The Antislavery - Underground Railroad Movement

The Underground Railroad existed from around 1830 to the Civil War in 1860 as a secret network of people organized on moral grounds to help slaves travel to Canada to find freedom from the slave laws of the South, using railroad terms in which "passengers" were guided by "conductors" from one "station" to another. In Lenawee County, the antislavery movement grew from the Logan Female Antislavery Society, begun in 1832 by Elizabeth Chandler in Raisin Township, the first antislavery society in the then Territory of Michigan. By 1839, activists such as Charles and Laura Haviland and Rev. Tripp had organized other antislavery societies in Blissfield, Cambridge, Franklin, and Madison townships and in the village of Adrian. With the formation of the Liberty Party in 1840, political antislavery activists such as Rev. Tripp and Joel Carpenter organized the movement across the county over the next six years. Wherever local antislavery societies took root, sympathy for fugitive slaves and efforts to help and protect them emerged. Stephen Allen, Charles and Laura Haviland, and Warren and Almira Gilbert were among those who helped, and their homes were more than likely stations on the Underground Railroad. In Raisin and Woodstock townships, schools were also formed to provide good education for African Americans as well as others.

Adrian, Michigan · United States