While it appears that Spring Hill began operating as a station on the Underground Railroad around 1820, anti-slavery documentation appears in the records of Thomas and Charity Rotch as far back as 1785, even before they were married, indicating that their abolitionist views were not newly formed when they moved to Ohio.
After their move to Ohio, Thomas Rotch began writing letters around 1817 to other abolitionists about what could be done to end the institution of slavery and how those in the area could help. According to these materials, their first encounter with the dangers of slavery came in the spring of 1820, when a slavecatcher named DeCamp came to Spring Hill, seeking freedom seekers hidden in one of the outbuildings. However, Arvine Wales, the Rotch Foreman, drove DeCamp away through persuasion and, likely, intimidation.
Spring Hill also has a letter written by a freedom seeker while still on the Underground Railroad. The letter, known as the George Duncan Letter, provides insight into life on the Underground Railroad.
The document is a three-page letter written by George Duncan, also known as “Jaki,” on August 14, 1820. In the letter, George thanks Thomas for assisting him on his journey to Canada and for coordinating it. George continues by stating that after he left Spring Hill, he made his way toward Geauga County on his way to Canada, and is being treated well. George also asks Thomas if he can help his companion, Edy, on her flight to freedom and to avoid Samuel Sprigg, their enslaver.
George then asks Thomas not to mention the letter to anyone. Next, he writes a portion to Edy, his wife, who was still hiding near Wheeling, Virginia, in West Liberty. Finally, George gives Thomas instructions on where to find Edy.
According to Dr. Roy E. Finkenbine (Ohio History, 2016, Issue 1), Duncan refers to West Liberty, which is in present-day West Virginia, north of Wheeling. Freedom seekers followed that route across the Ohio River to Quaker Communities in Mt. Pleasant and St. Clairsville, Ohio. They then often traveled northeastward to locations such as Kendal. Next, freedom seekers would often continue north towards Akron and Cleveland, and eventually to Lake Erie, where, by 1820, vessels carried them to Canada.
Today, the letter is part of the Massillon Public Library’s Rotch-Wales papers. Click here to view the full letter.
Charity Rotch also wrote several letters to her sister Anna in 1821, in which she explains how those at Spring Hill were helping freedom seekers on their journey. Unfortunately for Charity, while she wanted to help, her recurring illnesses appear to have prevented her from participating often.
Arvine Wales, who was hired by the Rotches in 1809 to manage their flock of Merino sheep, quickly became a friend of Thomas and Charity. In addition, he also became deeply influenced by their Quaker ideals, including abolitionism, and even seems to have attended several Quaker meetings with the Rotches, as a Meeting Book from 1819 has his name on the title page. The following year, Arvine was the main force in driving DeCamp away from Spring Hill.
When Arvine Wales purchased Spring Hill Farm from the Rotches and Rodman (Charity’s side) families in 1829, it appears that he continued to operate Spring Hill as a station on the Underground Railroad.
Just as when Thomas Charity managed Spring Hill, it seems very likely that he continued to operate it as an Underground Railroad station. There is a mixture of primary and secondary sources written by Arvine and about Arvine regarding the Underground Railroad and his abolitionist activities.
One such story is that a set of stairs in the basement Dining Room, which were intended for domestic staff, were also used to escort freedom seekers to a hiding place on the second floor. While Thomas and Charity may have used them for this purpose, most accounts indicate that they began to be used during Arvine’s time.
In addition, Arvine wrote many letters to associates and family members with a very strong abolitionist viewpoint. One such set of letters was a selection he wrote to his son, Arvine Chaffee Wales, who was at Woodward College in Cincinnati in the 1840s. In the letters, Arvine writes, among many topics, about the abolitionist activities in Northeast Ohio.
In 1847, Arvine joined the Northern Ohio Liberty Association and was named to its executive committee. The Northern Ohio Liberty Association was a rebranding of the Liberty Party, which had a single stance: abolitionism. Upon his death in 1854, Arvine Wales’s obituary was featured in the Anti-Slavery Bugle, a prominent abolitionist newspaper that ran from 1845 to 1861. In it, Arvine was named “a friend of the slaves.”
Arvine Chaffee Wales, Arvine Wales’s son, grew up at Spring Hill while the farm was active on the Underground Railroad. Through his upbringing and close relationship with his father, Arvine Chaffee was indirectly influenced by the abolitionist views laid down by Thomas and Charity 40 years beforehand.
It appears that the first time that Arvine Chaffee was openly supportive of the abolitionist cause on his own was while he was at Woodward College in Cincinnati in the 1840s. In one instance, Arvine Chaffee wrote to his father about anti-abolitionist riots in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1845. Arvine wrote back to him and assured him that he would be safe if he kept quiet about his abolitionist views, did not share their letters, and “stick close to your studies and be a good boy.” Arvine Chaffee would return to Spring Hill in 1846, after finishing his studies. Arvine Chaffee would again leave Spring Hill between 1848 and 1849, as he had joined the Cleveland Bar and had gone to Harvard, where he would receive a degree in Law.
In 1850, Arvine Chaffee returned home again and almost immediately resumed his public anti-slavery rhetoric. He openly rejected the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The act added additional punishments for anyone helping a freedom seeker, which would have directly gone against the Underground Railroad at Spring Hill. Through the printing of these materials on a mass scale, Arvine Chaffee would have risked his safety to make a statement.
When Arvine Chaffee inherited Spring Hill in 1854, it is believed he continued to operate it as a station, as his father, Arvine, had before. However, just like with his father, Arvine, there are currently no primary documents from Arvine Chaffee Wales’s time regarding the continuation of the Underground Railroad at Spring Hill. There are, instead, many secondary sources that indicate his abolitionist views.
In 1854, he managed the will and estate of John Hall, who had lived in Kendal. In his will, Hall desired to create a fund to educate Black students in the area, for which Arvine Chaffee fundraised. Arvine Chaffee also provided legal support to George Harsh, a friend who lived in Kendal and operated a station on the Underground Railroad.
There is little documentation after this time indicating that Arvine Chaffee continued to operate Spring Hill as a station, or that he engaged in abolitionist activities. However, upon his death, obituaries in several local newspapers stated that he was also known to have kept Spring Hill open as a station for many years, just as his father, Arvine, did, and Thomas and Charity Rotch did before him.
The Local Underground Railroad: Missing Massillon Project
Spring Hill hired Amanda Sedlak-Hevener in 2018 thanks to a grant from the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom initiative. Amanda researched Spring Hill’s connections to the Underground Railroad beyond the Rotch family in 2018 and wrote the following blog posts about this journey to find research and proof of Massillon and Spring Hill legends and stories related to the Underground Railroad. Learn more about this research regarding Spring Hill and the Underground Railroad here.