New Richmond

Before the Civil War, New Richmond citizens took an active part in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. In 1836, James G. Birney published The Philanthropist, an abolitionist newspaper, in New Richmond before moving its publication to Cincinnati. Local tradition holds that Jim, an enslaved man living in Kentucky who had permission from his enslaver to visit his parents in New Richmond, helped his friend Joe, a fugitive from slavery, by packing him in a box and placing him on a riverboat bound for New Richmond. Levi Coffin, the well-known Cincinnati abolitionist, recorded that a few abolitionist white men living nearby were called in to see the fugitive and advise on his safety. Joe was then taken from Jim's parents' home to Cincinnati, where Levi Coffin bought him a train ticket to Sandusky, and from there he traveled to Canada.

New Richmond, Ohio · United States