Along the Trail of the Underground Railroad History and Points of Interest For Adventure Cycling s 2006 Bicycle Tour along the Underground Railroad by Group 505 at Purdue University
2 Contents 3 Alabama Mobile 3 Spanish Fort 4 Upper Bryant Landing 5 8 Mississippi Columbus 8 Aberdeen 9 Fulton 10 Tishomingo 13 15 Tennessee Shiloh 15 Waverly 16 Dover 18 18 Kentucky 19 Indiana Corydon 19 Jeffersonville 20 Madison 21 24 Kentucky Carrollton 24 Maysville 27 30 Ohio Ripley 30 Cincinnati 32 Waynesville 33 Springboro 34 Caesar Creek State Park 34 Xenia 35 Oberlin 36 Medina 37 Ashtabula County 38 Ashtabula 39 41 Pennsylvania Erie County 41 44 New York Barcelona 44 Collins Center 44 Orchard Park 44 Buffalo 46 Niagara Falls 48 53 Ontario Owen Sound 53
3 ALABAMA Mobile, Alabama Founded in 1702 as Fort Louis de lá Mobile on the Mobile River Alabama was a leading Southern cotton state. To help support this agricultural economy, plantation owners purchased thousands of slaves. Many of these slaves came from the port of Mobile, Alabama, which was a major entry site for slave ships. In 1721, the Africane was the first ship to bring slaves into Mobile. Because of its large slave population, Mobile was a Southern starting point for the Underground Railroad. (From Mobile Public Library Local History and Genealogy. http://www.mplonline.org/lhg.htm.) Mobile is also the location of AfricaTown, the last known location of traders importing slaves. AfricaTown is the site in Mobile, Alabama, along the Gulf Coast where the last cargo of Africans landed in 1860. Their landing marked the last recorded attempt to import Africans to the United States for the purpose of slavery. (From AfricaTown, USA. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/legacies/al/200002671.html.) The song, Follow the Drinking Gourd, provides directions beginning in Mobile for fugitive slaves to follow on their trek north along the Underground Railroad. When the sun comes back and the first quail calls, Follow the drinking gourd. For the old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom, If you follow the drinking gourd. When the sun comes back means winter and spring when the altitude of the sun at noon is higher each day. Quail are migratory bird wintering in the South. The Drinking Gourd is the Big Dipper. The old man is Peg Leg Joe. The verse tells slaves to leave in the winter and walk towards the
4 Drinking Gourd. Eventually they will meet a guide who will escort them for the remainder of the trip. Most escapees had to cross the Ohio River which is too wide and too swift to swim. The Railroad struggled with the problem of how to get escapees across, and with experience, came to believe the best crossing time was winter. Then the river was frozen, and escapees could walk across on the ice. Since it took most escapees a year to travel from the South to the Ohio, the Railroad urged slaves to start their trip in winter in order to be at the Ohio the next winter. (From Explanation of Follow the Drinking Gourd. http://www.pocanticohills.org/tubman/gourd.htm.) Points of Interest: National African-American Archive and Museum, Mobile, Alabama 564 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, Mobile, Alabama, 36603. Delores S. Dees, Founding President and Executive Director. Open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.; and on Sundays by appointment. To arrange a group tour or class visit, please call (251) 433-8511. Museum of Mobile, Alabama Located in historic downtown Mobile. The museum is within walking distance from the Mobile Convention Center, the Adams Mark Hotel, a variety of restaurants and the Fort Condé Welcome Center. The Museum of Mobile, 111 S. Royal Street, Mobile, Alabama 36602. Open Monday through Saturday - 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday - 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. $5.00 - Adult. $4.00 - Senior Citizen. $3.00 Student. Free to children under six (total family rate not to exceed $20). Group tours $1.00 off admission category. First Sunday of each month Free Admission. Military discount: All active duty military will receive $1.00 off admission with I.D. Spanish Fort, Alabama Founded as a French trading post on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, reinforced as a fort by the Spanish in 1780, and used as a Confederate encampment during the American Civil War The campaign for Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely were two of the final battles of the Civil War. As the American Civil War began to draw to a close in April of 1865, part of the last major campaign of the war was played out in Alabama during the siege and reduction of Spanish Fort and
5 Fort Blakely located east of Mobile. During this campaign both sides brought to bear all that had been learned in four long, brutal years of war. (From the Alabama Department of Archives and History, http://www.archives.state.al.us/whatsnew/atraug06.html.) Point of Interest: Meaher State Park 5200 Battleship Pkwy. E. Spanish Fort, AL 36577 251-626-5529 7AM - Sunset (Seven Days a Week) Entrance Fees: Age 6-11 $0.50 Age 12-61 $1.00 Senior Citizens (62 years of age and older) $0.50 (From Welcome to Spanish Fort, Alabama, http://www.spanishfortalabama.com/local/cityinfo.html.) Upper Bryant Landing, Baldwin County, Alabama Baldwin County was created by the Mississippi Territorial legislature on 1809 Dec. 21, from territory taken from Washington County (From Baldwin County Website, http://www.co.baldwin.al.us/pageview.asp?pagetype=r&edit_id=157.) Since its formation, Baldwin County, has been a leading agricultural center of the state, and it still ranks in the top ten cotton producing counties. Baldwin s agricultural success came at a price, however, for Alabama slaves. Think of this, ye cotton lords of England; think or it, ye cotton spinners and weavers: think of this, ye cotton speculators, that many an Alabama slave in the cotton plantations lies down at night not only with an overworked frame, but with a hungry belly and a sore back. Could you without the knowledge of the masters, overseers, or slaves, go about those plantations and see how slaves are managed and worked, you would surely see there presented to your minds the strongest motives for using your utmost influence to bring into use your own cotton lands and labour, of which there is no lack, either of quality or quantity. (From A Narrative of Events of the Life of J.H. Banks, an Escaped Slave, from the Cotton State, Alabama, in America, Written with Introduction, by J.W. Pennington, D.D. http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/penning/penning.html.)
6 In the early part of the 20 th century, the Federal Writers Project recorded first person accounts of slave experiences and fugitive slave narratives. The page above shows a primary source recorded in Oak Grove, Alabama. (From the Alabama Department of Archives and History, http://www.archives.state.al.us/teacher/slavery/slave2.html.) Below is a picture of the Baldwin County Archives in Bay Minette, Alabama. (From the Baldwin County Archives Website, http://www.co.baldwin.al.us/pageview.asp?edit_id=580.)
7 Points of Interest: Baldwin County Archives Physical Address: 305 East Second Street Bay Minette, Alabama 36507 Mailing Address: 312 Courthouse Square Bay Minette, Alabama 36507 251-580-1897, 251-580-1909 Fax: 251-580-2528 Baldwin County Historical Society PO Box 69 Stockton, AL 36579 251-937-9464 Baldwin County Genealogical Society c/o Foley Public Library 319 East Laurel Ave. Foley, AL 36535 Publication: Yore Lore Montgomery Hill Baptist Church (Houses a slave gallery) Tensaw, Hwy. 59, Baldwin County, AL