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Underground Railroad Records

It is important to remember that those involved with the Underground Railroad operated in secrecy, and usually did not leave a record of their activities. Quaker Meetings did keep excellent written records, but not of Underground Railroad activities; most information and first-person accounts of the Underground Railroad were written after the fact.

Wilmington College serves as the archive for Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting and Wilmington Yearly Meeting, and accepts materials generated by or related to those Meetings and generated by and related to individuals belonging to those Meetings. The archive also maintains a small collection of material related to local genealogy, primarily Quaker but including some county and state material. Wilmington College archives does not have a dedicated Underground Railroad collection.

If members of a Quaker Meeting were involved in Underground Railroad activities, that will not be reflected in their Meeting Minutes or other “church” documentation.

What you may be able to find in Meeting Minutes and associated materials at Watson Library is:

  • Information about where a Quaker individual lived, when they moved, and where they moved to – in combination with other information, this may help confirm history about abolitionist activities.
  • Basic biographical information like birth, death, and marriage records of Quaker individuals – again, in combination with other information, this may help confirm history about abolitionist activities.  
  • Above-ground abolitionist activities – it was dangerous but not illegal for a Quaker Meeting to write letters opposing slavery, assist free African-Americans, or buy someone out of slavery, and some meetings had entire committees dedicated to these endeavors. This kind of activity will be recorded in Meeting Minutes.
  • Brushes with the law regarding anti-slavery activities, being public already, may have been recorded in the minutes, especially if the meeting assisted with paying fines, although I have not actually seen this.

Other possible sources of information about Underground Railroad Activities:

  • Local newspapers
  • Property records
  • Census data

First-Person Accounts

Levi Coffin

Levi Coffin was an abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor who lived in Indiana and Ohio (Cincinnati). His autobiography, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the reputed president of the underground railroad; being a brief history of the labors of a lifetime in behalf of the slave, with the stories of numerous fugitives, who gained their freedom through his instrumentality, and many other incidents is a first-hand account of Coffin’s underground railroad activities. Watson Library has several copies of Coffin’s Reminiscences, multiple books on Coffin, and a few meeting minutes relating to his membership in Cincinnati Monthly Meeting. For more information on Coffin, we recommend contacting Earlham College and/or the Levi and Catharine Coffin State Historic Site.  

William Still

William Still was an African-American abolitionist and Underground Railroad Conductor from Philadelphia. He is the author of The Underground Railroad. A record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c., narrating the hardships, hair-breadth escapes and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom, as related by themselves and others, or witnessed by the author, vitally important as a first-person account of underground railroad activities by an African-American author. Watson Library has several copies of Still’s book and some books about Still. For more information on Still, and information about archival material, we recommend contacting Temple University.

Temple University on William Still

National Underground Railroad Center on William Still 

Watson Library Books on the Underground Railroad

Note that these are only a selected sample; we have many more general-purpose books, juvenile and YA books, etc. The following list reflects our local and/or less easily sourced material. 

The Underground Railroad in Ohio – by Kathy Schulz

The underground railroad in Ohio – by Wilbur Henry Siebert and Arthur W. McGraw

The underground railroad in Ohio – by Mary Harrison Games

Levi Coffin and the Underground Railroad – by Charles Ludwig

Levi Coffin, Quaker: breaking the bonds of slavery in Ohio and Indiana –by  Mary Ann Yannessa

The underground railroad's busiest escape route – by Paul Young

People, Places and Voices: abolition and the underground railroad in Fayette County, Ohio

Anti-slavery & the Underground Railroad: taking a risk for freedom: report of the Research Committee – by Karen S. Campbell

Front line of freedom: African Americans and the forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley – by Keith P Griffler  

Ohio's African American Civil War heritage: a collection of essays by the Research History classes 2000-2003 Washington [Senior] High School, Washington C.H., Ohio

For emancipation and education: some black and Quaker efforts, 1680-1900 – by Eliza Cope Harrison, Margaret Hope Bacon

A Quaker pioneer: Laura Haviland, superintendent of the Underground – by Mildred E Danforth

The abolitionist's journal: memories of an American antislavery family – by James Richardson

Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance – by Cheryl Janifer LaRoche

Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad – by Randolph Runyon


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