There's a lot of popular interest in what has been called the Underground
Railroad, but not a lot of research. A researcher in Indiana told me that
if every house claimed to have been a station actually was, slavery should
have ended about 1840, because every last one would made it to Canada by
then.

One problem is how to evaluate claims. There is a proposed ranking scale
(attributed to Judith Wellman at SUNY Oswego, though I don't know she
claims it) of giving potential sites a rank of 1-5, with "5" being
absolutely verified and "1" being an unsubstantiated claim. The challenge
is to try to move as many ones up the scale (or to move them out of
consideration-- e.g. they become zeros.

Examples:

The Quaker Meeting House on Allen Street. I once spent about ten minutes
trying to explain this to a local preservationist. Thought: Quakers were
anti-slavery and some Quakers were known to have aided fugitive slaves.
Therefore this fine 19th century building would have had a good chance of
being used on the URR. My response: look at the date carved over the door.
The building was built in 1868, after slavery had ended. The
preservationist's "1" quickly became my zero.

Michigan Street Baptist Church. This is claimed as an underground railroad
site in print since the 1930s. However, so far I haven't found any period
references to fugitive slaves having been hidden there (fugitive slave
narratives, newspaper accounts, personal recollections). Mary B. Talbert
wrote a history of the church in 1908, but didn't mention fugitives hiding
there. However, it is (a) a major African-American institution in Buffalo;
(2) the ministers and members of the church participated in abolitionist
activities, including meetings denouncing the fugitive slave law and
pledging not to comply with it; (3) at least one member is mentioned in
period newspaper accounts as aiding fugitive slaves to Canada. So, a claim
of hiding fugitives -- but no source for the claim-- but considerable
connections of the building's association with abolitionist and
African-American concerns. How far up the rating scale to place the church
depends on very subjective evaluation. Would fugitives have been likely to
be hidden in what had to have been one of the most obvious
African-American institutions in Buffalo? [Did most fugitives need to hide
at all after having gotten to Buffalo?] Being of a skeptical mind, I would
give this a "2" as an underground railroad station. If I found a newspaper
account saying, for example, that Peyton Harris remembered hiding slaves
in the Michigan St. Church (giving an actual source and a name to the
story), I would give it at least a four or probably a five-- clear use.

The Michigan St. Church examples begs the question of what to include as
an Underground Railroad site. Since it does appear that many (probably
most) fugitive slaves in Buffalo were being aided by the local
African-American community, and since the Michigan Street Church was full
of known abolitionists, I don't think any discussion of Underground
Railroad sites in Buffalo could exclude the Michigan Street Church whether
or not ANY fugitive slave was ever actually hidden in that building.

So, should every African-American institution be included? What about
Doug's Dive (the archaelogical remains of what might be called a gin
mill)? It obviously served the African-American community, and
undoubtedly served the African-American crewmen from the lake steamers. We
know further that William Wells Brown who lived in Buffalo and worked on
those lake steamers used his job to ferry fugitives to Canada. However,
before become an abolitionist speaker (though not before becoming a
practical abolitionist and underground railroad agent), William Wells
Brown was a temperance lecturer and organized an African-American
temperance society in Buffalo. The good people of Michigan St. Baptist and
the Vine Street AME churches, and William Wells Brown in particular,
probably wouldn't have been caught dead entering Doug's Dive. Doug may
have been aiding fugitives or, possibily, he may have been selling them
out to the slave catchers. We simply don't know. I would have to rate the
Dive as no more than a "one" at best-- a possible site, but only by
speculation. However, Doug's Dive is a great chance to talk about other
aspects of the African-American community and about the importance of the
harbor and the lake steamers in the underground railroad (as is the site
of William Wells Brown's House).


There are other sites that were not necessarily used for fugitives, but
become part of the story. All churches from the explicitly anti-slavery
denominations: Quaker meeting houses, churches of the Wesleyan Methodists,
Free Will Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Free Methodists, etc. Homes of
abolitionists (though perhaps limited to those who specifically spoke out
against the fugitive slave law or publically affirmed the correctness of
aiding fugitive slaves. What about the lawyers who defended captured
fugitives in court? What about the sites of abolition meetings and
anti-fugitive slave law meetings? These are much easier to document than
underground railroad sites.

There is also a problem with defining the Underground Railroad. There is a
presumption of an organized system. However, in many cases it is unclear
whether a particular person was part of an organized effort or simply
became involve in aiding a fugitive in one instance. Wilbur Siebert's book
on the URR lists quite a few names for Wyoming County-- however a number
of these seem to have been included because they were associated with the
escape of one particular individual. Does aiding a single person qualify
one as an underground railroad "agent"? Seems useful to distinguish
between people who were rescuers-- who were willing to turn out when the
occasion required to aid a fugitive-- and those who were part of a regular
network.


Lots of work to be done.


Christopher Densmore
E-Mail: Densmore@...