UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. The National Park Service has summarized the existence of the Underground Railroad as the following:

         The Underground Railroad—the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, 
         through the end of the Civil War refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans 
         to gain their freedom by escaping bondage. Wherever slavery existed, there were 
         efforts to escape. At first to maroon communities in remote or rugged terrain on 
         the edge of settled areas and eventually across state and international borders. 
         These acts of self-emancipation labeled slaves as "fugitives," "escapees," or 
         "runaways," but in retrospect "freedom seeker" is a more accurate description. 
         Many freedom seekers began their journey unaided and many completed their self-
         emancipation without assistance, but each subsequent decade in which slavery was 
         legal in the United States, there was an increase in active efforts to assist 
         escape.

         The decision to assist a freedom seeker may have been spontaneous. However, in some 
         places, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Underground Railroad 
         was deliberate and organized. Despite the illegality of their actions, people of all 
         races, class and genders participated in this widespread form of civil disobedience. 
         Freedom seekers went in many directions – Canada, Mexico, Spanish Florida, Indian 
         Territory, the West, Caribbean islands and Europe. (1)

Map courtesy of the National Park Service

This map shows that participation of people as "conductors" and the establishment of "stations" at which escaping slaves were hidden until they could be moved further north was a southern Iowa activity. The community of Salem, Iowa in the 1840s was the home of Henderson Lewelling who promoted abolition so strongly that he was ousted from meetings of other Quakers. His home was constructed to hide slaves with a trapdoor cut in the kitchen floor leading to a hollowed out area in which slaves could be hidden. Tour guides of the home in the 1980s suggested the theory that the trapdoor and crawl space may have even been part of a tunnel connecting Henderson's house with the home of his brother across the street. Lewelling left Salem for the Pacific Northwest long before the Civil War.

Questions remain of the involvement of Captain Charles Merry in East Dubuque, Illinois. Merry constructed a large home near the bayous of the Mississippi River. Boats with cargo could be paddled up to the house and their cargo unloaded unseen. A small entrance located at the side of house and near water level led to the basement. It has been said that shackles were found pinned to the walls years after the Merry family left the area. Some references to Merry contain a reference to "underground railroad" with a (?). The home also had tunnels leading from the rear of the house up the hill. Was Lewelling posing as a "conductor" only to capture escaped slaves and then resell them to slave hunters? Proof either way has not been found.

A tour guide shows the trapdoor which was hidden by a rug in the kitchen of the Lewelling home.

Dubuque likely had a role to play in the Underground Railroad. There were residents of the community who advocated for abolition, and in an issue of the Telegraph Herald, a portion of a 1911 family history of Samuel B. Hampton relates that Hampton hid runaway slaves among furniture loaded in a wagon. From Viola, Iowa he traveled through Dubuque going north to Canada. (2)

A similar story about Dubuque's connection to the Underground Railroad was recounted by Matt Parrott, newspaper editor and Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, in The Midland Monthly in 1895. In this short article, Parrott described efforts to transport a runaway slave by wagon from an undisclosed location in Eastern Iowa to Dubuque where the runaway would be turned over to someone "who would then help him on his way to Canada." (3)

An intriguing possible role of the Dubuque-St. Paul Trail established in 1854 has been suggested. Among the members of William Stork anti-slavery group in Harmony, Minnesota were After Hoag and Daniel Dayton, owners of the Ravine House in Big Springs, a stagecoach stop along the Dubuque-St. Paul Trail. Historical research has established that fugitive slaves used stagecoach routes to escape. Some were hidden in secret compartments of wagons. Stops like Ravine House built in 1855 were used to shelter them as they traveled. (4)

For further reference, see the entry AFRICAN AMERICANS.

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Sources:

1. "Underground Railroad," National Park Service, Online: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm

2. Hogstrom, Erik, "In Search of Freedom," Telegraph Herald, January 26, 2025, p. 1

3. Parrott, Matt, "An Underground Railroad Incident," The Midland Monthly, May 1895, Volume 3, Number 5, pages 479-480. Online: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Midland_Monthly/tZlBAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA479 Special credit to: Steve Hanken

4. Hahn, Amy Jo, "Discovered — The Underground Railroad in Southeast Minnesota and the Abolitionists Who Helped." April 15, 2025, Online: https://rootrivercurrent.org/tthe-underground-railroad-in-southeast-minnesota-and-the-abolitionists-who-helped/