Kane County, Illinois - Chapter 10: Underground Railroad, 1908

The history of the underground railroad in this county was never written and, in fact, it would be difficult to secure a good history of the movement, as all of its operations were supposed to be generally conducted in a secret manner. Synopsis of the underground railroad : "It was a strange road. It had neither locomotive nor cars ; it ran in the darkness and was invisible. Its operations were so secret that the people called it the underground railroad. The friends of this mysterious railway declared that its charter came from God and that it ran from the northern portion of the southern states to Canada. Its officers were largely volunteers and its route was that which afiforded to its passengers the greatest safety - salary, time, if not paid in this world will surely be in the next ; running expenses donated. It is true that the present generation knows but little of the meaning of the term, underground railway, and we have been surprised to hear people who have attained their majority ask if there really was a railroad that ran under ground. It is not such a strange question in view of the fact that we may have so many city railways that are now operated under the surface of the earth. The work of this road was simply to aid the fugitive slaves of the South to Canada, where freedom was assured. A conductor on one of these roads not only jeopardized his life but subjected himself to a heavy tine and imprisonment under the fugitive slave law in Illinois, and if one will refer to the statute books that were printed after the adoption of the new constitution of 1848 they will find heavy fines and long terms of imprisonment for those convicted in aiding negroes from slavery to freedom. The only passengers using the underground railway were the negro people then in slavery and it had been running years before Lincoln's famous proclamation was signed and it might be well to state the feeling of Abraham Lincoln when he attached his name to that immortal document. After he had drafted it and laid it aside for reflection it was brouglit to him to sign. He lifted his hand to the place of signature and then it fell by his side. Again he lifted it and again it fell. Then, turning to some one near him. he said, T have been shaking hands with the people all day and my hand is very w-eak and shaky. If I should tremble as I write my name on this paper, which will be handed down in history, if any deed of mine is, all the world will say "he hesitated." ' He lifted his hand once more to the place of signature and steadily and firmly wrote A. Lincoln, with whicii all the world is now familiar. Then leaning back satisfied he said, 'That will do." Its principal stations were through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio - the route that afforded the passengers the greatest safety - and lay through the anti-slavery portions of the three states mentioned. The homes of abolitionists whose aim was to carry fugitive slaves from one station to another with safety were the stations used. It must be remembered that it was not without fear and trembling that many escaped sla\'es, who started on their perilous journey, for if they were captured the usual penalty was to sell the escaped slave further south. One negro told how he rubbed onions on the bottom of his shoes to fool the hounds, but this had to be repeated many times in order to break the scent. Often they would wade in streams for a mile or more, or, if possible, steal a mule and ride for some distance. Many of the negro men and women that appeared at the homes of these abolitionists in DeKalb county were covered with stripes from head to foot and had sutYeretl untold agonies in slavery. After the publishing of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. antislavery sentiment grew apace and perhaps more than any other factor this book secured the organization of a party that was opposed to the further extension of that relic of barbarism - slavery."

The present generation can have but little conception of the condition of affairs pertaining to the underground railroad and perhaps the following extracts from Mr. Miller's letter will best illustrate the situation in those pioneer days. Mr. Miller says : "The Church was anti-slavery in its views and here was the 'Union depot' of the 'Underground Railroad.' There were a great many amusing incidents when the trains came in, especially after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, for the slaveholders had got the lines so marked out they could follow the fleeing slaves as a hound could a fox. I might mention many facts, I will give only two. A woman came to my house - as white as most women - and said she was a slave and with her iuisband was fleeing for their freedom and was overtaken by her master and overseer, and they both ran for their lives to the woods, got separated from each other, and had wandered around until she was nearly starved to death, and had to leave the woods; she said she could hear nothing from her husband and feared he was taken back, and she wanted to be sent to Canada. About noon I got Brother Baker to take my horse and take her to the depot at Downer's Grove. He got back about dark. Late in the evening a white man called at my house inquiring for such a woman. I took him to be her master, but after keeping him in the dark for some time I found he was her husband. He said he must see her that night, for she would be gone in the morning and he would lose her, and then wept. I could find no one to go, as I learned the master was in town the day before. I told him I would go, and about two o'clock in the morning we reached the depot. I rapped on the door. A voice said, 'Who is there, what is wanted?' I inquired, 'Have you a colored woman here?' He said, 'No.' (He thought I was the master.) He did not tell a lie; she was not colored."

The other instance he gives is this : "Soon after there came one woman and two men and wanted to rest awhile, as they were acquainted with one Larry, who lived here some time and was making money. A message came to me from Ottawa saying, 'Four slaveholders are on the track looking for forty slaves that had left the same neighborhood and they were going to Chicago, two by way of Joliet and two by the way of Aurora. Hide them' was the message. We did hide them and watched the movements of the slaveholders as they came into town. They tried to get men to watch and help them, but I am happy to say, with little success. Then they went to Naperville and hired men to watch there. There was a good deal of excitement and fear lest they should get them. No one dared to keep them or take them off, I felt something must be done. Colonel Lyon had a covered family carriage that would carry six persons, and said I might have it. I got two of the best horses in town, had my wife and the colored woman dress alike, sitting on the seat together, and the men lying on the bottom of the wagon at the back covered over with blankets. W'e were to start at eleven in the evening, and as we were ready a lawyer came in. I did not know his views on slavery and trembled a little until he turned to the one living here the longest and placed in his hand a bright shining silver dollar saying, 'God bless you, Larry.' I had no fear of him after that and always found him a fast friend to the slave. \\'hen we reached Naperville we met two men; one took the horses by the bits and the other came to the wagon. Seeing the two women, my wife moved her veil to one side, he saw that she was white and supposing the boys were bags, said to the other, 'All right,' and we passed on. On reaching Chicago, near 'Bull's Head,' we met a man and the colored woman said, 'That's my master.' The boys peeped out and said, 'Sure enough,' and began to get their weapons ready, for they were armed to the teeth, saying they would never go liack alive. I knew then all the 'Underground Railroad Hotels" in Chicag<'>. I tocjk them down Washington street. Deacon Philo Carpenter's back door was on that street, and I opened the gate and drove up to his back door and called for 'Sir. Carpenter. The woman said he was down in the city. I called for his wife: she came and at once understood our business. She said. T do not know what we shall do, there is great excitement in the city. The slaveholders are here and our house and Dr. Dyers are watched day and night." I saw a scuttle hole overhead and asked her what it was for. She said "to go up and fix the stove pipe." We sent them up there with orders to let no one up alive. I then found Deacon Carpenter. He said. T don't see how we can get them ott and I am afraid they will get them, for the boats are watched, also the railroads.' I then called on Mr. Isbell, a colored barber under the Sherman House, and a Mr. Lucas, a colored merchant tailor, and recjuested them to get the prominent colored men together. \\"e met in a private house for consultation. They told me of a man in the lumber business owning land and mills in ^Michigan, and also vessels, and said one was loading in Chicago and would sail tomorrow for Michigan. 'He is not known as an abolitionist, and yet he is a friend to the colored people." I went to see him. He said, T will take them.' A\'e took the following plan to get them to his warehouse: Forty colored men armed themselves and went in a body to Deacon Carpenter's, and the men on the watch, seeing them, supposing they were after them, fled, and the boys followed them. A covered wagon drove into the yard, and they (the fugitives) all got in and the driver drove from one street to another so fast no one could follow and came to the warehouse. A signal was given, agreed upon, the door was opened, and all safe inside. The next day at noon, when all were at dinner, each took a bag on his shoulder and went on board, and a little after we saw them on board just going to their homes in Michigan, where they are now well-to-do farmers."

From this it appears that this fair country of ours was not always "the home of the free,'" for the stars and stripes then was the emblem of a government whose supreme court had decided that slaves were still property, although in a free state, and it was the duty of every otlicer and citizen to return them to their masters, tlius making slave catchers of every citizen. This was one step toward the war.