In 1850, Lucian Lathrop (1800-1873) and his second wife Larissa Titus Lathrop (1803-1878) built a two-story Greek Revival home on South Main Street in Sylvania, Lucas County, Ohio, where they lived with his children Helen and James Jerome and his mother Azubah Putnam Lathrop. Lucian, called to be a Universalist minister, also served as county commissioner and Ohio representative, while Larissa raised the family and managed the household. As abolitionists, they hid runaway slaves in a secret basement room behind an oven door and provided them refuge, food, and clothing. A ravine to the east connected their home with the David and Clarissa Dodge Harroun farm, and fugitives were transported from Maumee via the farm and from Delta. Conductors then moved them to Petersburg or Bedford Township, Michigan, across Michigan to the Detroit River, and finally to southwestern Ontario, Canada, and freedom. By opposing the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law through their Underground Railroad station, the Lathrops risked fines and the loss of their freedom. They dedicated themselves to the "good cause" in keeping with a family tradition of personal sacrifice and a belief in God who embraces everyone. The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad, but a loosely connected system of safe havens where people escaping the brutal conditions of slavery were sheltered, fed, clothed, nursed, concealed, disguised, and instructed on their journey to freedom. Because secrecy protected participants from civil law and slave-catchers, many details were hidden, yet Ohio's history was permanently shaped by the thousands of runaway slaves who passed through or found permanent residence in the state.
