• • Epic Story The of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement • • • c BOUND FOR a na a n • FERGUS M. BORDEWICH • • • This book is dedicated to the countless thousands of men and women who fled the bonds of slavery but were recaptured or died at the hands of their pursuers before they reached the safe embrace of the Underground Railroad. They are not forgotten. W e were at times remarkably buoyant, singing hymns, and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in their tone as if we had reached a land of freedom and safety. A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing of O Canaan, sweet Canaan I am bound for the land of Canaan, something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the North, and the North was our Canaan. —Frederick Douglass Contents Epigraph iv Acknowledgments viii Preface xi Map xv, xvi Introduction 1 Part One Beginnings: 1800 to 1830 1. An Evil Without Remedy 11 2. The Fate of Millions Unborn 29 3. A Gadfly in Philadelphia 46 4. The Hand of God in North Carolina 64 5. The Spreading Stain 84 Part Two Connections: The 1830s 6. Free as Sure as the Devil 105 7. Fanatics, Disorganizers, and Disturbers of the Peace 126 vii | Contents 8. The Grandest Revolution the World Has Ever Seen 147 9. A Whole-Souled Man 166 Part Three Confrontation: The 1840s 10. Across the Ohio 189 11. The Car of Freedom 217 12. Our Watchword Is ONWARD 241 13. The Saltwater Underground 268 Part Four Victory: The 1850s 14. A Disease of the Body Politic 295 15. Do We Call This the Land of the Free? 320 16. General Tubman 344 17. Laboratories of Freedom 374 18. The Last Train 401 Epilogue 433 Notes 440 Selected Bibliography 501 Index 521 About the Author Praise Other Books by Fergus M. Bordewich Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher Acknowledgments Many people have contributed to this book, in large ways and small, and have helped to make Bound for Canaan better than it would otherwise have been. I am especially indebted to Christopher Densmore, curator of the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College; David Levering Lewis; Kate Clifford Larson; Milton C. Sernett of Syracuse University; Jill Jonnes; and Stanley Harrold of South Carolina State University at Orangeburg. They were unfailingly generous with their time and insights during the writing of Bound for Canaan, and offered many valuable sug- gestions. Judith Wellman’s knowledge of the underground in upstate New York was a resource upon which I drew many times. As always, Jack Barschi’s provocative questions prompted me to rethink and clarify more than a few half-rendered ideas. What flaws remain are of course my own. In many parts of the country, historians and local researchers gen- erously shared the wealth of Underground Railroad lore they have collected. Diane Perrine Coon unraveled for me the intricate web of un- derground activity around Madison, Indiana. Betty Campbell was a rich source of information about the abolitionists of Ripley, Ohio. Caroline Miller explained the interwoven worlds of slavery and abolitionism in ix | Acknowledgments Bracken County, Kentucky. Randy Mills and Les and Mark Coomer were my guides in southwestern Indiana, an exceptionally interesting area for the study of the Underground Railroad. John Creighton led me expertly through Harriet Tubman country on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Paul and Mary Liz Stewart made the Albany, New York, underground come alive. Steve Collins took me to the poignant site that was once the town of Quindaro and filled my ears with stories of the underground in eastern Kansas. George Nagle of the Afrolumens Project, Tracey Weis and Leroy Hopkins of Millersville State College, and Matthew Pinsker of Dickinson College helped me to understand the underground in south-central Pennsylvania. Jane Williamson, curator of the Rokeby Museum, in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, introduced me to the marvelous world of the Robinson family. Bryan Prince, curator of the Buxton National Historic Site, in Ontario, was one of the first historians I interviewed in 1998, before Bound for Canaan was even a proposal. He spent another long and productive session with me in 2003, discussing the remarkable story of Reverend William King and the Elgin Settlement. Also in Canada, Gwen Robinson, director of the WISH Centre, in Chatham, was a bottomless mine of in- formation on the fugitive community there, and on John Brown’s activi- ties north of the border. John MacLeod of the Fort Malden National Historic Site, and Elise Harding-Davis, curator of the North American Black Historical Museum, provided very useful background on the black community and the British military garrison at Amherstburg. Steven Cook, supervisor of the Uncle Tom’s Cabin Site near Dresden, directed me toward material on Josiah Henson’s life in Canada. Wilma Morrison of the Norval Johnson Heritage Library welcomed me graciously in Niagara Falls. In Canada, my dear friend David Lipton of Toronto contributed his time, a historian’s rigor, and best of all his company as a traveling com- panion. The Canadian sections of Bound for Canaan were sharpened and deepened thanks to him. Many librarians lightened the weight of my work by adding their own expertise to my research. Among them were Alison Gibson of the Union Township Library, in Ripley, Ohio; Thomas D. Hamm, curator of the Friends Historical Collection at Earlham College; David Poremba, man- ager of the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library;