MANY years before the Civil War there was organized among the Northern white and Christian people, mostly Quakers, a secret society to help runaway slaves to escape from the South into the free states and Canada. This society, on account of its hidden, winding and rapid ways of carrying its fleeing and hunted passengers into places of freedom and safety, was known as the “Underground Railroad”.
“As early as 1786, there are evidences of an underground road. A letter of George Washington, written in that year, speaks of a slave escaping from Virginia to Philadelphia, and being there aided by a society of Quakers formed for the purpose of assisting in liberating slaves. It was not, however, until after the War of 1812, that escaped slaves began to find their way by the underground roads in considerable numbers to Canada.”
“From Maine to Kansas, all the northern States were dotted with the underground stations and covered with a network of the underground roads. It is estimated that between 1830 and 1860 over 9,000 slaves were aided to escape by way of Philadelphia. During this same period in Ohio, 40,000 fugitives are said to have escaped by way of the underground railroad.”
Reference (Work’s Negro Year Book; page 167, 1918-1919 edition).
Without doubt, among the greatest workers in that society and truest white friends to the freedom seeking slaves were; Calvin Fairbanks who was arrested and kept for over fifteen years in Southern jails where he was daily whipped until blood flowed from his back, just because he helped human beings to get their freedom; Thomas Garrett who was jailed and had to sell all his personal property and real estate to pay the fines imposed upon him by the Southerners for doing the works of Jesus Christ by aiding the weak and comforting the suffering. And when penniless Thomas Garrett got out of jail he continued to help runaway slaves to find their freedom; Samuel May whose Christianity helped thousands of Colored people to enjoy the freedom due all human beings instead of suffering yokes and chains belonging to dumb beasts of burden; and Levi Coffin, who was recognized as the central electrical force that so powerfully and silently drove on, and the chief consulting engineer who so watchfully kept in motion the ever welloiled and frictionless machinery of the underground railroad systems.
The following names are those of some of the leading free Colored people who in every way possible were foremost in helping to liberate from slavery their less fortunate race brothers and sisters in the South:
“Brown, William Wells.—Anti-slavery agitator. Agent of the underground railroad. Born a slave in St. Louis, Mo., 1816.”
“Douglass, Frederick.—Noted American anti-slavery agitator and journalist. Born a slave at Tuckahoe, near Easton, Maryland, February.., 1817. Died February 2, 1895.”
“Whipper, William.—Successful business man, anti-slavery agitator, editor of The National Reformer.”
“Forten, James.—Negro abolitionist. Born in Philadelphia, September 6, 1776; died March 4, 1842. Forten was a sail-maker by trade.”