Hello Jennifer,

While not the telegraph, but rather newspapers. One of the midwestern papers overlooked by researchers is "the Palladium of Liberty". Not one of your more famous papers.

The Palladium operated out of Columbus, Ohio in the early 1840's (1843-1845). The list of agents by name and location is very widespread and covered Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Penna and New York state. Some of the agents named are found in Prof. Wilbur Siebert's
collections on the UGRR, but many, many more are mentioned and truly deserve a "look" as activists, abolitions and as possible UGRR Operators/Conductors.

Some documentation on this newspaper is found on the Ohio Historical Society Website. http://www.ohiohistory.org/index.html ....Search Newspapers.
If you're interested I can send by landmail a copy of an issue that names agents and locations.

The Plalladium seemed to be a working model of networking capabilites among those with strong anti-slavery positions, the famous and the not so famous. AND note the timeframe, several years before 1850 and the uproar created by the Fugitive Slave Act.

Best wishes in your efforts.

Art Thomas