In 1858, Alexander Majors and his family moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Nebraska City, where he purchased several blocks in the Prairie City Addition, established the new headquarters of the Russell, Majors, and Waddell Freighting Company in the building at this site, and built his new home one and a half blocks north at 516 N. 14th Street. A deeply religious man, he issued a Bible to every man in the freighting company, yet he saw nothing wrong with slavery. Because slavery was not officially prohibited in Nebraska Territory until 1861, he brought with him six enslaved African Americans: one 40-year-old black female, one 40-year-old mulatto female, one 20-year-old mulatto female, one 14-year-old black female, one 14-year-old mulatto male, and one 12-year-old mulatto male. They remained in his household less than two years before escaping on the Underground Railroad in the summer of 1860. Majors offered a $1,000 reward for their capture and return, but the six were never recovered. The Nebraska City News attributed the escape to "the nasty Abolitionists of Civil Bend and Tabor." Although not much is known of their escape, a letter written by conductor Josiah B. Grinnell documents that the freedom seekers reached Grinnell, Iowa, a prominent Underground Railroad station.