Ashland Memories: Underground Railroad 'tracks' crossed Ashland County
While the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt directly by God, enslaved people since have achieved freedom through their own actions and the aid of thousands of others who believed that slavery was wrong.
The Underground Railroad functioned in Ohio from about 1815 to 1861. African Americans who were enslaved in slaveholding states escaped across the Ohio River. Some settled in Ohio, where many played key roles in the Underground Railroad, while others traveled all the way to Canada.
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The Underground Railroad did not run on iron tracks. Instead, a diffuse network of individuals, because they opposed slavery, took concrete action to help fugitives escape. So-called “conductors” led refugees from one “station” to another, under cover of darkness or secrecy, and provided food and supplies along the way. From one secret stop to the next, enslaved people made their way to freedom.
Much changed with passage of Fugitive Slave Law
The atmosphere changed after 1850 with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. That law provided that slave owners or their representatives who had apprehended an escapee could present evidence of ownership before a US court officer and reclaim their “property.” Anyone hindering this process, hiding a fugitive, or helping them in any way was liable to a fine of up to a thousand dollars and imprisonment of six months.
Despite the risks, many conductors of all races continued their work. If anything, the Fugitive Slave Law only served to increase the determination of those involved in the Underground Railroad.
Wilbur Henry Siebert published a book in 1951, called "The Mysteries of Ohio’s Underground Railroads." Siebert began teaching history at the Ohio State University as a young man in 1891. He introduced the Underground Railroad to better engage his bored students, since it was a “mysterious and romantic” subject.
Discovering that many of the parents and grandparents of his students had been involved in anti-slavery activity, Siebert began a lifelong research project. He sent out questionnaires and collected first-person histories from across Ohio.
Only about five pages of Siebert’s book covered Ashland County in detail. He described several routes that crossed the county diagonally. Some came from Holmes County, through Hayesville and Savannah, before heading north to various ports along Lake Erie. Other routes ran through Loudonville, McKay, and Ashland.
History lesson on Underground Railroad in Ashland County
In 1960, Mrs. Ruth Satterfield gave a presentation on the local Underground Railroad to the Ashland County Historical Society. Satterfield started her research with knowledge of five or six houses, but through her research she unearthed forty-four more “stations” in the area. Unlike Siebert, her sources were a generation or two removed from actual events. They passed on stories they had heard, but it’s unclear how reliable they might be.
Robert Wilson settled about four miles north of Lakeville in 1831. He took passengers to several different stops, including John Wood a few miles north of Hayesville and John Talentine, a farmer and Methodist minister who lived four miles from Ashland. By the later 1850s, Wilson took his passengers all the way to Savannah.
Another conductor was a Scot named James Rose, who lived near Golden Corners in Wayne County before moving to Hayesville in 1852. He reportedly did not enjoy feeling as if he acted as “a thief in the night,” so he started driving passengers in the daylight hours, a bold practice that he continued after moving to the Hayesville area.
In my next column, I will discuss the Savannah area, which was a particularly active locale on the Underground Railroad. There they received travelers from Hayesville and southern Ashland County, as well as many who came through from Richland County.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland County house routes for Underground Railroad
