The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada. The network, primarily the work of free African Americans, was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the Railroad, respectively. Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. However, the network generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.
Steuben County is a county in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Indiana. As of the 2020 United States Census the county population was 34,435. The county seat is Angola. Steuben County comprises the Angola, IN Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Fremont is a town in Fremont Township, Steuben County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 2,138 at the 2010 census.
Orland is a town located in the northwest corner of Steuben County, Indiana in Millgrove Township at the intersection of State Road 120 and State Road 327. The population was 434 at the 2010 census.
State Road 120 is a state road in the northeastern section of the state of Indiana. Running for about 60 miles (97 km) in a general east–west direction, connecting rural portions of Elkhart, LaGrange and Steuben counties. The western terminus is a junction with Jackson Boulevard and Middleton Run Road in Elkhart. The eastern terminus is at the Indiana–Michigan border, east of Fremont.
Levi Coffin was an American Quaker, Republican, abolitionist, farmer, businessman and humanitarian. An active leader of the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio, some unofficially called Coffin the "President of the Underground Railroad," estimating that three thousand fugitive slaves passed through his care. The Coffin home in Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana, is a museum, sometimes called the Underground Railroad's "Grand Central Station".
The Cyrus Gates Farmstead is located in Maine, New York. Cyrus Gates was a cartographer and map maker for New York State, as well as an abolitionist. The great granddaughter of Cyrus-Louise Gates-Gunsalus has stated that from 1848 until the end of slavery in the United States in 1865, the Cyrus Gates Farmstead was a station or stop on the Underground Railroad. Its owners, Cyrus and Arabella Gates, were outspoken abolitionists as well as active and vital members of their community. Historian Shirley L. Woodward states that through those years escaped slaves came through the Gates' station.
Erastus Hussey (1800–1889) was a leading abolitionist, a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad, and one of the founders of the Republican Party. He supported himself and his family as a farmer, teacher, businessman, legislator, and editor.
State Road 827 is a northeast–southwest State Road located in Steuben County, Indiana, United States, in the northeastern part of the state. The highway runs from the City of Angola northeast to SR 120 in Fremont. The highway was formed in the 1930s, as an alternative for traffic between Toledo, Ohio and Angola. A section of roadway was authorized as SR 827, but later became part of SR 120. A small realignment project was completed in Angola during the 2000s.
The Coffin House is a National Historic Landmark located in the present-day town of Fountain City in Wayne County, Indiana. The two-story, eight room, brick home was constructed circa 1838–39 in the Federal style. The Coffin home became known as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad because of its location where three of the escape routes to the North converged and the number of fleeing slaves who passed through it.
Daniel Hughes (1804–1880) was a conductor, agent and station master in the Underground Railroad based in Loyalsock Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. He was the owner of a barge on the Pennsylvania Canal and transported lumber from Williamsport on the West Branch Susquehanna River to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Hughes hid runaway slaves in the hold of his barge on his return trip up the Susquehanna River to Lycoming County, where he provided shelter to the runaways on his property near the Loyalsock Township border with Williamsport before they moved further north and to eventual freedom in Canada. Hughes' home was located in a hollow or small valley in the mountains just north of Williamsport. This hollow is now known as Freedom Road, having previously been called Nigger Hollow. In response to the actions of concerned African American citizens of Williamsport, the pejorative name was formally changed by the Williamsport City Council in 1936.
Richland Township is one of twelve townships in Steuben County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 415, down from 570 at the 2010 census, and it contained 163 housing units, making it the smallest township in the county.
Scott Township is one of twelve townships in Steuben County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,197, up from 1,111 at the 2010 census, and it contained 460 housing units.
York Township is one of twelve townships in Steuben County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 710, down from 733 at 2010, and it contained 293 housing units. York Township has the distinction of being Indiana's lone township to border both Michigan and Ohio as well as bordering two states on land as all other tri-points along Indiana's border are underwater.
Ray is an unincorporated community in both Steuben County, Indiana and Branch County, Michigan in the United States. Located along the local "State Line Road," the small community straddles the border between the two states. The Indiana Northeastern Railroad travels southwest-northeast through Ray. Its elevation is 1,079 feet (329 m), making it the highest populated place in northern Indiana.
The Underground Railroad in Indiana was part of a larger, unofficial, and loosely-connected network of groups and individuals who aided and facilitated the escape of runaway slaves from the southern United States. The network in Indiana gradually evolved in the 1830s and 1840s, reached its peak during the 1850s, and continued until slavery was abolished throughout the United States at the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It is not known how many fugitive slaves escaped through Indiana on their journey to Michigan and Canada. An unknown number of Indiana's abolitionists, anti-slavery advocates, and people of color, as well as Quakers and other religious groups illegally operated stations along the network. Some of the network's operatives have been identified, including Levi Coffin, the best-known of Indiana's Underground Railroad leaders. In addition to shelter, network agents provided food, guidance, and, in some cases, transportation to aid the runaways.
Guinea Town is an early free Black community that was formed with the help of Hicksite Quakers in Old Westbury, New York in 1793 and remained active until just after the Civil War.
Kentucky raid in Cass County (1847) was conducted by slaveholders and slave catchers who raided Underground Railroad stations in Cass County, Michigan to capture black people and return them to slavery. After unsuccessful attempts, and a lost court case, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted. Michigan's Personal Liberty Act of 1855 was passed in the state legislature to prevent the capture of formerly enslaved people that would return them to slavery.
Wright Modlin or Wright Maudlin (1797–1866) helped enslaved people escape slavery, whether transporting them between Underground Railroad stations or traveling south to find people that he could deliver directly to Michigan. Modlin and his Underground Railroad partner, William Holden Jones, traveled to the Ohio River and into Kentucky to assist enslave people on their journey north. Due to their success, angry slaveholders instigated the Kentucky raid on Cass County of 1847. Two years later, he helped free his neighbors, the David and Lucy Powell family, who had been captured by their former slaveholder. Tried in South Bend, Indiana, the case was called The South Bend Fugitive Slave Case.
