I would like to weigh in a bit on this fascinating discussion regarding carrier/homing pigeons, the Havilands, and other suspected local UGRR sites. I think that Leigh Fellner's comments speak to a persistent problem in discussions of the UGRR. While the Havilands are well known abolitionists, and some members of the family are known to have harbored and aided fugitives, it is a far more important point that tunnels, hidden, secret, underground, or walled off rooms and tunnels were all abberations for the most part. Usually these architectural artifacts have perfectly plausible explanations that have nothing to do with UGRR activities. Bringing them up over and over again diminishes discussions of the reality of the UGRR - in this case, the Havilands and their neighbors and the people they helped. Like the mythical quilt code, we have never uncovered testimony that supports the use of these thousands of supposed secret rooms made specifically for the UGRR. In fact, most testimony reveals that fugtives stayed at a safe house but for a few hours, maybe overnight, and sent along quickly to the next station. In Michigan, what would the purpose have been for all those secret places? The laws of Michigan, like other terrirotes and states, protected people in their homes. No legal access without search warrants. It took time, trouble, and a friendly judge to sign a search warrant, and in Michigan I don't think we find much legal intrusion into the Haviland's homes or their neighbors' homes. Most fugitives who were caught were most frequently caught in their own neighborhoods, in landscapes across which they were traversing, but rarely in the home of an UGRR agent, particularly that far north. The border states had more trouble in this respect, but it is remarkable how infrequently legal authorities had access to someone's home. Anne Halford mentioned that she was told that the Havilands probably did not hide many freedom seekers in their home because they were watched so closely - by whom? Did slave stealing men erect tents near their front yards and watch the house 24 hours a day? They were not living in a crowded city, but in uncrowded areas with visibility. Where would slavecatchers have watched from? Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, is credited with helping over 2500 fugitives - he was notoriously well known for his activities in a slave state - yet he was successful, and he never mentioned secret rooms, tunnels, or carrier pigeons. Disguises for fugitives, yes, hiding places, no. Fugitive testimony reveals people hiding in barns, under haystacks, wooded thickets, in potato or vegetable holes, and milk or ice houses - all structures pre-existing and made for other purposes. Not one talks about tunnels. In my home state of Maine, there are documented homes with secret panels built around fireplaces, for example, used by residents to hide in during Indian attacks. Michigan's frontier may have had homes with the same features. Smuggling, during the mid 18th century, the Civil War, and then Prohibition, is far more responsible for forcing creative minds to build tunnels, underground or false fronted basement rooms. I have a cousin who owns a two hundred year old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere Maine. This home has so many underground rooms, doors that go nowhere, "secret" panels leading to rooms not accessible from other areas of the house, that you could have a field day imagining all the UGRR activity that "must" have happened here. He discovered a triple hole outhouse that was attached to the house (yes, attached to the house), imperceptable from the outside or inside the ell to the house where it is attached. At some point it was boarded up, seemlessly, and it remained untouched for generations. But if this house was in, say, southeastern Pennsylvania, or in the Havilands neighborhood, how long would it take for assumed connections to the UGRR start? Another relative found a false wall in an old woodshed - what was it for? Hiding liquor! The temperance movement was unbelieveably powerful in Maine - where else would someone hide their liquor? A secret room!

So please, let's stop the this persistent references to hidey holes, tunnels, and secret rooms as determining UGRR sites. Let's look at the people, and how they conveyed freedom seekers quickly, safely, and sucessfully from one place to the next and ultimately to freedom. Laura Haviland, by the way, writes about writing notes and giving them to the freedom seekers themselves to hand to the next person on the UGRR route to freedom. Obviously she wasn't so worried about sending messages if she sent them with the person who supposedly was being pursued. Did people eat pigeons and did people raise little game hens to eat back then?

Best regards,
Kate Larson