I know that Levi Coffin was proclaimed "president" of the Underground Railroad, that Harriet Tubman was proclaimed "Moses of her people", and William Still has been credited with "founding" the Underground Railroad. This fine with me, since I feel that they all deserve credit for their contributions. If my respected colleagues are seeking the origins of the "organized" Underground Railroad, my research at least deserves a discussion.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Henry,
I welcome your invitation to join in a “friendly” discussion of the UGRR and its origins, hero’s, myth’s and its many stories. I hope others will also join in.

For starters I would like to comment on one of the three “giants” mentioned above.

First, I think all three were the beneficiaries of a generous print media. As you say they all deserve the credit and recognition they have and are receiving, but their stories, I feel, are so out of proportion and to the detriment of the overall story of the UGRR.

An example……..From “This Mysterious Road” His Work in Newport, Indiana 1820-150 by Levi Coffin
==========================================================
Levi Coffin:
In the year 1836, I built an oil mill and manufactured linseed oil. Notwithstanding all this multiplicity of business, I was never too busy to engage in Underground Railroad affairs. Soon after we located at Newport, I found that we were on a line of the U. G. R. R. Fugitives often passed through that place, and generally stopped among the colored people. There was in that neighborhood a number of families of free colored people, mostly from North Carolina, who were the descendants of slaves who had been liberated by Friends many years before, and sent to free States at the expense of North Carolina Yearly Meeting. I learned that the fugitive slaves who took refuge with these people were often pursued and captured, the colored people not being very skillful in concealing them, or shrewd in making arrangements to forward them to Canada. I was pained to hear of the capture of these fugitives, and inquired of some of the Friends in our village why they did not take them in and secrete them, when they were pursued, and then aid them on their way to Canada? I found that they were afraid of the penalty of the law. I told them that I read in the Bible when I was a boy that it was right to take in the stranger and administer to those in distress, and that I thought it was always safe to do right. The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book. I was willing to receive and aid as many fugitives as were disposed to come to my house. I knew that my wife’s feelings and sympathies regarding this matter were the same as mine, and that she was willing to do her part. It soon became known to the colored people in our neighborhood and others, that our house was a depot where the hunted and harassed fugitive journeying northward, on the Underground Railroad, could find succor and sympathy. It also became known at other depots on the various lines that converged at Newport.
=================================================================
Hidden in the above statement is the fact that Free Persons of Color were operating in the Newport, IN area before Levi Coffin arrived. Coffin’s perception that they (FPOC’s) were “incompetent”. That others of the Quaker faith had not been active in the UGRR before his organizational and leadership skills were put into effect. Further reading of Rev. Coffins “Reminiscences” seem to be equally “self-indulging”. His figures state 1,500 fugitives aided in Newport and another 2,000 while in Cincinnati, OH, that his depot in Newport was the main terminus on the way to Canada with its feeders being Jeffersonville, IN and Cincinnati, OH.

This post is in no way meant to denigrate Rev. Coffins efforts, but to merely point out what can happen when ONE has the ability, wherewithal and financial means to write the history. A good, honest discussion is truly needed.

Henry, thanks for getting us started.

Art Thomas