| Ohio’s Underground Railroad routes,
indicative of its stance as a non-slave state from its inception, touched almost all of
its counties, leading to freedom in the Buckeye state, adjoining states, or the ultimate
freedom in Canada where British authorities refused to comply with U.S. requests for their
surrender. It is recorded that over 25,000 fugitive slaves lived in Canada in 1852, and
that an average of 1,200 more arrived annually prior to the American Civil War. Two trails entered Shelby County from the south, with one of them splitting to follow the Miami & Erie Canal, and also proceeding north, paralleling the other route, to the Sidney area. At this point, one continued north to Wapakoneta and beyond, while the other traveled northeast through Kenton. A third trail passed through Sidney to the east and west. Known Underground Railroad station operators in Shelby County were John S. Bennet, Davis Edgar, Pharaoh A. Ogden, James M. Roberts and Quakers Stephen Jefferson and Stephen Blanchard. According to a 1933 "Sidney Daily News" article, Stephen was a Quaker whose home served as one of the underground stations for slaves escaping into Canada. One night he hid some runaways slaves in a field of corn. Slavechasers awakened him during the night to ask his help to hunt for the slaves. As a Quaker, Stephen could not tell a lie, but he also wouldn’t say that they were there. He volunteered to go with the search party and by yelling loudly to the whites was able to warn the blacks. The slaves then proceeded north to a different ‘safe haven’. Another reported station was on the Old Hathaway farm just north of Port Jefferson. In the barn that stood across the road from the house was a secret hiding place where they hid the slaves. According to folklore, they were not able to get a young Negro girl across to the barn before officers arrived. But the grandmother was not outdone. She put the girl in bed between two featherbeds and got in with her, pretending she was ill. The law was they didn’t dare disturb a sick person to search, so the girl was eventually able to escape. Barbara Adams of the Shelby County Genealogical Society has been researching this home, however, due to its greatly deteriorated condition, the building was torn down during the summer of 1998. Oberlin, Ohio, location of Oberlin College (Abolitionist John Brown’s father was a trustee), played a unique part in the Underground Railroad in Ohio. The entire town was strongly abolitionist and effectively served as one huge railroad station. In 1858, John Price, a fugitive slave was captured outside town and hundreds of Oberlin’s citizens marched to the neighboring community of Wellington where they stormed the hotel confining Price, secured his release and helped him to escape to Canada. Charles Blockson, in his July 1984, "National Geographic" article, tells about David Hoard and eight other black Oberlin College students that reconstructed, in 1980, the flight of escaping slaves from Kentucky to Oberlin. They covered about 420 miles on foot, crossing valleys and mountains, sleeping in barns, churches, and houses. [Back] [Next] [Up] [New Search] 'Black History' segment written in June, 1998 by David Lodge |