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Rev. William
King (1812 -1895)
The King Family settled in
Northwest Ohio south of Delta Ohio in 1834 on Section 24. William King
went down to Louisiana where he met and married Mary Phares who died leaving him
15 slaves.
In 1849, he brought 15
U.S. slaves to Canada where they received their freedom. With the
strength of his convictions, unmitigating determination and political
connections, he established the Elgin Settlement. Reverend King's methodical structuring of the community enabled former slaves to become
self-sufficient land owners and successful business people.
Click here to see list
of 15 slaves
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Prof. Wilbur H. Siebert states that
Free Presbyterians “Are found to be stations of the underground of the
Underground Railroad almost without exception.” The King family
was staunch Presbyterian, and their son Reverend William King was a
clergyman of the Free Presbyterian Church. They were active in the work of the
Underground Railroad lines that passed through this section of Ohio.
The concentration of the story has been overshadowed by the telling of
Reverend King’s activities and his establishment of the Buxton
Settlement in Canada.
“There is no question about the validity of the work of the King
family’s station in York Township,” says Ms. Genevieve Eicher, the
underground’s premiere scholar in northwest Ohio, whose families
ran underground lines to the King station. Extended families on
the King farm include the John King’s, Donahues and the Bruce clans.
The King-Bruce family intermarried with the legendary Howard-McClarren
family whose exploits in rescuing fugitive slaves were of epic proportions. Professor Siebert characterizes the Edward and Colonel
Dresden W. H. Howard line of the underground as “probably the oldest in Ohio.” They
established an Indian trading post on the Maumee River and
one north of the King station at their camp in Historic Winameg, that was then in
Michigan Territory.
Today the majority of the land in section 24 of York Township, Fulton
County is owned by John & Betty Trowbridge. The old King homestead no longer
stands where it once did on the east end of this section. Only the King
Family Cemetery remains. John & Betty current home is
more in the center of the property and part of the old barn behind their
home has been dated to a period before 1850 and does
show evidence that it was moved to its current location from another.
Is the older structure of this barn from the original
King barn? This is a question we may never know for sure....
Here
are couple of photos of the Trowbridge Farm
KING FARM UNDERGROUND RAILROAD STATION
Delta, Fulton County Ohio
The
network to Freedom has officially verified the King Family Cemetery as
an Underground Railroad Site. All of the
other entities have recognized the
entire King farm (Section 24, York Township, South Delta, Ohio).
They include the
Ohio Historical Society; Fulton
County Historical Society; Fulton County Chapter Ohio Genealogical
Society; York Township Trustees; Buxton National Historic Site;
Afro-Louisiana historical and Genealogical Society, Inc.; The Friends of
Freedom Society, Inc.; Ohio Underground Railroad Association. The
Free Church of Scotland has given permission to engrave their name on
the marker. Reverend William King was an ordained clergyman of the Free
Church of Scotland and the youngest
son of this King family settling
in Delta, Ohio.
Verification of thee King Farm, Section 24, York Township, Fulton
County, Ohio as an Underground Railroad Station is verified in many
documents, books, scholarly articles/journals and local
histories. One of the chief books, Look to the North Star: A
Life of William King, by Victor Ullman, published by the Beacon
Press, is widely referred to by historians and scholars in the
Underground Railroad field, such as Robin Winks of Yale and William
& Jane Pease. The list of testimonials of Ullman’s history is
seen in the citations
in many bibliographies of other authors.
In Look to the North Star Ullman chronicles the 1,500 mile journey from
Bayou Sara in Louisiana to Cincinnati, Ohio of Reverend William King’s
fifteen slaves. When they arrived at the King farm in Delta, Ohio in
1848 it stated: “They were not yet free because they had not crossed the
‘line’, but the King men would protect them from slave stealers, having
had a good deal of experience in such activities. The King farm by then was the area’s Underground
Railroad Station on the overland route to the woods that bordered the
Detroit River and Lake St. Clair, across from Canada West.”
(Fugitive Slaves Laws allowed slave hunters to capture runaways in free
states such as Ohio.)
Reverend William King established the Buxton/Elgin Settlement on
Clergy Reserve Lands in Canada in November 1849 just before the ‘Black
Laws’ were instituted in the United States.
The book, Something to Hope For, published in 1999 by Buxton
National Historic Site and Museum, states: “The slaves trusted their
former master and continued with him to the King family farm in Delta
region of Ohio. The farm had become a station on the Underground
Railroad and the family was well prepared to protect the group from
slave catchers. Reverend King left his former slaves in the care
of his family and returned immediately to Canada to make arrangements
for providing his people with homes.”
Parks Canada Agency Backgrounder News Release recently announced new
designations by Government of Canada to recognize historically
significant people, places and events. Regarding Reverend William
King, it reads:
His efforts
also brought him international acclaim and focused attention on the
Abolition Movement in British North America. But his deceased
wife had been a Louisiana planter’s daughter and through her he had
acquired slaves. He subsequently freed his slaves, left them with
his family in Ohio, a slave-free state and returned to slave-free
British territory to arrange a better future for these and other
refugees of American slavery.
While King was in Canada
establishing the Buxton/|Elgin Settlement the fifteen freedmen resided
on the King farm for a year-and-a-half. There they were taught
northern farming and logging methods and how to preserve fruits of the
harvest and for the first time in
their lives, they were paid for their labors. Along with
the two dozen nieces and nephews of the families of Catherine and Mary,
the Donahue’s, Kane’s and Bruce’s, they were taught to read and
write. They also attended services in the big barn at the King’s
Sabbath Center. Herma Fraker wondered – “Could this have been the first
integrated school in Ohio here in Delta?” Ohio was not at this
time the refuge of many slaves. It was the path traveled by slaves
to Canada, where under the law as laid down
by Mansfield in 1772, the Negro was free as soon as he stepped upon
British soil.
Slaves did not become free when they entered Ohio; the onerous Ohio
Black Laws of 1807 precluded that. Slaves could lawfully be
“reclaimed”. They were denied due process, denied a home in any
county without bond for good behavior. The Society of Friends
asked for repeal of the 1807 laws. During the Ohio Constitutional
Convention of 1803 Ohio came within a few votes of becoming slave
state. In 1823 Ohio passed the Ironclad Fugitive Slave Law.
Recalling the 1,500 mile journey
to Cincinnati, Ohio from Louisiana, Reverend King writes in
his Autobiography:
The state of
Ohio borders on the slave states, the Ohio River separating it from
Kentucky and Virginia. In the days of slavery there were several
lines of the underground railway ran through the state of Ohio.
The southern terminus was on the Ohio River and the northern the
terminus was Amherstburgh and Windsor. When a Negro crossed the Ohio River
making his escape from slavery, he was placed on the
railroad and the conductor ran him safely through to Canada.
Many of the passengers on the underground railway found their way to
Buxton as one of the cities of refuge, where the slave could
stand and say I am free from my master, which he could not say in any part of the United
States of territory.
The fugitive slave law pursued him with its remorseless grasp until he
got beyond
the jurisdiction of the United States. On the third day after leaving
Cincinnati, we arrived at Toledo, from there I proceeded to my brother’s
in Delta where I left my slaves with him until I could make arrangements
to take them to Canada.
Bound
for Canada, a newly published book by Fergus M. Bordewic, has an
excellent account of Reverend King: “King, in contrast to Henson,
Wilson and Bibb, had a real gift for administration and never allowed
pious hopes to cloud judgment …King left nothing to chance …After
immigrating to the United States for their native Ireland, King’s
family settled in Ohio where their farm eventually became a station on
the Underground Railroad.”
The Delta
Area History of Fulton County, Ohio
Fulton County, Ohio, A Collection of Historical Sketches and Family
Histories (1990), edited by Delta’s Mabel Hudson; In the King Family
section of the history volume, the family information was taken from
the King Family History, by the Reverend William King, (1893); and King
family history prepared in consultation with Edna King Forrest and Sarabelle King Kaup, written by Kathern B. Forest. References for
the book include: Look To the North Star; Thomas W. King by
Minnie King: Canadian newspaper clippings; and Delta Atlas newspaper
articles.
The Fulton County History features a King portrait of about eighty
family members attending the 1892 King Family Reunion held in Delta,
Ohio. The portrait reads:
Slavery
continued to haunt William and he was determined to work for the
freedom of the black people of the south …During this time the King
farm, south of Delta, became an Underground Railroad station.
During
the period when the book was being compiled, Kathern B. Forest a
monograph regarding her King family Underground Railroad activities:
The exact
years of operation are not known but 1844-1859 is probably accurate for
the running of the King Underground Railroad station south of
Delta. The King farm was located along the overland route through
the woods to the Detroit River across from Amherstburg, Ontario,
Canada.
The editor of
the 1976 Fulton County History, Mabel Hudson, lives on St Route 109 next
to the King
Family cemetery. Ms. Hudson was the Project
Coordinator of the 1990 book, Delta, Ohio Area History.
Herma Jane (Fraker) Hunt’s family
has lived on the land northeast of the King’s farm almost as long as
the King’s have. Her home is on
the old winding road along the eastern ridge of the Bad Creek flood
plain that runs in back of the King cemetery. Herma
is now passed on leaving us with a legacy of York
Township history including an article in the Delta history
book entitled “The Underground Railroad in Delta”.
Herma outlines an account of the end of Reverend King’s journey with his fifteen
freed slaves from
Louisiana to
Delta on the canal boat in Ohio, “On the barge he preached to his
first mixed congregation
and this was
before the Ohio Black Laws were relaxed and he was liable for a $1000
fine for such an act.” Concerning the arrival of the freed
slaves in Delta from the Port of Toledo, she states, “There was
another mixed
congregation in the King barn one mile south of Delta that Sunday.”
Ms. Fraker Hunt visited Buxton in the late 1940’s for the first time, indicating
there had been further
visits.
Her text in the Delta book is largely related to the King family.
Her photographs of Buxton are in
the
illustrations in the volume, including a photograph
of the Reverend King’s St Andrew’s Church there. (Herma’s history
is a lengthy well documented account.) She writes of King as
follows:
Even before Lincoln
himself began his emancipation of the Negro, William King
envisioned their
freedom. He was part of the King family that came to settle
in
the ‘Six Mile Woods’
in 1834. By a strange
twist of fate, he who was an abolitionist
in belief became the owner of
15 slaves.
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DAR Cemetery Readings: Volume 2, Transcriptions of
the Fulton County, Ohio Cemeteries, original readings taken between
1930 & 1954, has a notation for the King
Cemetery, “The King family settled on the land in 1835 and by 1839,
possibly earlier, they set aside a small plot to be used as a
burial ground. The King farm served as a stop on the Underground
Railroad for several years.”
The King Cemetery is distinguished in that several of the burials there
are descendants of the families of President Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin
Harrison, Daniel Boone and the Hampton family whose branches include
Society of Friends members. These families came into Ohio in the
southeast part of the state around Fairfield County and soon moved on
to counties in northwest Ohio including the Fulton County then part of
Lucas County Ohio. The Application Preparer has the Lincoln
Family Chart with the Lincoln, Harrison, Boone and Tallman families
displayed in the branches with other associated families.
Included in this collection is a photograph of the Tallman Cemetery in
Pickaway County Ohio showing the gravestone of Dinah Boone. There
is also a page from the Greater Tallman Family News entitled “Our
Tallman Cousin, President Abraham Lincoln”.
The Boone Family Book has
a chart showing Abigail Harrison Hampton who was married to Jonathan
Hampton and they are buried in the King Cemetery along with some of
their children. Vashti Seaman’s newspaper series entitled,
“Pioneers Around Delta, Ohio” was honored by the National DAR and it
features another chart of these families, the family of Charles
Harrison from Grand Rapids Ohio family.
Ms. Seaman researched the King Family in her history of Delta area in
the Six-Mile-Woods. In so doing, she received information from
various branches of the King family including a branch who had removed
to Kansas some years ago. The family confirmed the fact the King
farm had been an Underground Station and one of the nieces had written
a monograph on the subject.
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Here are some photos of the Old KING FAMILY
CEMETERY
followed by a list on the burials known to be there
The National
Park Service,
National Underground Railroad
Network
to Freedom has recognized the
King Family Cemetery located south
of Delta,
here in Fulton County, Ohio. |
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Click Here to View a Slide Show of Panoramic View of the Area
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The Great Black Swamp:
Historical Tales of 19th-Century Northwest Ohio. by Jim Mollenkopf, has a
little gem about Colonel Dresden Winfield Huston Howard and his father
Edward: “One of the trading posts established by the Howard’s father
was in the Pottawatomie camp of Chief Winameg, once a thriving Indian
village on the banks of Bad Creek.” Colonel Dresden Howard
was a very interesting man involving himself in all aspects of life. He
was one of the earliest white men to explore this Northwest Ohio region
and became regarded the local historian of the area. Throughout his
life he wore many hats, not only that of a hunter, trapper, trader,
farmer and family man, but was also a respected leader in
the roles of: an area guide & Indian Scout, a politician
holding local and state offices, a businessman and entrepreneur
involved in both banking & railroad entities. He was a
visionary ahead of his time involved in community oriented projects: he
was the first president of the Fulton County Fair Board, one of the
original members of the Maumee Valley Historical Society, the founder
and first president of the Fulton County Pioneer Society in 1883, the
president of the local library and also a journalist who wrote for many
area newspapers of his life experiences.
The trading post at Winameg had been established some years prior to
the arrival of the King family. Colonel Howard’s writings spoke
of his family’s exploits in the rescue of the Negro fugitives which was
taken up by other reporters and writers, including Wilbur H. Siebert,
the eminent historian of the Underground Railway in Ohio with the
exception of the “Black Swamp” area. The King farm was also
located on Bad Creek along the old Indian and pioneer trails southeast
of where the Howard’s had located in Winameg. Examining the
locations of the Howard and King stations you see that they are about
seven miles apart with the King’s in Ohio and the Howard’s just across
the Ohio/Michigan old state line. The Weeks family station was also
located nearby the Howard’s and used as an alternate stop.
The village of Winameg was originally within the old Michigan
Territory. The Michigan-Ohio dispute of 1835 determined the
border was to be moved several miles north but for many years after
this many who lived in this area still thought themselves to be
residents of the state of Michigan. Therefore reaching the Howard
station was likely regarded as turning point with freedom in Canada
just a few days away. Ms. Eicher also confirms that the Howard’s
maintained an Underground Station inland at their Winameg, Ohio farm
where the fugitives blended in with the Native Indians in their village
along Bad Creek. Colonel Howard’s eulogy by Judge Hamilton of
Toledo hauntingly mentions Colonel Dresden Howard’s love of the Indians
and how he and his father led the fugitives to freedom in the dark of
the night. The agents of the Underground in Ms. Eicher’s
family usually took the route north from West Barre to Winameg.
Her family also took their ‘charges’ to the King farm as it was a site
close to the Michigan border. Robert McClarren, Colonel Howard’s
grandson, comments that Winameg is a day’s ride from the Maumee River
going north and rescue parties would have utilized the Winameg camp at
it sat directly on the crossroads of several of the Indian
trails. The terminus of the northern route would have been Malden
in Canada.
Professor Siebert analyzed church affiliations and nationalities of the
Underground Railroad Agents in his Slavery to Freedom books:
In general it
is safe to say that the majority of helpers in the
North were Anglo-American stock, descendants of Puritan and
Quaker settlers of Eastern states or Southerners that have moved
to
the Northern states to be rid of slavery. The many stations in
the
Eastern and Northern parts of Ohio and Northern part of Illinois
may
be safely attributed to the large proportion of New England
settlers in
those districts … In the early days running slaves
sometimes sought and
received aid from the Indians …
The inhabitants of the
Ottawa village
of Chief Kinjeino in North
Western Ohio were kindly disposed
towards the fugitive …
The people of
Scotch-Irish descent were naturally liberty loving
and seem to have given
hearty support to the anti-slavery cause
in whatever form it
presented itself to them … The small number
of Scotch communities
in Morgan and Logan counties in Ohio …
were centres
of underground service.
The third sect to which a considerable proportion of Underground
Operators
belong was Calvinistic in its creed. All the various wings
of
Presbyterianism seem to have had representatives in this class
of
anti-slavery
people.
The extended King Family was of this Presbyterian extraction and their
hearts were in their faith as evidenced by the anti-slavery
activities. Not only were they Scotch-Irish as outlined by
Siebert, but staunch Presbyterian as well. The family was
justifiably proud of the youngest son, Reverend William King, who was a
clergyman of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He had
been in the Free Churches first class after the Great Disruption in
Scotland, when the Scots broke away from the original church and formed
the Free Church.
Delta was without a Presbyterian church, but the King farm was the
area’s Sabbath Center and their extended families on the King compound
felt the need to a Presbyterian presences. “A few others of the
same faith had settled in Delta and around the ‘Six-Mile-Woods’
and John King had established his home as a Sabbath Center.
With the large King family it became an unguided congregation … When
William arrived in 1847, his proud father asked him to conduct full
services and he preached in the barn for all who came to hear
him. John got up a subscription to build a Presbyterian Church in
Delta and petitioned the Presbytery in Findlay, Ohio to send a
missionary. William carried the petition to the Presbytery in
September 1847.” A congregation was formed. John and his
family were among the ten charter members of the first Presbyterian
Church of Delta and served as an elder, an office he held at the time
of his death. This was the first Presbyterian Church north of the
Maumee River.
A perusal of the old church records reveals that the early member of
the church were all King family members. The fifteen black settlers
from Louisiana lived in the King’s barn while on the farm. There
they were taught to read and write which included reading the Bible and
hymns. They were not included as members in the early Delta
church records, but since they lived in the barn being used as the
Sabbath Center for a year and a half, they did attend services
regularly (May 1848 to November 1849).
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“The Quaker’s deserve, in this work, to be placed before all others
denominations because of their general acceptance and advocacy of
anti-slavery doctrines when the system of slavery had no other
opponents. From the time of George Fox until the last traces of
the evil were swept from the English-speaking world many Quakers bore a
steadfast testimony against it.”
Probably the best-known Quaker in this area of the Midwest was Laura
Haviland whose statue graces the city of Adrian, Michigan only a short
distance north of the King farm in Ohio on State Route 109. This
route winds its way from the Maumee River past the King station,
through Delta and on north to the city of Adrian (the route become
Michigan Route 52 at the border). The Quaker settlement at the
River Raisin lies just a few miles east of Adrian in Raisin Township.
William King's association with Laura Haviland and proof that Reverend
King and Laura Haviland worked together in their Underground Railroad
endeavors is confirmed in her book where she states :
“Another
woman was directed to me by William King …who founded
a colony a few miles from Chatham, Ontario for
fugitives from slavery.”
Ms. Haviland was a teacher at the Refugees’ Homes Settlement, a colony
eight miles back of Windsor, established in 1852 by the legendary Henry
Bibbs, himself a fugitive slave. Three of the Canadian
settlements, Dawn, Refugees’ Home and Buxton/Elgin, were in close
proximity east of Windsor. These three settlements were the most
important of the colonies formed in Canada and Buxton is considered to
be the most successful.
The First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, March
24, 1852, lists a Refugee’s Home Society in Michigan whose objective
was “To obtain permanent homes for the Refugees in Canada and promote
their moral, physical, intellectual and political elevation.” One
can assume Ms. Haviland and the Michigan Quakers were involved in
founding this Society of Michigan.
The connection between King and Ms. Haviland is an important one in the
Underground Railway linkage north to freedom that lend credence to the
belief that the King, Howard and other families of the Fulton County
Ohio Underground Network forwarded slaves to the Quaker River Raisin
Settlement. In 1829, when the Richmond, Indiana party of Quakers
and Negroes passed down the Maumee River through Defiance, Ohio,
on to the Howard’s on the river. The Howard’s were active in this
rescue work as testified to by Colonel Dresden Howard. The
Howard’s were familiar with the trails of the area and escorted them
north to the Quaker Settlement at River Raisin Michigan, a shelter stop
along their way to Monroe, Michigan, the gateway to Detroit.
Colonel Howard’s grandson, Robert McClarren, testifies in a letter to
Ms. Naomi Twining the Howard’s were conductors of this 1829 party.
The Underground Railroad & Laura Haviland
Photos of River Raisin Church and
Cemetery
The Reverend William King had a connection with another Howard family
branch in the person of General Oliver Otis Howard, commissioner in
charge of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Washington, D.C. (General Howard is
also credited with establishing Howard University in Washington, D.C.)
In 1865 King was in Washington to put before the government a plan to
be finance by the citizens of Buxton. They were to pool their
resources and buy land in the South to form a colony there, similar to
the Elgin Settlement, ample free labor and raise cotton and
sugar. The Buxton people wanted King to be a part of this and go
south with them.
They could not know that forty acres and a mule were a cruel fiction,
“nor could they know that emancipation and freedom were not synonymous
…It was then that Reconstruction failed, even before it had
begun.” The southern community would be a duplication of Buxton
and General Howard was sympathetic to the plan but was fighting a
losing battle. His “heart ached for our beneficiaries …but he was
helpless to offer them permanent possession.”
Slavery was abolished in name. King returned to Buxton with “the
broken remnants of another dream.”
Attempts were made to embarrass General Howard in the House of
Representatives, but he was acquitted of these groundless
charges. Next it was recommended that he be
court-martialed. A Special Court of Inquiry, composed of army
officers, was brought against him and he was found not guilty.
The 1874 recommendation was signed by General Sherman and General
Grant. (General Howard was with Sherman on his ‘March to the Sea’ and
had lost his right hand in Civil War battle.)
These stalwarts – one a military man, the other a clergyman-teacher,
while not allowed by circumstances to complete their dreams, then
concentrated on what was possible. Howard went on to found
several universities, schools and institutions.
After the Civil War, Reverend King’s settlers began an
exodus to the South: “Two thousand Negro graduates of Buxton schools,
the Chatham Collegiate Institute, Knox and Trinity Colleges (later the
University of Toronto), went south as educational, agricultural,
political and religious missionaries.”
Seven Hundred young men and women of the exodus were from Buxton.
Among them they had “roles in the Freedmen’s Bureau in schools,
hospitals and land settlement… Others rose to national prominence
…” There were four doctors, two army surgeons, two ministers,
five educators in the new Fisk and Howard Universities for Negroes,
sixteen school teacher, five lawyers, one U.S. Congressman, one State
Senator, one Speaker of a State Legislature, one Internal Revenue
Assessor and one Circuit Court Judge.
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The half
has not been told –
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Genevieve Eicher states
in a letter dated February 10, 2004, "There
is no question about the validity of the King family of the Reverend
William King and their Underground Railroad Station,
York Township, Fulton County, Ohio." The King station activities
have been overshadowed by the telling of the establishment of the
settlement in Buxton, Ontario, Canada.
William King is best known due to the work done by him and the
settlement in Buxton. The people I talked to and interviewed were
much more aware of the work done by the other King family members who
ran the station on York Township. The King farm was a well-known
site to those who ran and maintained the line in Northwest Ohio, and to
the runaways who passed through this part of Ohio. These lines
were maintained by persons who knew each other, worked with each other
and remained friends until all had died. Although the work was
done in secrecy, the workers on the Underground Railroad never forgot
the years of their work and the people they worked with in what was a
most important part of their lives for many years.
Ms. Eicher is the Northwest Ohio Coordinator for The Friends of
Freedom Society, Inc.: Ohio Underground Railroad Association and
is the premiere researcher of the Underground Railroad for several
counties in Northwest Ohio. Her documentation stems from her
earliest childhood memories and her written reports of her family’s
reminiscences of their activities as station masters on the underground
in Northwest Ohio. During automobile tours among the various
stations her parents would point out the sites and what they remembered
about them.
During family visits and reunions Ms. Eicher learned about the King
Station which was not far from the Eckhart station, one of her
families’ sites. While collecting oral traditions as a child and
teenager she learned how her relatives and associated families:
Eckhart, Tubbs, Newell, Weeks, and Eicher delivered fugitives to the
King Station. The King site lies near the Eckhart and Weeks
stations. From 1838 until the end of the Civil War the King farm
was a station on the route to the Detroit River. Fugitive usually
traveled next to the Eicher station east of Delta and then on to
Sylvania. The Friends of Freedom, Inc. recently published a
history volume consisting of text and photographs outlining the
Underground Railroad in Ohio and several of Ms. Eicher’s
relative’s stations and the King station are featured in
the book including the First Congregational Church, Ridgeville Corners
as part of the Underground Railroad. Ms. Eicher now owns the old
church building. (Ridgeville Corners was established by one of
her families.) Ms. Eicher comments on the published book: “There
was no question that the farm (King) was a legitimate site so it was
easy to do information needed. Unfortunately I doesn’t do justice
to the story of the King family and their important work with the
Underground Railroad through this our part of Ohio.”
The
Friends of Freedom book chronicles stations
which include the Eckhart, Newell, Patterson and Tubbs sites. The
King site is also included in the book as all of these families engaged
in the rescue activities together. The Weeks family is also
featured in the book as a cooperating station near the Howard family’s
Winameg, Ohio site. The Robert and Nancy Cole Newell house in
Florida, Ohio in Henry County still exists and can easily be seen as it
sits along State Route 24 on the Maumee River. The house was the
first house built in Florida, Ohio in 1838 and was a trading post as
well as a traveler’s inn. They had a jail attached to rear of the house
a along the banks of the Miami & Erie Canal. Fugitive slaves
were often hidden in the jailhouse, but when there were prisoners in
the cells the Newell’s sent the fugitives to the homes of Doctor George
Patterson of Doctor Perry. Ms. Eicher is the
great-granddaughter of Nancy Newell and her adoptive mother was Alice
Tubbs Motter born in 1874, died in 1963 and she was the source of much
of the Ms. Eicher’s Underground Railroad knowledge. Alice’s
father was a station agent in the Defiance County, Ohio who transported
slaves to the Eckhart home. He was Charles Tubbs whose wife was
Charlotte Newell Robinson Tubbs.
The
Black Swamp
This Underground Railroad work was done in the heart of the Great Black
Swamp of northern Ohio where travel was difficult and dangerous.
The choice of paths to be taken varied according to the seasons with
more options available during the dry season. Genevieve Eicher’s
adoptive mother, Alice Motter, recalled her father’s accounts of the
swamp. “When my father came into the Black Swamp in 1835-36 he
found the port of Vistula (Toledo) was mud, mud and more mud. He
followed the ridges from Vistula Lucas, Fulton and Henry Counties to
what is now Ridgeville Corners, Ohio. He told me that there a was
just a foot path barley a foot wide in places, up to six foot wide in
other places, bordered by stinking mud and quicksand for it was wild,
wild country. Charles said that at night he climbed into the
crotch of a tree to be safe from the wild animals that roamed the
swamp. The other danger was the poisonous snakes that hung from
the trees or laid along the paths.”
Virgil W. Weeks was an abolitionist and leading farmer of Pike
Township, Fulton County near the Howard’s at Winameg, Ohio.
The Fulton County historian, Thomas Mikesell, relates the Weeks account
in his history book: “His father, David Weeks, was a strong
abolitionist in the crucial days leading up to the Civil War and he was
a conductor on the famous ‘Underground Railway’ through whose
beneficent operation many poor slaves were assisted to freedom.
Virgil aided his father in this work, having transported a number of
fugitive slaves from the station in Pike Township to the one in the
River Raisin or Quaker Settlement.” (The settlement was located
just north in Michigan)
Note: There is an interesting connection here with the Quaker
abolitionist, Laura Haviland of the Friends settlement at River Raisin
as she was also known to have worked with the Reverend William King
with the Underground Railway. King’s Buxton Mission and the Refugee’s
Home Settlement in Canada where Ms. Haviland taught school were within
a few miles of each other.
Continuing
with Ms. Eicher’s history:
"My own personal project on the Underground Railroad covers the portion
of line that ran from Independence on the Maumee River in Defiance,
Henry and Fulton Counties to the termination point of the Eicher farm
east of Delta, Ohio." An intersecting line met the Adams
Ridge Road line at West Barre in Fulton County. The Tubbs and
Newell families transported “cargo” also on the intersecting line that
passed the King farm, transporting slaves through the above counties to
the Lewis Eckhart, Samuel Eckhart, King and Eicher stations as
needed. The King family was acquainted with these families but
were not a regular transfer station for the Tubbs, Newell and other
families on the Adam Ridge line. The usual line followed turned
north at West Barre to go to Adrian, Michigan where relative of the
Tubbs family also ran Underground Railroad. The agents from the
Adams Ridge line transported on the West Barre-Delta line when
fugitives wanted to go to Sylvania, Monroe or Toledo on their way to
Canada.
Slaves traveled the old Indian trail known as the Adrian, Ridgeville
and Independence Turnpike (now Co. Rd. X in Henry County, Road A-C in
Fulton County) which went from the Maumee River east of Defiance, Ohio
to Adrian Michigan. At West Barre the trail divided with one
branch turning north across Fulton County passing the Howard station in
Winameg and on to Adrian, Michigan. The other branch
continued eastward from West Barre to the King farm south of Delta,
Ohio and on northeasterly toward Sylvania, Ohio or Monroe, Michigan and
then on to Detroit where they crossed to Canada.
The Maumee-Angola Road ran westward from Maumee/Toledo through Ottokee,
Spring Hill (now Tedrow) and on to Angola, Indiana. It was the
chief immigrant road west and a much used slave road east. We
were told that the King station was an active station and both Lewis
and Samuel Eckhart delivered ‘cargo’ to the King station and to the
Philip Eicher station east of Delta, Ohio.
The King farm was also linked to stations near the Michigan border near
the Weeks, close to the Howard’s at Winameg. The Howard family
originally settled on the Maumee River in 1823 in Gilead now known as
Grand Rapids, Ohio. From about 1830-33 the Eckhart family
also lived at Grand Rapids near the Howard family. Both the Howard and
Eckhart families soon moved on and settled in what is now Fulton County
by 1834-35. The Markley family, another of Genevieve’s ancestors,
arrived about the same time and they were reputed to be safe houses for
the Underground Railway.
My knowledge about the King family Underground activities comes from my
adopted family remembrances of their parents and grandparents running
active stations on the lines through Defiance, Henry and Fulton
counties. This is oral history related many times as the families
gathered together at reunions and visits with each other. We
remember being told that the Weeks and Howard families ran stations,
but our families were only acquaintances of those families so I know little
about their stations except that they existed. Whenever possible
I verified their material with written records, account, pictures and
genealogy.
Note: The King family station at South Delta, the Howard & Weeks
family stations northwest at Winameg and the Eckhart’s family stations
southwest on County Road A-C locations formed a triangle and they were
all strategically located along the Underground Railways through Fulton
County.
Ms. Eicher says she has an advantage in that her family passed down the
accounting of their experiences as agents on the Underground Railroad
with many details and they actually toured the area indicating where
the stations were. This was part of her summer education and she
recorded the history in her journals which she maintains as reference
to this day. One of her best sources was her Uncle Jim Robinson,
her natural relative. His memory was excellent and he was very
detailed in his recollections. When being told the histories of
her family’s Underground activities Uncle Jim made sure she got out the
album so she could connect the person to the history being told. He was
a Wyandotte Indian elder and very wise, precise historian.
*
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Next
is a map showing the Underground Stations and their
strategic location along the
early
trails of region. The sites in red on the map are clickable links that
will take you to a
page with additional information about each Underground Railroad Station.
|
|
Click on Map to
get an Enlarged view
Note:
Click on the
'red' names on the map above for additional
information pages.
This map does not display every underground railroad
station that was in the region. It is only
reflecting those sights we have been able to identify
and gather information about as of this date.
Anyone having knowledge of other Underground Stations
in the area are encouraged to contact us.
Send E-mail to:
lozer@fulton-net.com
|
Howard Family
Colonel Dresden Winfield Huston Howard
“The sharp crack of
the rifle echoed through the forest, the horse, with a
groan plunged to the ground.
This checked the pursuing party
and gave stimulus and speed to the feet of the fugitives. The
slave catchers were now afraid to advance and retreated over the trail
and the fugitives, though badly frightened, were permitted to continue
their march to freedom unmolested.”
Wilbur Henry Siebert, In one of his Underground Railroad books, cites
an August 28, 1894, letter written by Colonel Dresden W. H. Howard
which states, “Befriending these seekers of freedom was practiced by
the Howard family on the Maumee …Edward (Colonel’s father) hid slaves
in the dense forest near his cabin. When they were in camp or
ready to move on, Mrs. Howard supplied them with corn bread, boiled
venison and pork. The party was guided along the course of the
river by Howard and his son.”
Colonel Howard relates the rifle incident: “Ten miles below the
Rapids of Roche Teboult – or Standing Rock lived on (Isaac) Richardson,
a Kentuckian, who made his living by catching slaves. …Edward
Howard was piloting a party of slaves north and the trail passed only
three miles west of Richardson’s …it was necessary to keep a close
lookout; and for greater safety the trip north from my father’s was
always performed at night. …We had a whisper from an Indian
friend (likely the Ottawa Chief Kinjeino, whose tribe was among the
earliest friends of the escaping slaves and whose village was across
the Maumee from the Howard’s Trading Post at Gilead [now Grand Rapids]
that this party …kept concealed in the thick, swampy forest, …was being
watched and would be ambushed on the way …the party took a circuitous
route to elude pursuit … re-entering the old trail …advanced three
miles, when we plainly heard the beat of horses’ hoofs behind us …in a
few minutes two horsemen approached the ambuscade and in a second
more the sound of the rifle was heard.”
“Due to the clandestine nature of the Underground Railroad, few people
left written evidence of their involvement and most accounts are
clouded with speculation. However, Dresden W. H. Howard verified
that his family often concealed fugitives in the woods surrounding
their up home before guiding them toward Maumee. This was a
perilous undertaking and the bounties offered for the runaways were
often too tempting for local residents to ignore. The ‘slave
catching’ activities of such men as Isaac Richardson and John Thompson
were well known in the area at an early date.”
The Underground Route on which this incident took place was part of the
oldest line through this part of Ohio. It did not remain the only
route long. The Quaker settlements scattered here and there
through Ohio were already well grounded in abolition sentiments.
As settlers came to this corner of Northwest Ohio and aligned
themselves along the old Indian trail through the area, many became
Underground Stations and safe houses which opened up several alternate
routes. The January 1947 Volume of the Northwest Ohio Quarterly
states: “Winameg is an unincorporated village in Pike Township in
Fulton County, Ohio. It is at the crossing of the road to Angola,
Indiana (State Route 246) and the Old State Road from Wauseon, Ohio to
Adrian, Michigan.”
Colonel Howard, of Wauseon, Ohio, the only
survivor of this branch at the time, a gentleman over eighty years of
age thinks its period of operation is fairly described by the years
1816 to 1835 or ’40. He traced the route as follows: “I
think the main and principal route crossed the Ohio River near
North bend; thence on as direct a line as possible (following the
streams practicable) to the upper Auglaize, and the Blanchard’s fork of
the Auglaize, passing near the Shawnee village where is now the city of
Wapakoneta and to Ocquenesies town on the Blanchard where is now the
village of Ottawa; thence to the Grand Rapids of Maumee (where the
river could be easily forded most of the year), and at the Ottawa
village of Chief Kinjeino where all were friendly and poor slave was
treated kindly; thence by a plain trail north to Malden, Canada.
In his book, The Mysteries of the Ohio Underground Railroads,
Siebert relates: “The Indians befriended the colored pilgrims as early
as 1818. The earliest white known to have cooperated with them
were Edward Howard and his son, D. W. Howard. The Howard’s settled
in Grand Rapids in 1823 and harbored Canada-bound slaves in the forest
near to the cabin.” …From Perrysburg, a branch crossed north through
Maumee Village extending fifteen miles up to Sylvania at the Michigan
Boundary, then on to Adrian (Michigan) …from Adrian the trail passed
through Ypsilanti to Detroit.”
The escape trails used would depend on the season of the year and how
fast the ‘conductors ran the train’. The Howard’s built the
Howard House or tavern in 1832 and several events took place in the
tavern. It was a stopping place for Negroes escaping to Canada
during the Civil War.” The Howard’s also maintained a trading
post inland from the river at Winameg, the site of Chief Winameg’s
Indian village and burial grounds. As a young boy Dresden and his
father had visited this area many times since they first came to the
area in 1823. According to Robert McClarren, grandson of D.W.H
Howard, the visits became more frequent starting around 1829 and by
1834 a small block house was built on the site. All of the
researchers, including Mr. McClarren, Mark Lozer (Fulton County
Genealogical Society web coordinator and historian) and Naomi Twining
(Project Historian) are in agreement that it was logical indeed, quite
likely, the Howard’s and fugitives would break their northward flight
by a visit to the Howard trading post at the Indian Village of Winameg,
then in Michigan territory and about a days journey from the
River. The King Station was about seven miles from Winameg on
Ohio side. So if they encountered any danger along the way the
fugitives could turn to the King farm for protection or to the Weeks
family farm which was also nearby. During this period, there were
few families that had settled in this area. In the pioneering
days in this section of Northwest Ohio the early families depended on
one another for support and therefore grew close. This is
evidenced in the marriage of the Mary Howard McClarren (grand daughter
of Colonel Dresden W. H. Howard) to William French Bruce (grandson of
Elizabeth King Bruce, a sister of Reverend William King).
In 1840 census you find Jane King Bartley (sister of Reverend
William King) living neighbors with Alexander Howard and son David
Howard in Whitehouse, Lucas County Ohio (Alexander is a brother of
Edward). Several of these families had members living in
Lucas and Wood counties along the Maumee River and also had
representatives living in Fulton County near Delta and Winameg.
Studying the genealogy of these families it is evident that they had
support all along the trails from the Maumee River through Fulton
County to the Michigan border and others living beyond near the River
Raisin Quaker settlement east of Adrian. The farms of the King’s
and the Howard’s are both located of the confluence of Indian trails
within the direct march north. Besides the Northwestern trail
that connects the King farm to the Howard’s in Winameg, each farm
also had trails coming in from the south, east, west and to the
north. This allowed options for alternate paths when selecting
the route to be taken to Freedom in Canada.
It would have been logical for the fugitives to be concealed among the
Indians when Howard’s went to Detroit to trade goods at the Detroit
Mills via the overland route. They also took goods by canoes on a
water route up the Maumee River to Toledo, then to Monroe crossing at
Malden and on to Detroit. This was the trail taken by the Indians
on their annual trip to Detroit to receive their annuity from the
British Government. As D. W. H. Howard recalls in his memoirs,
the Detroit River was “thick with canoes”. What a simple matter
it would have been for the Howard’s and their friends to introduce
their black fugitives to the canoes and silently cross the river to the
haven of the British Lion.
Note: Fortunately, Colonel Howard was a historian and journalist who
wrote for the area newspapers and kept diaries of his adventures.
The Howard family descendants have access to this material and have
been very helpful with the our request for information.
Professor Siebert lauds Toledo’s James M. Ashley “a member of Congress
from Toledo district, had experience abducting slaves while he was a
youth at Portsmouth. As a resident of Toledo he was still a
serviceable operator, as opportunity presented. Richard Mott, the
elderly Quaker was another valuable agent.” Ashley and Mott were
confederate in their violation of the Slave Act at Toledo.
Congressman Ashley and Dresden W. H. Howard were close friends.
The Quaker Rescue
By 1828, the Quaker Benjamin Lundy, had formed one hundred societies of
the Union Humane Society across the United States. “Prior to the Civil
War, when the black slaves were seeking freedom in the North, Detroit
was at the head of an ‘Undergound Railroad’ which used the Maumee
River. The first use of this route, perhaps of any such route in
the middle west occurred in 1829. Some fugitive slaves from Kentucky
settled briefly in southern Indiana but were ‘sought by the
negro-hunters’, one was caught and later rescued by some ‘men of the
land’. The blacks then decided to seek safety in Canada and a
group of Quakers agreed to take them north. If they followed a
pattern of other escapes along this route they traveled by night
covering sixteen to twenty miles between farms. This group
arrived outside Fort Wayne October 11th 1829 and fearful of
adverse reaction, sought a meeting with the leaders of the city.”
The leader of this group, Frederick Hoover, was a member of the
prominent Quaker family whose head was Andrew Hoover, who with others
established the Society of Friends settlement at Richmond, Indiana in
1806.
In an ancient letter of 11th day of the 10th
month preserved by Frederick Hoover’s great-granddaughter: …”they said
they would not turn to the right hand or to the left hand and if they
took anything from thence they would give pieces of silver …the chief
men of the city let the people pass through …they departed and took the
way as one goeth toward the city of Defiance down the river Maumee and
encamped on the river and there the people sang songs of praises to the
Lord for his mercies in delivering then form their enemies.”
In another section of this aged manuscript: “Now it came to pass …that
the Ethiopians in the province of Kentucky were sore vexed by reason of
their taskmasters and they lifted up their eyes toward the land of
Indiana which lieth toward the north country over the great River Ohio
…now Indiana is a land flowing with milk and honey, and they said,
therefore, let us flee …so the people got them away by stealth and fled
into the land of Indiana and gat them possessions in the land. …Howbeit
they were sought by the negro-hunters.”
This strange and motley company of Negroes and whites, ”later continued
down along the Maumee River through Defiance into Perrysburg where they
crossed the river, then north through Monroe and Detroit over the great
river into Canada.”
Robert McClarren, grandson of Colonel D.W.H. Howard, says, “There is
suggestion that the Howard’s may have been ‘conductors’ of this first
group of passengers on the Maumee route (1829).” At that early
date, there were few white families on the Maumee River and the
encampment where they sang praises would have been the Howard’s
camp. The Howard’s were in the habit of rescuing and feeding
runaways and were knowledgeable of the routes to Winameg where the
Indian village would have sheltered them.
“As
one unearths section after section of the old lines, however,
and
learns about the faithful service of many brave operators, one
can
not avoid the conviction that the half has not been told.”
*
* * * * *
* * * * *
This page began April 2007 © Copyright 2007 Naomi Twining and Mark
Lozer Information contained in this page can be used for noncommercial
use only
Note about the Underground Rail Road Project:
We are currently working with
the National
Underground Railroad Network to Freedom
to achieve the acknowledgement deserved for the early pioneers of Northwest Ohio
that
were active on the Underground Railroad aiding the slaves to freedom.
The project has
gained
local support and also State, National and International recognition
from individuals,
government entities and
historical organizations. Here is the list project supporters -
Financial Donors & Project Supporters
King family members include:
Others include:
-
Naomi Twining;
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John & Betty Trowbridge;
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Lowell B. Yoder;
-
Marylin Yoder;
-
York Township Trustees;
-
North Star Steel of Delta,
Ohio;
-
First Federal Savings
& Loan Assoc. of Delta;
-
Farmers & Merchants
State Bank of
Delta;
-
Robert Royce McClarran;
-
Lawrence McClarran;
(Robert & Lawrence are the great grandsons of Dresden W. H. Howard)
Project Supporters
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National Park Service,
Network to Freedom has recognized the King Family Cemetery;
-
Free Church of Scotland;
-
Buxton National Historical
Site, Canada;
-
Charles Blockson, author of
"The Underground Railroad;
-
The Friends of Freedom
Society, Inc.;
-
Ohio Underground Railroad
Association;
-
Ohio Historical Society;
-
Afro-Louisiana Historical
and Genealogical Society, Inc.;
-
Fulton County Historical
Society;
-
American Legion Post 373,
Delta, Ohio;
-
Fulton County Chapter of
Ohio Genealogical Society;
Government Entities Endorsing
Project
-
U.S. Senator, Sherrod
Brown;
-
U. S. Representative,
Paul Gilmore;
-
Ohio Representative,
Chris Redford;
-
Ohio Representative,
Stephen Buehrer;
-
Fulton County Ohio
Commissioners;
If anyone has
additional information or wishes to make a contribution to the
Underground Railroad Project
please contact Mark Lozer.
Send E-mail to:
lozer@fulton-net.com or send information regular mail to:
Mark Lozer
817 N. Fulton St.
Wauseon, OH 43567 |
OR |
Naomi Twining
4713 Haddington Road
Toledo, OH 43623 |
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(419) 822-6649
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< Or you can phone at >
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(419) 474-7084
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Modified Tuesday, 20-Jan-2015 14:51:42 MST
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