Underground Railroad Free Press
News and views on the Underground Railroad • Vol. XX, no. 112, March 2025
Published bimonthly since 2006, we bring together organizations and people interested in the historical and the contemporary Underground Railroad. Free Press is the home of Lynx, the central registry of contemporary Underground Railroad organizations and the Free Press prizes awarded annually for leadership, preservation, and the advancement of knowledge, the community's highest honors. Underground Railroad Free Press is emailed free of charge around the 15th of odd-numbered months. Reach us at http://urrfreepress.com/contact.html.
In This Issue
Students, Now You Can Practically Major in It
Adding a Zero Can Increase the Whole?
Update on Busy Cass County, Michigan
Conclusion to Tom Calarco Serial Story
The Leading "Underground Railroad" College?
Over the last 30 years or so, some colleges and universities have incorporated the Underground Railroad into their history or ethnic studies curricula and a few, often because of a single faculty member, offer research opportunities or directed study in the subject. What we were not aware of until a friend took up a new position is that her college offers a full Underground Railroad program replete with an on-site Underground Railroad site tour.
When Jean Bordewich assumed the presidency of North Carolina's Guilford College, her alma mater, in January, she had long known of the active involvement of school in the Underground Railroad. Guilford College was founded by the Quakers in 1837 as a co-educational boarding school. It was originally for Quakers but accepted non-Quaker students by 1841. Maintaining a commitment to Quaker values, Guilford evolved into serving young people of every religious affiliation and those with none.
In the 1880s, New Garden Boarding School transitioned into a four-year liberal arts college and rechartered as Guilford College in 1888. It is the oldest coeducational college in the South, with male and female faculty and graduating both men and women from the first class on.
From the college's website, " Earlier known as the New Garden Woods, approximately 200 acres are part of Guilford College’s campus and felt as a sacred place. Located within the historical Quaker Guilford College community, these woods remain a relatively stable landscape with old growth forest and at least one champion tree standing as a silent witness.
"Abolitionist Levi Coffin grew up north of the site and referred to these woods between his home and his Quaker Meeting as a place of refuge. The case of freedom seeker John Dimery’s escape and quick movement to Indiana in 1819 is the local area's earliest documented instance of Underground Railroad activity. Levi and Vestal Coffin were known leaders assisting runaways going to Indiana from 1819 to 1826. The legacy of justice continued with documented anti-slavery activists serving on the initial staff of New Garden Boarding School, which became Guilford College, when it opened in 1837. A runaway notice in the January 4, 1842 Greensborough Patriot specifically references the community. Even if the school had not been institutionally involved, the land served as a crossroad to freedom for those slipping away north to Indiana.
"The historical significance of the woods as a place of refuge has been passed down through the years. They have been intentionally protected for the past twenty-five years. The woods are located near -- but not on -- several main local roadways of the early nineteenth century and directly between the Quaker Meeting house and the Coffin family farm along a southern branch of Horse Pen Creek. Portions of these woods remained unploughed and wooded throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, giving plenty of cover created by trees and terrain in less developed areas."
Visit https://library.guilford.edu/c.php?g=656676&p=5029496 for more.
President Bordewich gets a good dose of the Underground Railroad not only at work but at home. Her husband Fergus in a Free Press prize winner and the author of the definitive history of the Underground Railroad.
When Adding a Zero Increases the Whole
In math, adding a zero to something results in that same something, a universally accepted mathematical law. Not necessarily so says prize-winning Underground Railroad researcher and Professional Land Surveyor Wendy Straight, who proposes that a rating of zero be added to the Wellman Scale. Surveyors know a lot of math so what's up here?
Developed by State University of New York Professor Emerita of History Judith Wellman more than 20 years ago, the five-point Wellman Scale rates the likelihood that an Underground Railroad claim is true. Here is her scale, which Free Press has reported on many times. The scale may be downloaded at http://urrfreepress.com/lynx.html.
About 15 years ago, Dr. Wellman and Free Press collaborated on a project to determine the frequency distribution of Wellman Scale scores of a large, pooled sample of 695 Underground Railroad site claims from New York State and Maryland. The left-hand column of the chart shows what was found. Since then, more sites have been proven but it is doubtful that the proportion of "5" scores is much beyond five percent today or will ever get much higher.
Note that nearly two-thirds of all ratings are "story present with no reason to doubt" and that another quarter have a story plus some evidence. The main value of this exercise proved to be bolstering the fact that what we know about the Underground Railroad is very heavily reliant on oral tradition—the 2, 3, and 4 ratings in the Wellman Scale.
What Straight recognizes as a problem is the "1" rating, "reason to doubt," which by default includes conclusively disproven claims. She suggests that the Wellman Scale add an additional rating of "0," disproven, to distinguish the possible from the impossible. What this addition would do to the distribution of claims is to somewhat lessen the frequencies of the other ratings.
Academic? Perhaps. But useful and more accurate. What the zero rating would also accomplish is to provide further proof that a very high proportion of claims—90 percent or more—has substance.
Straight next set out to demonstrate her proposal by examining several cases of Underground Railroad claims in the upstate New York county where she lives. Thanks to the dedication of Straight, Nicholas Gunner and others, Chautauqua County might be the nation's single most intensively researched county for Underground Railroad activity. It is now known that Chautauqua County was home to more than 1,100 anti-slavery activists between 1835 and 1860.
Following is Straight's recently published example of Wellman Scale ratings including a zero rating.
5- Confirmed
Elial T. Foote, Catherine Harris, and Eber M. Pettit are among confirmed cases of involvement in the county's Underground Railroad. Foote left volumes of correspondence, Harris granted a published interview, and Pettit wrote a published memoir.
4- Likely
A no-longer-existing house in Villenova, New York, was not rumored to have had hidden rooms or tunnels, but it was known by the owner’s granddaughters to have been an Underground Railroad station. They provided limited documentation of this to a local newspaper in the 1930s. Furthermore, several people named in the documentation are found on an anti-slavery petition filed in the Library of Congress.
3- Possible
A home in Falconer, New York, was rumored in the 19th century to have had a concealed room on the second floor. In the 20th century, it was said to have had a concealed room next to the fireplace on the first floor. The house did exist during the specified period, but there is no direct or indirect evidence of the hiding places, which would render the site’s score as Level 1. However, the owner was a friend of Dr. Elial T. Foote, who scores a Level 5 on the Wellman Scale. Foote wrote a brief biography of his friend, and these two facts would allow the friend to score a Level 3 on the Wellman Scale.
1- Questionable
(There isn't an example of a score of 2 in the article.)
In Fredonia, New York, a prominent home built in the early 1800s was remodeled several times and still exists. An arched, stone-lined recess in a basement wall was rumored to have been an Underground Railroad hiding place. This was actually a root cellar, too damp and enclosed to have provided a safe refuge for any length of time. Moreover, none of the home’s owners between 1835 and 1860 has been shown by direct or indirect evidence to have been involved in anti-slavery or Underground Railroad activity.
0-Impossible
Also in Fredonia, a home near Canadaway Creek was rumored to have had an Underground Railroad tunnel leading from house to a creek. There was no tunnel at all and the assumed entrance was actually a coal chute for feeding the home’s heating system. A second rumor involved slashed cables near the creek, said to be part of an Underground Railroad footbridge. They were actually from a 20th century footbridge, which had in turn been a replacement for a footbridge of the 1880s. The third disqualifying fact is that the house itself was not built until 1865.
Wendy Straight's adding zero to the Wellman Scale is an obvious improvement that yields a fuller picture of the Underground Railroad and highlights the perpetual mystery of trying to determine who did what in a clandestine cause two centuries back.
Back to the math, any mathematician knows that the basic number scale is not complete without the zero.
The Underground Railroad and Its Legacy in Cass County, Michigan
The article was written by Cathy LaPointe, a long-serving officer of the board of directors of the Underground Railroad Society of Cass County, Michigan. The article is based on her research in the Society's James E. Bonine House Research Library and is available at www.urscc.org. The article has been lightly edited for clarity.
The Underground Railroad Society of Cass County was the recipient of the 2022 Underground Railroad Free Press Hortense Simmons Memorial Advancement of Knowledge Prize for exemplifying what dedicated local organizations are capable of in uncovering and portraying regional Underground Railroad history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The area in and around Vandalia, Michigan, specifically Calvin, Penn, and Porter Townships, was known as “Young's Prairie” from the 1820s through the 1860s. It was in this area that many Quakers settled in the early 1830s and formed Birch Lake Meeting. They settled here to leave slave states and escape the hated practice of slavery. Some Quakers specifically settled here to become part of the Underground Railroad, the network of safe shelters called ‘stations.’ Those who operated these shelters, mostly homes, barns and other outbuildings, were known as ‘stationmasters.’ And those who took fugitive slaves, now referred to as freedom seekers, to the next station were called ‘conductors.’ Many of the Quaker families who settled in Young's Prairie moved here from Richmond, Indiana, where Levi Coffin, "president of the Underground Railroad," maintained a very active station. Quakers Josiah Osborn and sons Jefferson and Ellison, Joel East, Stephen Bogue, and Ishmael Lee established Underground Railroad stations in the early 1830s. Zachariah Shugart arrived soon after and became a stationmaster and conductor on the Underground Railroad. African American Henry Shepard settled in Vandalia, and also became a stationmaster and conductor. They took freedom seekers to the Nathan and Pamela Thomas station in Schoolcraft, and often to Battle Creek where Erastus and Sarah Hussy kept a well-known station. Isaac Bonine became a stationmaster in the late 1830s, as did William Jones, nephew of Stephen Bogue. James E. Bonine, son of Isaac, moved to Young's Prairie in 1843, married Sarah Bogue in 1844, and built their brick farmhouse in 1845. While there is no evidence that freedom seekers were sheltered in the Bonine House, there is ample evidence they were sheltered in the Bonine Carriage House built about 1850 across the street.
A large group of free Blacks started arriving in the mid 1840s, mostly from North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, and many established farms, primarily in Calvin Township. There are many free Blacks and freedom seekers on the 1850 census for Calvin, Penn and Porter townships, and over one hundred Black-owned properties on the 1860 Cass County plat map. Thriving black churches were established including Chain Lake Baptist, Mt. Zion Methodist, and Bethel AME. Chain Lake Baptist Church established its Anti-Slavery Society in 1853. It is claimed that over fifteen hundred freedom seekers were helped on their journey to Canada by Quakers, free Blacks, and other abolitionists in Young's Prairie. James E. Bonine established what came to be called Ramptown when he purchased Section 33 in 1853, inviting free Blacks and freedom seekers to clear the land in exchange for the ability to build a cabin, grow their own food, earn their own money, send their children to school, and go to church. Ramptown, named for wild leeks in the area, grew to a community of about thirty cabins, housing over one hundred people by 1860.
Most freedom seekers came to Young's Prairie from the border counties of Kentucky. In early 1847, two parties escaped and made their way to Young's Prairie on the Quaker Line of the Underground Railroad. Many stayed to work on Quaker farms, residing in cabins on the properties. Kentucky planters were incensed that “their property” was being stolen from them and sent thirteen slave catchers to bring their slaves back to Kentucky. They had the right to do this under the first federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. On August 20, raiders broke into smaller parties and captured nine freedom seekers on the Osborn, East, Shugart, Shepard and Bogue farms. They all met at O’Dell's Mill in Vandalia, where they were surrounded by Quakers, free Blacks, other abolitionists, and townspeople who said the slave catchers were not going to take the freedom seekers back to Kentucky. Violence was narrowly avoided. Since the slave catchers believed the law was on their side, they agreed to go to court in Cassopolis to let a judge settle the matter. Citizens made the five mile trip to Cassopolis on foot, on horseback and in wagons. By the time they arrived, around 9 AM, there were hundreds gathered to witness the spectacle. The slave catchers were jailed and the freedom seekers were put under guard in the local tavern for their safekeeping. The Cass County Circuit Court Commissioner was out of town so Ebenezer McIlvain, the Berrien County Commissioner, was brought in to hear the case. McIlvain was a secret abolitionist. He delayed the trial for three days allowing both sides to prepare their cases. The slave catchers posted bail. When the trial resumed, McIlvain allowed freedom seekers to testify against their masters and the slave catchers, accusing them of assault. Bogue, Shepard and others accused slave catchers of breaking and entering, and destroying their property. The slave catchers had papers proving the freedom seekers were the ‘property’ of planters but could not produce "certified" Kentucky statutes. Based on this technicality, McIlvain found for the freedom seekers and dismissed the case. The nine kidnapped freedom seekers were taken to the home of Ishmael Lee, and along with over thirty others, escaped on the Underground Railroad conducted by Zachariah Shugart, to Schoolcraft then to Battle Creek, where some stayed and the rest went on to Canada and freedom. It was one of the largest recorded escapes on the Underground Railroad. The Kentucky slave catchers went home empty-handed but sued the Osborns, Lee, Shugart, Bogue, William H. Jones, David T. Nicholson and Ebenezer McIlvain
in District Court in Detroit in 1849. This case was settled and dismissed in 1851. Perry Sanford, freedom seeker, gave his eye-witness account of the Kentucky Slave Raid to a newspaper in 1884.
The Underground Railroad continued to operate in Cass County until 1860, with Black churches and free Blacks playing a much larger role. More free Blacks continued to settle in the area, primarily Calvin Township, so that by 1860 Cass County had one of the highest Black populations in Michigan, second only to Wayne Township. Many free Black families arrived here with money or earned money working for local Quakers. They bought property, established thriving farms, and became respected members of the community. As noted, over one hundred Black-owned properties were recorded on the 1860 Cass County Plat map, a startling fact after the 1850 Enhanced Fugitive Slave Act. Booker T. Washington visited Calvin and Porter Townships in 1902 and recorded his thoughts on this group of people in "Two Generations Under Freedom." The "Calvin Township" Room in the Bonine House has much research on early Black pioneers. The Estella Lawson and Mary Anne Bonine Collections in the Bonine House Underground Railroad Library also tell the story of these brave, industrious settlers.
Over one hundred Black men from Calvin and Porter Townships volunteered to fight in the Civil War. Most joined the 102nd United States Colored Troops and fought bravely in several battles. Many are buried in Chain Lake, Mt. Zion and Bethel Cemeteries with marked graves. In the "Underground Railroad" Room in the Bonine House, there is a display that discusses the role of Black soldiers in the Civil War, and the men of the 102nd.
In 1837, Michigan ordered neighborhood schools be built, and by 1850 one-room schools were established in five districts in Cass County. On the 1850 census for Cass County, it notes children going to school, both Black and White. On the 1860 Calvin Township plat map, it shows schools throughout the township, most of them integrated. Integrated schools were also established in Porter, Penn, and Volinia Townships, a legacy of the Underground Railroad. Many free Blacks had their own farms, and many lived and worked on farms in the area. They all sent their children to local schools. Black and white children going to school together set a standard for racial harmony that continues to this day.
The story of the Underground Railroad was recorded in Cass County history books, local historians' and academic accounts, but not many other places. The Black community didn't talk about it, and the rest of the community didn't care. The local Underground Railroad was not taught in schools, and the story almost disappeared from public scrutiny. During the 2000-2010 decade, a series of events rekindled interest in various aspects of the story. The Michigan Bar Association Milestone Marker placed at the Cassopolis courthouse, resurrected the story of the 1847 Kentucky Slave Raid, and inspired Ruth Andrews to create the "Sanctuary and Deliverance" mural in downtown Cassopolis. In 2002, Western Michigan University did an archeological study that proved that Ramptown had existed and was on James E. Bonine's property. Dr. Veta Tucker then connected the Bonine House to the Underground Railroad. A community meeting took place in 2009 to determine interest in saving the Bonine House and from that meeting the Underground Railroad Society of Cass County was formed as a nonprofit corporation in June, 2010.
The Underground Railroad Society of Cass County purchased Bonine House and its carriage house in December of 2010, and the Bogue House was donated to Society in 2018 by Pleasant View Church of Christ. Brownsville School no.1 in Calvin Township was purchased by the Society in November, 2022. The Bonine House is now a community events and education center, and the Carriage House an Underground Railroad site and community farm museum. The Bogue House allows visitors to experience part of the Kentucky Raid, and the attic where freedom seekers were hidden. All are open for tours June through September. Brownsville School, integrated from its opening about1840 until it closed in 1957, will be preserved as an original structure, embodying the legacy of the Underground Railroad in Calvin Township. Evidence supports Brownsville School as first and longest integrated public school in Michigan and perhaps in the country.
The Underground Railroad Society of Cass County continues to fulfill its mission of researching and educating the public about the Underground Railroad in Cass County with its comprehensive website, urscc.org, an Underground Railroad site, self-guided driving tour around Vandalia, annual events, the student Underground Railroad Wax Museum, Underground Railroad Days festival, and Christmas at the Bonine House. The other part of the mission, restoring the Bonine House, Carriage House, Bogue House and Brownsville School as focal points for telling this story, is ongoing. The Society has an active board of directors and docent group, and over four hundred members. It has received local, state and national grants, as well as honors and awards. Local Underground Railroad sites are well represented in the National Parks Service's Network to Freedom program, and National Register of Historic Places. The Underground Railroad Society of Cass County has a track record that it is proud of and appreciates your support to keep telling this amazing story that transcends time and resonates with everyone.
All's Well that Ends Well
The most recent edition of Free Press featured the first part of a serialized story written by Underground Railroad author and blogger Tom Calarco. This article is the conclusion of the story. It may also be found at https://substack.com/@tomcalwriter.
"The previous part of the story left off with the following.
When Peter Still returned to Philadelphia, his story of life as a slave and finding his long lost family, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, was published in the Pennsylvania Freeman. To his surprise, a man contacted the antislavery office and said he wanted to help Peter bring his family out of slavery. His only request was to be paid for his expenses. His name was Seth Concklin."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After Seth Concklin left on his mission, Peter Still went to the home of his family in Burlington, New Jersey, awaiting the outcome. It was a restless two months before they heard from Concklin. A letter to William Still in Philadelphia: Good news. They had made it safely into Indiana and were 30 miles north of the Ohio River in Princeton.
He hurried to Philadelphia to await their hopeful arrival. But the day after he arrived, his hopes came crashing down. His sister had received news that they had been arrested.
Peter was devastated. Not long after, the news of Concklin’s demise came in a letter from Levi Coffin. What worried Peter even more was the punishment his family would face, flogging, shackles, or worse, as he had witnessed what happened to other slaves caught attempting to escape
In fact, his sons were flogged by the overseer, as was Vina but by McKiernan who applying the whip so gently it did not even break the skin. Only his younger daughter, Catherine, escaped it. Peter knew none of this when he headed to Cincinnati to ask his former master to contact McKiernan and inquire about purchasing them.
Unfortunately, Friedman was away. However, the anti-slavery society also provided him with a letter of introduction to Levi Coffin. He helped Peter fashion a letter to Lewis Thornton of Tuscumbia, a former teacher and attorney, for whom Peter had done some jobs, to ask him to negotiate the purchase.
He waited in Cincinnati for three weeks but there was no response so he returned to New Jersey where he found work as a servant for the Buckman family, whose matron and daughters taught him to read. After a few months, a letter came from McKiernan, who said he would sell them for $5,000 and no less (today about $190,000).
Peter could not possibly afford this. It was the same problem they faced before Seth Concklin’s tragic attempt. But Peter was persistent and insistent, hoping that someday he would find a way.
During the next year and a half, he landed a position as an assistant for a local judge and considered his options. Finally, he decided on a course of action. He would go on the road and make an appeal to bring his family out of slavery. He would do this until he had raised the entire amount.
He started out from Philadelphia with letters of introduction from his employers and Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society director, J. Miller McKim, to give to leading businessmen, abolitionists, and ministers. For the next two years he traveled from city to city, in New England and New York, speaking to abolitionist groups, church congregations, and individuals. He met such abolitionist notables as Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and Gerrit Smith. All made contributions. Finally, in October 1854, after twenty-three months of outreach, he met his goal. He was prepared to buy his family.
Much had happened to Peter’s family in the intervening three years. McKiernan had coaxed son Peter into marrying one of his slaves, Susanna. It wasn’t difficult because she was said to be very beautiful and it was known that Peter was in love with her. The couple had two sons, one who had died, as did Susanna. Otherwise, there were no more incidents and they returned to their former chores.
When Peter’s family heard the rumors that he had purchased them, they were incredulous. They were astounded that he would have the money to set them free. John Simpson, a merchant in Florence, Alabama, handled the transaction. But Peter’s baby boy was not part of it. McKiernan demanded an additional payment but Peter Jr. could not afford it.
During the Christmas season in 1854, they were sent from Florence on a boat to Cincinnati without Peter’s infant grandson. It was a bittersweet two-week journey that seemed much longer because of the cold weather.
Finally, though they had suffered much, they were together again. Peter and Vina remarried in a church, and his daughter went to Philadelphia to live with brother William to attend school for the first time in her life. Levin and Peter Jr got jobs, and Peter and his wife bought ten acres of farmland near Burlington, New Jersey, and began selling vegetables.
Certainly, this joyful and tragic story is remarkable, but in relation to the Underground Railroad, it led to something even more memorable. It was because of his reunion with his long lost brother that William Still, who already had witnessed the remarkable resurrection of Henry “Box” Brown and assisted with the escape of William and Ellen Craft, began compiling the narratives of those fugitives slaves who were sent along the Underground Railroad to his office. He reasoned that there may be other families who had been separated because of slavery and his records might help reunite them.
These records included correspondence between Still and Underground Railroad conductors he worked with; information he collected from interviews with those he assisted, including their name (including aliases), age, height, color, the name of their master, where they had lived, family information and personal history. He also recorded their experiences under slavery, their reasons for fleeing, and the details of their escape.
Among the many important Underground Railroad conductors who worked with Still were Thomas Garrett, William Whipper, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Jermaine Loguen, and Samuel May.
Sidney Howard Gay, a close associate of William Lloyd Garrison, and editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard in New York City for 14 years, may have been his most frequent collaborator, based on a two-year journal, Record of Fugitives that Gay kept, similar to Still’s Journal-C. The Record consists of two books: Book One spanning the period from January 21, 1855 to March 27, 1856, and Book Two spanning the period from March 28, 1856 to November 10, 1856. Approximately 99 fugitive slaves were listed in Book One and 107 in Book Two. Of this entire total, 115 were forwarded by William Still, who supplied detailed narratives of 67 in his book (See Appendix at conclusion)
Still also aided the escape of William Parker and those involved in the dramatic Christiana Riot near the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland in 1851.
In 1855, Still journeyed to Canada to monitor the progress of those he aided, and in 1859 following John Brown’s capture at Harpers Ferry, Brown’s wife stayed for a time at his home.
His work expanded to other areas of social improvement for blacks. In 1859, he protested racial discrimination on the Philadelphia railroad cars in a letter to a local newspaper. It was the beginning of an eight-year campaign that led to a state law prohibiting this. After the Civil War, he served on the Freedman’s Aid Commission, helped organized a YMCA for black youths, and was involved in the management of homes for destitute children and the aged.
In business, Still was no less successful. It was altogether fitting for a man who devoted his life to serving others. During the period of his anti-slavery work, Still began dabbling in real estate, and when he left his position with the Vigilance Committee in 1861, he opened a store selling new and used stoves. He later went into the coal business, which made him quite wealthy.
But his work on the Underground Railroad, chronicled in his book, The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, Narrating the Hardships, Hair-breadth Escapes and Death Struggle of the Slaves in their Efforts for Freedom by Themselves and Others, or Witnessed by the Author Together with Sketches of Some of the Largest Stockholders and Most Liberal Aiders and Advisers of the Road, was most his important achievement in terms of his place in history. In addition to the records of the fugitive slaves and Underground Railroad correspondence he preserved, he included excerpts from newspapers. legal documents, and biographical sketches, both white and black. The purpose of the book was to “encourage the race in efforts of self-elevation” and “serve as additional testimony to the intellectual capacity of his race.” His book is a must read for all those interested in the Underground Railroad.
Peter Still died in 1868 at his farm in New Jersey.