Napoleon, the site of many political conventions, in 1851 hosted the Free Soil Convention, where abolitionist Johnson Watts, joined by James H. Cravens and J. Cady, called for repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This inn, owned from 1853 to 1861 by William Love, had a secret trap door leading to a double cellar where fugitive slaves were hidden. During the Civil War, horses were hidden in the south cellar.