The activities of the Underground Railroad, and the Abolitionist Movement in Illinois are documented by the author in this meticulously researched book.

Fugitives fleeing from slavery in Kentucky, Missouri, and points farther south traversed the entire state of Illinois while moving northward. But they were most likely to receive help from Underground railroad operators if they passed through western Illinois, where a good number of Underground Railroad agents lived.This book briefly discusses the Underground Railroad throughout the United States and all of Illinois. It addresses at length the activities of Underground Railroad operators, both black and white, in western Illinois. The compelling efforts of these people have been surprisingly neglected; this book examines in detail their significant contributions to this heroic chapter in American history.

This book is about previously unidentified people who became Abolitionists involved in the antislavery movement from about 1840 to 1860. Although arrests were made in nearby counties, not one person was prosecuted for aiding a fugitive slave in DeKalb County, Illinois. First, the area Congregationalist, Universalist, Presbyterian and Wesleyan Methodist churches all had compelling antislavery beliefs. Church members, county elected officials, and the Underground Railroad conductors and stationmasters were all one and the same. Additionally, DeKalb County had the highest concentration of subscriptions to the Chicago-based Western Citizen antislavery newspaper. It was an accepted local activity to help escaped slaves. A biographical dictionary includes evidence and personal information for more than 600 men and women, and their families, who defied the prevailing Fugitive Slave Law, and helped the anti-slavery movement in this one Northern Illinois County. Unique photographs and illustrations are included along with notes, bibliography and index.

A history of the networks of the Underground Railroad in the region south of Chicago and accounts of freedom seekers traveling through the region. From La Salle and Livingston Counties to the west and east across southern Cook and Will Counties into northwest Indiana, thousands of freedom seekers passed through on their journeys to Canada. In the decades before the Civil War, those going to Chicago and those bypassing the growing city found assistance in small communities and with farmers committed to the abolition of slavery and willing to provide aid.

WINNER, 2023 Underground Railroad Free Press Hortense Simmons Memorial Prize for the Advancement of Knowledge! Uncovering stories of the freedom network in northeastern Illinois Decades before the Civil War, Illinois’s status as a free state beckoned enslaved people, particularly those in Kentucky and Missouri, to cross porous river borders and travel toward new lives. While traditional histories of the Underground Railroad in Illinois start in 1839, and focus largely on the romanticized tales of white men, Larry A. McClellan reframes the story, not only introducing readers to earlier freedom seekers, but also illustrating that those who bravely aided them were Black and white, men and women. McClellan features dozens of individuals who made dangerous journeys to reach freedom as well as residents in Chicago and across northeastern Illinois who made a deliberate choice to break the law to help. Onward to Chicago charts the evolution of the northeastern Illinois freedom network and shows how, despite its small Black community, Chicago emerged as a point of refuge. The 1848 completion of the I & M Canal and later the Chicago to Detroit train system created more opportunities for Black men, women, and children to escape slavery. From eluding authorities to confronting kidnapping bands working out of St. Louis and southern Illinois, these stories of valor are inherently personal. Through deep research into local sources, McClellan presents the engrossing, entwined journeys of freedom seekers and the activists in Chicagoland who supported them. McClellan includes specific freedom seeker journey stories and introduces Black and white activists who provided aid in a range of communities along particular routes. This narrative highlights how significant biracial collaboration led to friendships as Black and white abolitionists worked together to provide support for freedom seekers traveling through the area and ultimately to combat slavery in the United States.

Although the northern Illinois chapters of the story of Susan "Sukey" Richardson's escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad are documented, the part played by southern Illinois in that historic episode has remained obscure. This book changes that by investigating the 1843 suit Andrew Borders lodged against William Hayes, charging his neighbor with helping slaves from the Borders estate escape to Galesburg. The author documents Hayes's involvement in the Illinois Underground Railroad through approximately two hundred letters received by Hayes from the early 1820s until his death in 1849. Many of these letters specifically corroborate his participation in the escape of slaves from the Borders estate. Letters written by Galesburg residents show that several prominent citizens of that community also assisted in the affair, proving that Knox College administrators and trustees were active in the Underground Railroad. The author also includes excerpts from the trial transcript from the 1844 civil case against Hayes, which was tried in Pinckneyville, Illinois. She researched newspaper accounts of the event, most notably those in the Western Citizen and the Sparta Herald. Records of the Covenanter Presbyterian church of which Hayes was a member provide partial explanations of Hayes's motives.

New Philadelphia chronicles the history of a town founded in 1836 in Central Illinois by a freed slave. The book covers the history of the town, the inhabitants, their descendants, and the archeological digs.