected in a hideout in Rome, about 12 miles away. The slave hunters were put up in the Tavern, where a variety of stalling tactics from “sleeping late” to the horses of the slave hunters some how turning up with a shoe missing, requiring the attentions of a blacksmith, allowing the slaves to make good their escape.

From Rome, slaves found another station in Austinburg, and then made their way to Ashtabula where they were put on boats to Canada and freedom. One interesting connection to the Youngstown area was that three nephews of Nehemiah Hubbard, Jr. (after whom Hubbard is named) settled in Ashtabula: William, Matthew, and Henry. All were heavily involved in abolitionist efforts and William’s house was the final station for many on the Underground Railroad. The house survives and is now Hubbard House Underground Railroad Museum.

The other route, from Poland, conducted slaves on to Youngstown where there was a station managed by John Loughridge, the leader of the abolitionist movement there. Slaves may have been conducted from there to Brookfield and Hartford, where Dudley Tracy was a station master and radical abolitionist.

As I noted, because this was dangerous activity, many of the “stations” were kept quiet, with no records. My hunch is that this is only a representative sample of many who were involved in the Mahoning Valley and other parts of eastern Ohio in rescuing fugitive slaves. If you know of other stations and conductors or can add to the stories here, I’d love for you to do so in the comments. There was a strong abolitionist movement throughout eastern Ohio and the Western Reserve, with many prominent people who took great risks because they believed in human equality and freedom. There is an inspiring story to be told of which this is just a small part.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!