The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad, but a loosely connected system of safe havens where people escaping slavery were sheltered, fed, clothed, nursed, concealed, disguised, and instructed on their journey to freedom. Because those involved faced retribution under civil law and from slave catchers, its operations were often kept secret. Ohio was permanently shaped by the thousands of runaway slaves who passed through or settled there. In 1838 in Marion County, a black man known as Bill Anderson or Bill Mitchell fled bondage in a Virginia salt works and settled near Marion, but he was recognized, and a mail dispatch to Virginia led an alleged slaveholder to demand his incarceration by local authorities. Forty days after his capture, six strangers arrived in Marion claiming ownership of him and carrying bowie knives, pistols, and clubs. During the trial, the men, one identified as Smith, produced notes of sale showing that three of them had purchased Bill at different times, with John Smith named as the most recent buyer. After lengthy preamble, Judge Ozies Bowen, a local Underground Railroad stationmaster, ruled for the prisoner on the grounds that Mr. Smith and John Smith might be two different persons. The decision set off pandemonium in the courtroom when the Virginians refused to accept the verdict, weapons were drawn, Bill was jerked back and forth in a violent tug-of-war, and clubs and pistols struck bodies as several Quakers fought back. A local black man helped Bill escape, and Quakers escorted the two men to the Rueben Benedict home near Marengo in Morrow County. After a long and anxious night, Bill continued north to Oberlin and then to freedom in Canada.