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The Underground Railroad was a network of people who helped those who were enslaved,
escape from the south and get to freedom either in northern states
where slavery was illegal or at least less legal, or all the way to Canada.
This network grew and more people became active in it in the 1850s.
After the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, which made it legal for slave
catchers to come into the northern states and capture people who they claimed were runaways,
including many people who had never been enslaved.
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--It's not surprising that there's Underground Railroad activity in DuPage County because of
the nature of the settlement of DuPage County is largely coming from New England
and from upstate New York, which is full of a lot of reformers
and that's one of the things they're trying to end is slavery in the United States.
So they're bringing that ideology and they're just transporting it here to northern Illinois.
You do have an area in DuPage County with those early settlers who are
going to be more sympathetic to anti-slavery.
-- I mean Chicago was the terminus of most Illinois Underground Railroad routes.
And really the roads leading to Chicago looked almost like spokes and a wheel.
And of course it was en route to Chicago that freedom seekers came through DuPage County.
-- DuPage C ounty was often a pathway that a lot of people would take to get from
southern Illinois into Chicago.
It's not too far from the Illinois River.
The DuPage River was also a body of water that people followed.
and also there were a lot of major roads that went through DuPage County.
-- As you're traveling through DuPage County, there are sites that are verifiable
sites on the Underground Railroad and those include Wheaton College
or what was originally called the Illinois Institute.
The Illinois institute is actually founded by John Cross
who is one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad.
The Thomas Filer House in Glen Ellyn.
The Filer's house had a tunnel from the barn to the house and so if
slave catchers came knocking on the door, if freedom seekers were hiding
in the house, they could you know scoot down the tunnel and into the barn or vice-versa.
And the Strong House in Naperville, the Philo Carpenter House in Warrenville,
and the Sheldon Peck homestead in Lombard, who was a portrait painter.
He traveled all over Illinois actually with his portrait painting business.
And he was an active abolitionist and a conductor on
the Underground Railroad and his home still stands today.
Also another conductor, Sheldon Peck worked with,
was also a freedom seeker himself.
This was an enslaved person named, Old Charlie who actually
lived with Sheldon Peck at in Lombard for a number of years before the Civil War.
Old Charlie was all over Illinois helping other freedom seekers on their way to freedom as well.
His story is absolutely riveting and well worth a visit to the Sheldon Peck Homestead in Lombard.
-- We know that the Blodgett House in Downers Grove,
was a spot where Underground Railroad activity happened.
The Blodgett family all took on different roles in operating their Underground Railroad
station at their house.
Israel, the father he was in charge of transporting the enslaved people.
Avis Blodgett, the mother was in charge of kind of providing for them,
giving them food and clothing, giving them a place to sleep.
-- And one time, there was a slave catcher on a horse
and had two enslaved Africans tethered behind his horse.
-- And so this man came up to the farm
and he asked Avis Blodgett, can I have a drink of water?
-- And she went got water and brought it back.
But she gave it to the men and told the slave catcher he was free
and he could go get his own water.
-- Really this incident kind of shows kind of her, her courage and
kind of her conviction of that the idea that, slavery was wrong and it should be abolished
Because the Underground Railroad was an illegal activity, there weren't a lot of records kept at all.
And so what historians have to do to learn about Underground Railroad sites and places,
is to kind of go through what little evidence was left behind.
-- The Graue Mill is a site - John Coe who is the local blacksmith,
used to bring freedom seekers to the Graue Mill.
-- Some other sites really need more exploration by historians to really verify their activity.
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-- I think a person living in DuPage County now really would just have such a sense of place
or that it would just be so meaningful to know that, as they go down Ogden Avenue or
Lake Street or catch the metro train into Chicago or hike along the DuPage River, they're
retracing roots of the historic Underground Railroad.
-- It can sometimes feel like the systems that we're presented with
which can be obviously unjust, are inevitable and it took the bravery
of small groups of people -
people who were tiny minorities at first to come up against slavery
and to start the fight that did eventually lead to its overthrow.
So today when we're confronted with systems of injustice
that seem much bigger than us, I think it's really important to understand that
small groups of people, individuals standing up against those things that we find to be
intolerable can make a difference,
Even if it's just one or two of us at first.
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