Underground Railroad now called Freedom Trails By Shirley Willard, Fulton County Historian Nearly every week I get e-mails about Indiana Freedom Trails, today's name for the Underground Railroads (UGRR). In 1998 the US Congress decided that the National Park Service should establish the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program. They challenged the State Historic Preservations Offices to do statewide research to identify every UGRR site. Indiana's Department of Natural Resources Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology was the only state to take up this challenge because no money was offered to do the work. Jeannie Regan-Dinius is the Special Projects Coordinator, who e-mails me faithfully with news of meetings. Jeannie says they created the Indiana Freedom Trails in 1999. Their office organized volunteers from throughout the state to research this topic. Over the years, this group has developed into its own force so now they have the Indiana Freedom Trails and the DHPA's UGRR Initiative. They work jointly to do research and to educate Hoosiers about the UGRR. A few of the UGRR stations are now Indiana State Historic Sites, operated by the DNR-DHPA. Levi Coffin's house, Fountain City, is known as the Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad. Conner Prairie, Fishers, produces a program "Follow the North Star" to give a living history experience to people who walk at night and relive the terror of escaping slavery. Lick Creek, Paola, in the Hoosier National Forest, had a settlement of black people. Speed Cabin, Crawfordsville, is another station on the UGRR. The Freedom Trails branch out across Indiana, all leading north to freedom, and the number of Indiana's UGRR stations is unknown but estimated to be in the hundreds. In my last column I told about three Underground Railroad stations at Akron. There were four other UGRR stations or connections in Fulton County. 1. Jerry Barbour house in Rochester. Nobody seems to know where this house was. There was a black man who had a barber shop - was this the same person who operated the UGRR? 2. Tom and Jane Mogle house near Kewanna. Located on the southwest corner of 400 S and 500 W, this house was on a route of the UGRR that ended in Calvin, Michigan. The Mogles hid slaves in an upstairs room. The door to the room was camouflaged. It had no woodwork and was papered to look like part of the wall. There black escapees were led under the eaves and through a small opening to a chamber over the kitchen. The room could hold six people; the beds were pallets on the floor. When it was time for the guests to move on, the farmers would link together and hide the slaves under hay and take them to the next station, which was somewhere in the Bremen area, according to Mogle descendant, Mildred Tomlinson in Fulton County Historical Society Quarterly in 1974. 3. Sherrard house at Green Oak four miles south of Rochester on Old 31. Henry Sherrard Sr. and wife Opal bought the house and moved there in 1925. The house was torn down in 1997. Sherrard wrote in FCHS Quarterly, 1973, that the leg of the escaped slaves trip to Green Oak began from a daytime sanctuary in a brick house on the north side of Mexico, Indiana, and the Dunkert Church, another UGRR station. There was only one entrance to Sherarrd's basement and its door contained a peephole for security against unwanted callers. There also was a hole bored in the living room floor above the basement. It was covered by a rug during the day, but uncovered when owners of the house wanted to communicate with the fugitive slaves. Sherrard had been told that the escaped slaves were taken to Plymouth or Bremen. Their abstract indicates that the house was built between 1842 and 1845 when the farm was owned by Cyrus and Jeremiah Smith, so they were probably the ones who operated the UGRR. Jeremiah died in 1856 and his son Eli bought out his siblings, so Eli might have operated the UGRR too. Sherrard's daughter, Betty Thousand, recalls that someone told her parents that some slaves died while there and were buried under the barn so that the livestock would hide the graves with hoofprints. The old two-story barn was located southwest of the house and is long gone too. 4. Christopher Campbell, Leiters Ford. Campbell came to Fulton County in 1853. He was known as a "Black Republican" because of his sympathy for the colored people and help with the UGRR through Fulton County. It is not known if he had a safe house or helped others by escorting slaves at night. When the government passed bad laws, Americans fought against them, first underground, and then openly, as in the Civil War. After the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the war, the Underground Railroad was no longer needed and many of its stations were forgotten. But Indiana's Freedom Trails is determined that this part of Indiana's history not be forgotten. Back to Shirley's Writings |
| Fulton County Historical Society |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
Located in North Central Indiana
Shirley's Writings
About Shirley Willard
Shirley Willard moved to Rochester
in 1941 when she was five years
old. She got interested in history
while sitting on a bale of hay
listening to the old farmers talk. She
grew up on a farm in the Mt. Zion
neighborhood south of Rochester
and attended Woodrow Grade
School, graduating from Rochester
High School in 1955, Manchester
College in 1959 and a MA from Ball
State in 1966. She taught English,
history, Spanish and journalism for
14 years. She was a charter
member of Fulton County Historical
Society, and was the first secretary
in 1963. She served as FCHS
president 1971-2001,
spearheading the building of the
Fulton County Museum, Round
Barn Museum and Living History
Village called Loyal, Indiana. She
founded the Trail of Courage Living
History Festival in 1976. She is a
writer and has written, edited and
published books and newsletters
for FCHS, its Genealogy Section,
Indian Awareness Center, Historical
Power Assn., and Potawatomi Trail
of Death Assn. She continues to
volunteer as a writer for FCHS and
as Fulton County Historian.
Shirley Willard moved to Rochester
in 1941 when she was five years
old. She got interested in history
while sitting on a bale of hay
listening to the old farmers talk. She
grew up on a farm in the Mt. Zion
neighborhood south of Rochester
and attended Woodrow Grade
School, graduating from Rochester
High School in 1955, Manchester
College in 1959 and a MA from Ball
State in 1966. She taught English,
history, Spanish and journalism for
14 years. She was a charter
member of Fulton County Historical
Society, and was the first secretary
in 1963. She served as FCHS
president 1971-2001,
spearheading the building of the
Fulton County Museum, Round
Barn Museum and Living History
Village called Loyal, Indiana. She
founded the Trail of Courage Living
History Festival in 1976. She is a
writer and has written, edited and
published books and newsletters
for FCHS, its Genealogy Section,
Indian Awareness Center, Historical
Power Assn., and Potawatomi Trail
of Death Assn. She continues to
volunteer as a writer for FCHS and
as Fulton County Historian.
