Considering that the massive connection of hidden way and dependable houses known as the Underground Railroad stretched from the Deep South all the room to Canada , it stool sentience that 100 of people were require in its surgical process . Some , likeHarriet Tubman , were “ conductors ” who precede the rescue missions , while others — John Brown , for lesson — were “ post master , ” host fugitives in their homes and arrange secure transit to freedom . Here are nine other valorous heroes who risked life and tree branch to help people on their way to liberty .
1. William Still
suffer to formerly enslave parents in New Jersey in 1821,William Stillmoved to Philadelphia at age 23 and took up the abolitionist mantlepiece in more means than one . He instruct himself to show and write , suffer a job as a clerk for the Pennsylvania Abolition Society , and advanced through the organization until he was named chairman of its new Vigilance Committee in the early 1850s . In that position , Still oversaw the part ’s internet of safe house — his own houseamong them — and produce money to finance key delivery missions , include a few of Harriet Tubman ’s .
It ’s estimated that Stillferriedabout 800 people to freedom during his tenure ; one of them was his blood brother Peter . But there ’s another reason he ’s often referred to as “ the Father of the Underground Railroad . ” Still document the stories of more than 600 escapees and published them all in a innovational volume calledThe Underground Railroadin 1872 , making him the only Black person ever to spell and ego - put out a firsthand business relationship of natural action on the Underground Railroad . He hoped that the “ extraordinary determination and endeavor ” exhibited in the harrowing narratives would inspire Black Americans to continue the struggle for civic rights .
“ The race must not blank out the rock ‘n’ roll from whence they were hewn , nor the quarry from whence they were digged , ” hewrotein the introduction . “ Like other race , this newly manumit people will necessitate all the knowledge of their retiring condition which they can get . ”
2. John P. Parker
WhenJohn P. Parkerwas 8 year old , a merchantseparatedhim from his enslave female parent in Norfolk , Virginia , and trade him to a doc in Mobile , Alabama . There , Parker apprenticed at an iron foundry — and con to read and write , with the help of the doctor ’s children . At geezerhood 18 , he persuade one of the Dr. ’s patient role to buy him and get him gradually buy back his freedom with his foundry earnings . The program work , and Parker leave behind for Ripley , Ohio , where he built a house , commence a syndicate , andpatenteda few popular mechanical parts for tobacco auto during a successful life history as a foundryman .
Through it all , Parker made unconstipated excursions across the Ohio River to spirit fugitives from Kentucky back to Ripley ’s dependable houses ( one belonged to John Rankin , a prominent white emancipationist who lived less than a mile from Parker ) . Parker ’s delivery missions were especially unsafe , partly because bounty hunters look for fugitive knew who he was , and partly because Parker himself was dauntless . Once , an enslaversuspecteda married couple would attempt to get off , so he occupy their baby and put him to slumber in his elbow room . Parker sneak into the room , cautiously gazump the child from the layer — where the enslaver also lay sleep — and dashed back through the house . The enslaver awoke and tore after him , fire his pistol , but Parker and the kin managed to run away across the river .
Parkerrecountedthese rescues to journalist Frank M. Gregg during a serial publication of interviews in the 1880s , but the manuscript sat forget in Duke University ’s archive until historian Stuart Seeley Sprague unearth it andpublishedit in 1996 .
3. and 4. Harriet Bell Hayden and Lewis Hayden
comport enslaved in Lexington , Kentucky , in 1812,Lewis Haydenwatched enslavers pull apart his family not once , but double . First , his siblings were sold to a different enslaver ; and subsequently , his wife and Word were corrupt by Kentucky senator Henry Clay [ PDF ] and sold somewhere in the Deep South . Hayden never saw them again . In the other 1840s , he married an enslaved woman named Harriet Bell , take on her son , and before long began plot their escape .
With the service of Calvin Fairbank , a rector , and Delia Webster , a teacher , the Haydens fled their enslaver ’s estate of the realm and eventually arrived safely in Canada . By 1846 , they had returned to the U.S. and adjudicate in Boston ’s Beacon Hill region , where they opened a clothing store . Before long , Lewis and Harriet hadjoinedthe Boston Vigilance Committee and turn their home into a embarkation house , which became a extremely traffic halt on the Underground Railroad .
Though bondage had been illegal in Massachusettssince 1783 , theFugitive Slave Act of 1850stated that enslave citizenry who had escaped to free province could still be found and come back to their enslavers in the South . The Haydens fearlessly protected C of people from bounteousness hunters who judge to do just that . Ellen and William Craft , for example , had gather widespread attention for their risky leakage from slavery in Georgia , which postulate Ellenimpersonatinga white man and William posing as her Black servant . When bounty hunter pursued them to the Haydens ’ theater , Lewisannouncedthat he ’d promptly bumble up the whole property with the two kegful of gunpowder he kept indoors if they tried to snatch the Crafts . The bounty huntsman did n’t bump it , and left empty - handed .
Lewis also help recruit Black soldiers for the54th Massachusetts Infantry — one of the Union ’s first all - Black military units — and was even elected to the Massachusetts General Assembly in 1873 . When he died in 1889 , Boston ’s city council praised him as “ one of the pioneers in the liberation of this country from the curse of slavery . ” Harriet , who died in 1893,donatedher intact estate to Harvard Medical School for the purpose of establishing a scholarship for Black students , which still subsist today .
5. Henrietta Bowers Duterte
In 1852 , Henrietta Bowers , a 35 - year - old tailor , marrieda Haitian - American undertaker key Francis A. Duterte . They both come from well - respected Philadelphia families , and Francis ’s morgue was successful ; in other Word of God , it should have been a long , felicitous union . But by the ending of that decade , Henrietta was alone : Her children had all died young , and Francis had also slide by away dead . Instead of handing the mortuary business sector over to a man — which would have been expect at the time — Henrietta take it over and , in addition to running the mortuary , turned it into an peculiarly underground stop on the Underground Railroad .
Not only did Henriettausefuneral processions as opportunities to help disguised fleer slip unnoticed through the metropolis , but she also sometimes smuggled them out of Philadelphia in actual coffins . The mortuary keep to be lucrative , and Henrietta funneled the net profit into organisation that served Philadelphia ’s smutty biotic community , like the First Colored Church and Stephen Smith ’s Philadelphia Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons . In 1866 , she helped arrange the Freedman ’s Aid Society Fair to affirm formerly enslaved people in Tennessee .
6. David Ruggles
David Ruggles , born gratuitous in Norwich , Connecticut , in 1810,movedto New York City at years 17 and opened a grocery store shop , which hestaffedwith emancipated Black Americans . Before long , Ruggles pivoted to lending and selling emancipationist Holy Writ , leaflet , and newspapers , too , gain him the nation’sfirstBlack bookstall owner . In 1835 , Ruggles and other local abolitionists founded the New York Vigilance Committee , an interracial governing body which , like the one in Philadelphia , helped people escape from slavery . Not only did he provide effectual aid to Black Americans targeted by bounty hunters , but he also put up many fugitive from justice in his own home on Lispenard Street .
One of these irregular guests wasFrederick Douglass , who head for the hills from slavery and arrive in New York penniless and famish in 1838 . He was rescued , heexplainedin his 1845 autobiography , “ by the humane hand ofMr . David Ruggles , whose vigilance , benignity , and perseveration , I shall never forget . ” Douglass write to his fiancée , Anna , who joined him within a few days , and Ruggles even fix up a wedding ceremony in the house . Soon after the wedding , Ruggles get to the couple $ 5 and booked their passage on a steamship to New Bedford , Massachusetts .
Throughout his years as an Underground Railroad station master , Ruggles distribute multitudinous anti - slavery publications and advocated for “ practical abolitionism , ” or the melodic theme that each somebody should actively take part in emancipating Black Americans . He was n’t without enemies : twice his shop was burned down , and he was physically attacked on several occasion . By his tardy mid-twenties , Ruggles ’s wellness was failing , and abolitionist Lydia Maria Childencouragedhim to come be with the Northampton Association of Education and Industry , a self - sufficient community in Florence , Massachusetts , that championed equal rights for all . There , Ruggles regained some of his strong point through hydrotherapy , and he finally opened his own hydrotherapy infirmary , where Douglass often visited him . When he died at historic period 39 , it was Douglass who wrote his obit .
7. and 8. Harriet Forten Purvis and Robert Purvis
Robert Purvis , the son of a white man and a free Black woman , was active in practically all facets of Philadelphia ’s anti - slavery apparent movement from the 1830s through the Civil War . He helpedfoundand start the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia and its Vigilance Committee , whichofferedboarding , vesture , aesculapian attending , legal guidance , and northerly musical passage to fugitives ; and he also worked alongside prominent abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison to establish theAmerican Anti - Slavery Societyin 1833 and thePennsylvania Anti - Slavery Societya few old age later .
Since women were n’t originally allowed to be members of the American Anti - Slavery Society , Robert ’s married woman , Harriet Forten Purvis , joined Lucretia Mott and other militant in forming thePhiladelphia Female Anti - Slavery Societyin December 1833 . Harriet , like Mott , would go on to become a loss leader in the suffrage effort , too .
Robert and Harriet had both fare from super successful and respected Philadelphia families , and they used their influence — and fiscal resources — to assist escapees in any way of life they could . Their home on Lombard Street became a well - sweep thoroughfare for fugitive from justice channelise northward .
“ He was President of the ‘ Underground Railroad , ’ and throughout that long menses of peril his house was a well - known station where his horses and coach and his personal attendance were ever at the service of the travelers upon that route , ” read Robert ’s 1898obituaryinThe New York Times .
The couple ’s high - profile work sometimes made them a target for those who opposed the up mobility of Black Americans . In August 1842 , a parade celebrating the eighth anniversary of the closing of slavery in the British West Indies devolved into violence when an Irish gang — resenting their own low position in bon ton — lash out the revelers and begin looting and setting fire to Black - owned building along the street . The riotersplannedto progress to the Purvises ' star sign , where Robert stood armed and hold back , but a Catholic priest reportedly diverted them .
After that , Robert and Harriet impress their kinfolk to a farmhouse in Byberry , a northeastern neighbourhood of Philadelphia , and right away turned their new landed estate into another station on the Underground Railroad . Robertapproximatedthat between 1831 and 1861 , he had helped emancipate about one someone per twenty-four hour period ( though it ’s potential that this reckoning included his broader oeuvre with various anti - slavery organizations ) .
9. Samuel D. Burris
Samuel D. Burrisworkedtirelessly during the 1840s to head fugitive through his home nation of Delaware and into Philadelphia , where he lived with his wife and children . Though Burris was a free human beings , he could be remand and sell into slavery if caught helping fleer in Delaware — and in 1847 , he was .
OfficialsapprehendedBurris when he was trying to smuggle a cleaning woman named Maria Matthews onto a steamer . Since they set his bail at $ 5000 ( more than $ 157,000today ) , he was force to expend months in poky while wait trial . “ They continue and spat those striver traffickers , and those inhuman and merciless leeches , in their someone - damning doings , by making the bleached the great unwashed legal theme for their bloody principles to feast on , ” hewrotefrom his cell , in a letter that was afterwards put out in William Lloyd Garrison ’s emancipationist newspaperThe Liberator .
On November 2 , 1847 , Burris wasconvicted , fined $ 500 , and sentenced to 10 more months in prison house . After that , he ’d be sold into slavery for 14 years . While Burris was serving his 10 - calendar month sentence , a grouping of Philadelphia abolitionists amassed $ 500 and send off a Quaker named Isaac Flint to pose as a dealer and purchase Burris at the auction . Luckily , Flint ended up being the highest bidder ( though according to William Still’saccountinThe Underground Railroad , luck had trivial to do with it : Flint savvily buy off a Baltimore bargainer who had tried to top his bidding ) .
“ [ Burris ] was not by any means mindful of the fact that he had fall into the hand of protagonist , but , on the wayward , apparently labored under the picture that his freedom was gone , ” Still write . “ The joyful news was whispered in the ear of Burris that all was right-hand ; that he had been bribe with abolition gold to economize him from drop dead south . ”
As Delaware State University historian Robin KrawitztoldCNN , Burris bear on help fugitives after his vent , and angry Delawarians in reality petitioned the political science to discipline him more severely . After officialsenactedlegislation that recommend public tanning as penalty for anyone caught a second time , Burris halted his operation in Delaware . Instead , he moved to San Francisco , where he raised finances to help fresh freed people set up themselves .
This clause was in the beginning published in 2020 ; it has been updated for 2022 .
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