Bound for Canaan (78 page)

“contending, declaiming, denouncing”:
Coffin,
Life and Travels of Addison Coffin
, pp. 57–58.

a time of transformation:
Ronald G. Walters,
American Reformers 1815–1860
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1997), pp. 88–93; Mabee,
Black Freedom
, pp. 244–46; Dillon,
Abolitionists
, pp. 116–26; Wyatt-Brown,
Lewis Tappan
, pp. 185–200; Henderson, “History of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society,” pp. 329–30.

“THE OVERTHROW OF THIS NATION”:
Wyatt-Brown,
Lewis Tappan
, p. 187.

singing at the top of their lungs:
Ibid., p. 198.

the political landscape offered:
Henderson, “History of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society,” pp. 316–17; Dillon,
Abolitionists
, pp. 141–45; Mabee,
Black Freedom
, pp. 246–47; Sernett,
North Star Country
, pp. 112–15.

one Samuel Ogden:
Kohler, “Cincinnati's Black Peoples,” p. 25.

a staunch Whig:
Rankin, “Autobiography of Adam Lowry Rankin,” p. 91.

Rankin believed that the only peaceful way:
Rankin,
Life of Rev. John Rankin
, p. 50.

“If there be human enactments”: Friend of Man
, October 9, 1839.

“Our aim was safety”:
Interview with Isaac Beck,
Georgetown
(Ohio)
News Democrat
, May 2, 1901; and letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

blacks both slave and free lent assistance:
J. Blaine Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland
(Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 2002), pp. 21–30; Keith P. Griffler,
Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), pp. 34–35, 42–52; Wilbur H. Siebert,
The Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad
(Columbus, Ohio: Long's College Book Co., 1951), pp. 101–3, 171.

a Kentucky patroller:
Hagedorn,
Beyond the River
, p. 38.

George DeBaptiste:
Interview with George DeBaptiste, “Underground Railroad,”
Detroit Post
, May 16, 1870.

antislavery Presbyterian ministers:
Isaac Beck, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
, pp. 123–25.

politicized white abolitionists:
Larry Gene Willey, “The Reverend John Rankin: Early Ohio Anti-Slavery Leader” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa, 1976), p. 173; Rankin,
Life of Rev. John Rankin
, pp. 42–46.

“the cause is going on delightfully”: Friend of Man
, October 6, 1836.

“a man of good intellect”:
Isaac Beck, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
, pp. 123–25.

the Gist settlement:
Hagedorn,
Beyond the River,
pp. 12–13.

“We feel no prejudice”:
Samuel S. Cox,
Eight Years in Congress from 1857–1865: Memoirs and Speeches
(New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1865), p. 248.

the recapture of a fugitive couple:
David K. Katzman,
Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), pp. 8–10.

the story of a slave named Ike:
Isaac Beck, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
, pp. 123–25.

In many of the river communities:
Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, p. 44; Griffler,
Front Line of Freedom,
pp. 42–52; John M. Ashley, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, July 1894, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH; Jesse P. Elliott, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 10, 1895, Siebert Collection; J. J. Minor, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, September 1894, Siebert Collection.

One of the most effective networks:
Interview with George DeBaptiste, “Underground Railroad,”
Detroit Post
, May 16, 1870; interview with George DeBaptiste,
Detroit Tribune
, February 23, 1875; Chapman Harris: An Apostle of Freedom,
Indiana Journal
, January 31, 1880; Drusilla Cravens, pp. 2–39; Coon, “Southeastern Indiana's Underground Railroad Routes and Operations,” pp. 185–89; “African-Americans in and Around Jefferson County, Ind.,” typescript compilation of articles and transcribed notes (Madison, Ind.: Jefferson County Historical Society, n. d.); Diane Perrine Coon, “Great Escapes: The Underground Railroad,”
Northern Kentucky Heritage
9, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2002): 2–13; Diane Perrine Coon, interview with the author, Madison, IN, October 17, 2002; Jae Breitweiser, interview with the author, Lancaster, IN, October 17, 2002; Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
, pp. 116–19; Phil Cole,
Historic Madison
Madison, IN: Three Star Investments, 1995).

“My curiosity, then”:
Cravens, “African-Americans in and Around Jefferson County,” p. 9.

it stiffened resistance:
Ibid., pp. 19, 24–29; Diane Perrine Coon, interview with the author, Madison, Ind., October 17, 2002; Jae Breitweiser, interview with the author, Lancaster, Ind., October 17, 2002.

like Thomas McCague:
Richard Calvin Rankin, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, April 8, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Hagedom,
Beyond the River
, pp. 201–2.

Rankin focused his efforts:
Willey, “Reverend John Rankin,” p. 236.

At least one of the Rankin boys:
Richard Calvin Rankin, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Byron Williams,
History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio
, (Milford, Ohio: Hobart Publishing Company, 1913), pp. 399–401; “Emancipationists,”
Ripley
(Ohio)
Bee and Times
, April 2, 1884; Hagedom,
Beyond the River
, pp. 81–83.

“The mode of travel:
Isaac Beck, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
, pp. 123–25.

The Rankins' operation was no secret:
Rankin, “Autobiography of Adam Lowry Rankin,” pp. 90–91, 78 ff.; Rankin,
Life of Rev. John Rankin
; Richard Calvin Rankin, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert; John Rankin Jr., interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, Rankin Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

When Calvin Fairbank landed:
Fairbank,
Rev. Calvin Fairbank during Slavery Times
, pp. 47–48; Randolph Paul Runyon,
Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), p. 10.

Lewis Hayden, who worked at:
Harriet Beecher Stowe,
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded
(Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 1998), pp. 154–55; Runyon,
Delia Webster
, pp. 13–14.

Fairbank's collaborator was:
Fairbank,
Rev. Calvin Fairbank during Slavery Times
, pp. 48–49; Runyon,
Delia Webster
, pp. 14–21; J. Winston Coleman Jr.,
Slavery Times in Kentucky
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940), p. 143.

Fairbank was tried and convicted:
Fairbank,
Rev. Calvin Fairbank during Slavery Times
, pp. 49–56.

During her imprisonment:
Runyon,
Delia Webster
, pp. 46, 64–66.

This close to the Ohio: Philanthropist
, May 14, 1839, and June 18, 1839; Isaac Beck, interview with Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Hudson,
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
, pp. 123–25; “Dyer Burgess of Warren, Washington County,” biography in
The History of Washington County, Ohio
, pp. 486–87, excerpt in Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

John B. Mahan, a Methodist Minister: Philanthropist
, December 18, 1838; Rankin, “Autobiography of Adam Lowry Rankin,” pp. 81ff; Hagedorn,
Beyond the River
, pp. 155 ff.

One Sunday evening:
Rankin, “Autobiography of Adam Lowry Rankin,” pp. 105–9; Rankin,
Life of Rev. John Rankin
, p. 49; Hagedorn,
Beyond the River
, pp. 219–22.

rarely more than tantalizing shadows:
Rankin,
Life of Rev. John Rankin
, pp. 47–48.

The most famous single fugitive:
Rankin,
Life of Rev. John Rankin
, pp. 48–49; John Rankin Jr., interviews with Frank Gregg and Wilbur H. Siebert, Rankin Papers,
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Rankin, “Autobiography of Adam Lowry Rankin”; interview with Reverend Samuel G. W. Rankin, “The Story of Eliza,”
Hartford Daily Courant
, November 23, 1895; Hagedorn,
Beyond the River
, pp. 155 ff.

C
HAPTER
11: T
HE
C
AR OF
F
REEDOM

the home of Levi and Catherine Coffin:
Levi Coffin,
Reminiscences of Levi Coffin
(Cincinnati: Western Tract Society, 1879), pp. 111–13, 147–50.

a pillar of the local establishment:
Ibid., pp. 106–7; Daniel N. Huff, “Reminiscence of Newport and Fountain City and its Environs from 1830 to 1896” (unpublished manuscript, 1896), Friends Collection, Earlham College, Richmond, Ind.; Huff, “Unnamed Anti-Slavery Heroes” (unpublished manuscript, 1905), Friends Collection, Earlham College, Richmond, Ind.; “How Fugitive Slaves Were Aided,”
Richmond Palladium,
January 1, 1931.

a fluid web:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 111, 143; Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, pp. 41–43; Hurley C. Goodall,
Underground Railroad: The Invisible Road to Freedom through Indiana as Recorded by the Works Progress Administration Writers Project
(Indianapolis: Indiana Department of Natural Resources, 2000), pp. 43–44.

a new, pivotal kind of figure:
Coffin,
Reminiscences,
pp. 113–18.

Coffin's personal feelings:
Ibid., pp. 159–60, 175, 183.

Coffin's power could be deployed:
Ibid., pp. 195–201; Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, p. 196; Huff, “Reminiscence of Newport and Fountain City.”

On another occasion:
Coffin,
Reminiscences,
pp. 193–94.

“Here is where we keep”:
Huff, “Unnamed Anti-Slavery Heroes.”

As time went on:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 224–30; Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, p. 198.

Once Frederick and Anna Douglass:
Douglass, “My Bondage and My Freedom,” pp. 359–63; McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
, pp. 81–85, 94; Grover,
Fugitive's Gibraltar
, pp. 287, 143; Stauffer,
Black Hearts of Men
, pp. 47–49.

how he had been taken from his mother in infancy:
Douglass, “My Bondage and My Freedom,” pp. 15–18, 21, 43, 74, 89; Robert F. Mooney,
The Advent of Douglass
Nantucket: Wesco Publishing, 1991).

Garrison followed Douglass:
McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
, p. 88.

benefactor David Ruggles:
Ibid., p. 97.

Douglass was not alone:
Ripley, ed.,
Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 3, pp. 21, 24; Speech by Peter Paul Simons, delivered before the African Clarkson Association, New York, April 23, 1839, ibid., pp. 289–90.

Douglass knew what:
Douglass, “My Bondage and My Freedom,” pp. 364–68; May,
Some Recollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict
, pp. 293–94.

an emerging generation:
Ripley,
The Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 3, pp. 26–33.

“opportunity to be himself”:
Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
, p. 69.

Between 1836 and 1846:
John R. McKivigan,
The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches
,
1830–1865
(Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 107–8; Ripley,
The Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 3, pp. 36–39; and 447, n. 1; Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
, p. 84; Mabee,
Black Freedom
, pp. 133 ff.