Simple Route through Livingston and La Salle Counties, Illinois.
Drawn by William B. Fyffe.
From a drawing made by Mr. W. B. Fyffe, an old-time station-agent of Ottawa, Illinois, the accompanying chart of a line of escape through Livingston and La Salle counties in Illinois is reproduced. The portion of the trail represented is about forty miles in length, and is remarkable for the directness of its course and the absence of interlacing lines. At Ottawa, the northernmost station shown, the trail loses these two characteristics, for it makes there a sharp turn on its way to the terminus, Chicago, and at Ottawa also it makes a junction with several other lines from the western part of the state.[437]
A number of noteworthy features appear on the general map. The first deserving mention is the direction or trend of the underground lines. The region traversed by these lines may be described as an irregular crescent, the concavity of which is in part filled by a portion of Ontario, Canada, which by reason of its proximity became the goal of the great majority of runaways. In the New England states the direction of the underground paths was, with perhaps an exception or two, from southeast to northwest, their objective point being Montreal. The main lines of Pennsylvania and New York ran north until they reached the middle part of the latter state, and then veered off almost directly west to Canada. West of Pennsylvania the trend of the routes was in general to northeast, being in Ohio and Indiana to the shores of Lake Erie, and in Illinois and Iowa to the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. Through central Iowa, northern Illinois and southern Michigan, the course of the routes was almost directly east.
Network of Routes through Greene, Warren and Clinton Counties, Ohio.
It is not surprising that the regions through which the simplest and most direct routes passed should have been those at the two extremities of the great irregular crescent of free soil, where the number of routes was few and the activity of the stations limited. In the states that formed the middle portion of the crescent, it was natural that multiple and intricate trails should have been developed. The fact that slave-owners and their agents often sallied into this region in search of missing chattels was a consideration given due weight by the shrewd operators, who early learned that one of their best safeguards lay in complex routes, made by several lines radiating from one centre, or branch connections between routes, by paths that zigzagged from station to station. These features were characteristic, and serve to show that the safety of fugitives was never sacrificed by the abolitionists to any thoughtless desire for rapid transit. From Cincinnati, Ohio, not less than four branches of the Road radiated. One of these led to Fountain City, Indiana, where it was joined by two other important lines. From this point four lines diverged to the north. At Oberlin as many as five lines converged from the south. Quincy, Illinois, was the starting-point of four or five lines, and Knoxville, Ottawa and Chicago in the same state each received fugitives from several routes. The region in which the devices of multiple routes and cross lines were most highly developed is, as far as known, in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Some broken lines and isolated place-names occur upon the map. For example, in Iowa, branches of the system have been traced to Quincy, Indianola, North English and Ottumwa, but beyond these points the connections cannot be made. Examples of such incomplete sections will be found also in northern and central Illinois, in central Indiana, in western New York, in central and eastern Pennsylvania and in other states. It is not to be supposed that the routes represented by these fragmentary lines terminated abruptly without reaching a haven of safety, but only that the witnesses whose testimony is essential to complete the lines have not been discovered. In the case of the isolated place-names, a few of which occur in the New England states, in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, the evidence at hand seemed to designate them as stations, without indicating in any definite way the neighboring stations with which they were probably allied.
On the general map may be noticed a few long stretches of Road that had apparently no way-stations. Such lines are usually identical with certain rivers, or canals, or railway systems. It has already been seen that the Connecticut River served to guide fugitives north on their way to Canada.[438] The Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, Alleghany, and Hudson rivers united stations more or less widely separated.[439] The tow-paths of some of our western canals formed convenient highways to liberty for a considerable number of self-reliant fugitives, and were considered safer than public roads. A letter from E. C. H. Cavins, of Bloomfield, Indiana,[440] states that the Wabash and Erie Canal became a thoroughfare for slaves, who followed it from the vicinity of Evansville, Indiana, until they reached Ohio, probably in some instances going as far as Toledo, though usually, as the writer believes, striking off on one or another of several established lines of Underground Road in central and northern Indiana. James Bayliss,[441] of Massillon, in northeastern Ohio, states that fugitives sometimes came up the tow-path of the canal to Massillon, knowing that the canal led to Cleveland, whence a boat could be taken for Canada.[442]