With reference to who was and who may have been involved with the Underground Railroad: Without African American slaves, the Underground Railroad would have never existed. Non-slaves of the South were not escaping nor risking life and limb in attempts to reach freedom in the North! Slaves were escaping long before the Underground Railroad got it's name! Without free people of color, without former slaves, without blacks who passed for white, there would have never been an Underground Railroad in the days of slavery! Today, government grants go to the buildings of the Euro Americans who helped out with the Underground Railroad. Museums and libraries and cultural centers. But too little is said about the Africans who played active roles at a particular place without whom, that place may never have been an Underground Railroad Station! I attended last year, the dedication of the Thomas Hughes House in Jefferson, Greene County, Pennsylvania. It has been renovated and is now part of the Greene County Library System. For years, in numerous books and on numerous Internet websites, it has been said that the Hughes house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. But at the dedication nothing was said about the Underground Railroad. Nothing was said about the slaves who cut the stone for the house. Nothing was said about the slaves who built the house. Nothing was said about Thomas Hughes being a slave-owner! Nothing was said about the slaves he freed prior to the Civil War! Greene County historians include the story of this house in their books on Greene County but nothing was said about the slaves at the dedication of the stone house of Thomas Hughes, a slave-owner! My interest in the Thomas Hughes house? My GGG Grandfather, Daniel Ferrell, was one of the Hughes slaves. How did Daniel get there? Was he, or his mother, part of the 52 man train, including slaves, that brought Thomas Hughes and family and other white families to Greene County? Was he the slave of someone else and sold or given to Thomas Hughes? Was he the son of an African American or the son of a slave-owner? Who is Daniel's father, my GGGG Grandfather? I don't know but I am searching for the answers! And I will continue to tell Daniel Ferrell's story because he was a part of the Hughes House. It is said Daniel earned his freedom by digging 5000 bushels of coal for his owner Thomas Hughes. Daniel was a free man in one census, and Daniel was white in another census. Daniel was to be managed at the discretion of Thomas's wife Elizabeth and the Executors of the Hughes Will dated 1823. Even though Daniel was a free person of color in 1820, he was still working for the Hughes family his entire life! A member of the Rex family helped Daniel purchase a house for he and his family. Daniel is said to be buried with at least one other(slave)in the same cemetery as Thomas and Elizabeth, and very close to their graves, in Jefferson, PA. But at the dedication of the Hughes House, nothing was said about the Africans who built the house, maintained the house, worked in Hughes's coal mines, worked in Hughes's Distillery, and those who would have surely been a part of the Underground Railroad in that household! Runaway slaves were said to have been hidden in the coal mines. Who created the tunnels by digging the coal? Slaves of Thomas Hughes! But please note that Thomas Hughes died in 1823, seven years before the name Underground Railroad was used (or about).
I was at the dedication and witness to what was not said. Whatever truth that may now arise from the hidden past of the Hughes house will affect me, and other Ferrell descendants, and my search for my roots!
Thomas McCray, a 14 year old runaway slave from South Carolina made his way to Greene County. 14 years old...to escape slavery...to travel hundreds of miles alone...to reach freedom...and eventually become a successful Greene County businessman. Such is not the journey of a "weak" person. In this case, a child of 14 who wanted to be free! But the only ones to properly tell the stories of Greene County African Americans, are other African Americans. So now you know a little of the Life and Experience of African Americans in Greene County, Pennsylvania.