MICHIGAN'S NETWORK: THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Quilts, Quakers & Questors of the 1800s.

During the 1700 and 1800s, Michigan played a very large role in the Underground Railroad. It's one of our State's most intriguing stories around and it touches a number of cities here in the Great Lakes State. Some are surprised to learn that the Network was throughout the mid to lower region of the State.  

Here are just a few facts: 

First, there was no railroad and it wasn't underground. Some people are amazed when I tell them that some passengers on my trips have asked about the location of the Underground Railroad maybe hoping to see a huge engine pulling cars in mammoth tunnels. No, it isn't so. 

Second, the term Underground Railroad was coined in the 1800s (come on the bus for exact dates) and in Ohio. I'll tell you where even. I'll tell you how. 

Third, I went to a talk about the Underground Railroad in Michigan and was amused by the speaker as she was dressed as a railroad engine driver of the 1900s. Quite forgivable though. There's always a kernel in every talk, and there was in this. She read letters that the fugitives had dictated to scribes who sent them to the actual "conductors" and "agents" letting them know of their safe passage. 

Fourth, we seem to forget how people put their lives on the line to help a stranger enjoy a free life. Homeowners lost their farm in our mitten because they broke the Fugitive Slave Act 1850. White defiance of the law that really angered the Southern farmers. They were vengeful and prosecuted using the Federal Law as the engine. Many won the cases.   

And then there was that secret and special network used by those who helped the fugitives escape during the 1800s. Now it's openly called the Underground Railroad. Then it was all hushed up. There was a network of codes and signals in strict defiance of the so-called "Bloodhound" law because of the dogs that sniffed out fugitives. 

In Michigan there were both financially independent and poverty stricken folks who gave it their all to lend a hand. In fact, Michigan had such an extremely organized network of helping escapees that fugitives would contact some of the "conductors" directly for help.  

Call them "Conductors" or "Runaways" or the "package," it was a time when people saw the need to band together and help one another eradicate that Peculiar Institution. And they did. People really stretched to help. Eventually the institution eroded. 

Yet, the network was unlike anything we have today and one that protected human beings from a huge social injustice. 

Books and markers are the traces left of the Underground Railroad ... lest we forget.