Laura Smith Haviland is one of my favorite people. However, to answer the question about carrier pigeons in use in the Underground Railroad, I think that the following points are relevant:

1. Laura Smith Haviland left us a very thick book of memoirs, A Woman's Life Work (revised several times) and though she talks about Underground Railroad activities, never mentions pigeons as a means of communication. I've never seen references to pigeons carrying messages in any other account by an Underground Railroad participant.

2. Earlier in the thread on this posting, it was stated that carrier pigeons were used during the Civil War. I don't know if this is correct, but have read enough about the Civil War to know that if this is the case, use must have been very rare. There are whole books on the Signal Corp, on the military telegraph, on code systems, on flag signaling systems, but I can't recollect ever seeing anything on pigeons. The "technology" was available-- pigeons had been used to carry messages in Europe for some time, but as far as I know they weren't used much by the military in Europe until the Franco-Prussian War, and by the US military until WWI. However, perhaps the question of American Civil War useage might be better taken to one of the Civil War lists (and let us know the answer).

Also, I'm not aware of pre-civil war use of carrier pigeons in the United States during or prior to the Civil War. Might have happened, though if it did, there would seem to be more evidence available.

3. Like other Underground Railroad claims and speculations, I find it useful to employ "Occam's Razor" e.g. that general principle that "all things being equal the simplest situation tends to be the best one." What's the most simple reason for having pigeons in a barn in the 19th century? As a source of meat. Same reason one had chickens and ducks. Pidgeon is no longer a common food in the US, but, wild and tame, widely used in 19th century America.

So, I find it highly unlikely that those pigeons had anything to do with the Underground Railroad.

Chris Densmore