The Local Underground Railroad: Missing Massillon Project
Spring Hill has hired Amanda Sedlak-Hevener 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.
Missing Massillon Part One: Filling in the Blanks on the Underground Railroad Map One Step at a Time
Although we know that Spring Hill was a station on the Underground Railroad (UGR) while the Rotches were in residence, we aren’t sure what happened after both Thomas and Charity passed away. Did the Wales family hide escaped enslaved people in the Spring House? Maybe. And what about the rest of the Kendal residents? Were they a part of the Underground Railroad? According to the Siebert papers, many of them participated in one way or another.
The Wilbur Henry Siebert Collection is held by the Ohio History Connection archives. They consist of hundreds of documents, mostly narratives written in the 1890s, about Underground Railroad activity in the United States. [browse the Siebert papers on Ohio Memory]
Both Massillon and its precursor, Kendal, appear in the collection. Even though the Siebert Collection consists of secondary sources (they were written in the 1890s, several decades after the Civil War ended and UGR activities ceased), they’re a good place to begin.
So far, I’ve discovered some interesting things in that collection. These facts need to be fully backed up by primary sources, but according to the accounts gathered by Siebert, the Rotches weren’t the only abolitionists in town.
One narrative includes details of a man named James Bayliss. For a time, he lived on the grounds of Spring Hill, before moving around quite a bit and finally settling on the 640 acres of land that held his rather profitable sawmill. His obituary described how we walked (yes, walked!) from Cleveland to Akron, and then to Kendal. He arrived in the village in 1827. Bayliss’ obituary doesn’t mention his UGR activities, but the Siebert narrative does – he apparently temporarily hired some of the escaped slaves that found their way to Kendal via the Canal towpaths.
Another interesting figure from the period is Charles Grant. The Siebert papers describe him as a “colored conductor” who “sometimes borrowed a horse or wagon from Mr. Bayliss for his nocturnal trips.” These trips transported escaped slaves from Kendal to a station located somewhere to the northeast. After doing a bit of research, I found a mention of Grant in the April 26, 1897, edition of The Massillon Independent. The front page story tells the tale of the time local resident John Gabele worked as a barber in Columbus. One of his clients was then-General Ulysses S. Grant. Gabele asked Grant if he had relatives in Massillon. He went on to describe Charles Grant as a man “by that name, but he is of a darker complexion than you, and he carries bricks for a living…” The General said that they weren’t related, but told Gabele to give Charles Grant “his regards” the next time he was back in Kendal.
Now that it’s been proven that Bayliss and Charles Grant existed, the steps involve finding additional primary sources that describe their UGR activities. Then I need to see if I can connect them to the Wales family. This is why research is a constantly ongoing process!
Missing Massillon Part Two: The Importance of Memory
My research has taken me in many different directions this week, so I’m only going to focus on two important parts of it for the sake of clarity.
I did more research on Charles Grant and found some interesting facts. I located two death notices in the Massillon Independent – one for his wife, Amelia Grant, and another for their son, William H. Grant. Not only does this give me additional proof that Charles Grant existed, but it lends credence to the Siebert papers, which mention Charles Grant’s work as a transporter on the UGRR.
This is where the call to action comes in. I need additional help here from anyone who knows the Grant family. Hopefully, one of his descendants comes across this and has heard stories about their ancestor who helped escaped slaves on the UGRR. Although oral histories end up muddled over time, they are still good proof of a person’s actions.
Why am I asking for this? Because I found census records that show Charles Grant living in Massillon in 1860 and 1870. By 1880, he was in Perry Township. I can’t find his death records, but his wife outlived him, according to her obituary. What’s even more interesting is the fact that both Charles and his wife, Amelia, were born in Martinsburg, VA (now West Virginia) back in the 1820s.
A little research led me to the fact that they were both most likely born into slavery. According to the records that I found, at the time Berkeley County, VA has 1,800 enslaved people, and around 230 free African Americans, so the odds were not in their favor. I need to know – did Charles and Amelia escape successfully? Were they freed? If they were living in Massillon and helped the UGRR, did they run cross paths with Arvine Wales? There are more questions than answers at this point.
Another topic that I need help with involves the Presbyterian Church records. According to Perrin’s Complete History of Stark County (which is what Siebert used as a source for his book), an important meeting took place in Massillon in 1837. The meeting involved Reverend George W. Warner and many citizens of Massillon. Warner started a debate called “Does justice demand the immediate abolition of slavery?”
Apparently, the debate took place over the course of a few days, and as a result, the town went from pro-slavery to ardent abolitionists. I need to find records of whether or not this meeting took place and who attended it. I have Spring Hill’s Director checking with the Presbyterian Church in Massillon to see if they can locate their records from this period, but does anyone else have any information? Have you heard about this meeting? Any small bit of information can help steer me in a better direction.
Sometimes the answers aren’t just located in archives and libraries. At times they’re in people’s memories, thanks to stories that have been passed down. If you know anything on either of these two topics, please let us know!
Missing Massillon Part Three: The Folgers and Anti-Slavery Activities in Massillon
Last week I spent a large amount of time wandering through the digitized editions of The Anti-Slavery Bugle searching for some different people. Searches for the word “Massillon” brought up some very interesting results. Apparently, Massillon was indeed a hotbed of abolitionist activity!
The Anti-Slavery Bugle, just to provide a little background, was an abolitionist newspaper. There was a number of these newspapers founded in the Antebellum (pre-Civil War) era, including The Philanthropist, which came out of the Cincinnati area. The Anti-Slavery Bugle was founded in Lisbon, Ohio in 1845, although most of its issues were published in Salem, Ohio. This newspaper ran until 1861, and published articles based on its motto – “No Union with Slaveholders.”
While searching through issues of The Anti-Slavery Bugle, I came across quite a few mentions of Massillon. The city hosted an Anti-Slavery Fair in the 1850s. These fairs are a precursor to the Sanitary Fairs that took place during the Civil War. The fairs were set up to raise money for a specific cause. In the case of the Anti-Slavery Fairs, the cause was abolition and the Underground Railroad.
People, usually women, donated handmade goods and other things that were then sold at the fair. The money went to the larger organization. Although I have yet to find any records from the fair itself, as far as who organized it and who donated items, I did find a notice in the paper about its date and time.
Other finds from The Anti-Slavery Bugle include plenty of mentions of prominent citizens. Arvine Wales’ obituary made it into the paper. At the end of the death notice, he was declared “a friend of the slaves.” He also pledged money to the newspaper at one point and was listed as not having yet paid it.
The Folger family, notably Robert Folger, also made it into the pages of The Anti-Slavery Bugle. Some were positive, such as the meeting that took place between representatives of the newspaper and Folger, when he welcomed them into his Massillon home. However, another was a brief description of how Folger threatened to beat up a Copperhead (a Southern sympathizer in the North) who was the editor of another local newspaper.
As you can see, a lot of abolitionist activities went on in Massillon before the outbreak of the Civil War. I’m just chipping away at the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
Missing in Massillon Part Four: Lucretia Mott’s Massillon Ties
On Monday, September 13, 1847, Arvine Chaffee Wales woke up around 5 am. Later that day, he ventured into downtown Massillon where he was introduced to Mrs. Lucretia Mott.
Who did the introduction?
His diary notation for that day only says “Robt,” but I’m assuming that this was Robert Folger, one of Mott’s cousins. Arvine Chaffee’s day didn’t end there though – that evening he attended a lecture at Tremont Hall given by Mott. He came away “very much pleased.”
A number of “superstars” are associated with the Underground Railroad (UGRR). Many people have heard of ardent abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Lloyd Garrison. Lucretia Mott is on that list – and she had a Kendal/Massillon connection!
Mott is related to Mayhew Folger, the infamous sea captain who was one of the first settlers of Kendal. He was her uncle. Mott’s mother, Anna (Folger) Coffin was his sister. Anna and Thomas Coffin (Mott’s father) planned to move to Kendal, but he died before the move could take place. Thomas Coffin did spend some time in Kendal and is on the list of attendees for the Kendal Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends. (There’s also a Charles Coffin also on that list that I’m currently investigating. Clearly, they’re related.)
Although Thomas Coffin, and thus his children, Lucretia included, didn’t actually live in Kendal, they did have family there. Mayhew Folger stuck around and went on to become the first postmaster of Massillon. Folger’s son, Robert, as I’m investigating, helped slaves reach freedom on the UGRR. So, there were plenty of reasons for Mott to visit in 1847.
For those of you who have heard of Lucretia Mott, but don’t know much about her, she was a Quaker abolitionist who believed in female equality. She founded and was President of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. She tried to attend the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England but wasn’t allowed into the conference hall. Instead, she preached about women’s rights outside of the building, where she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mott went on to help freed slaves and gave speeches about black suffrage after the Civil War ended.
Although there’s no proof that Lucretia Mott actually operated a station on the UGRR, she certainly brought a lot of attention to the cause. Thanks to her relatives Mayhew and Robert Folger, the latter of whom most likely helped escaped slaves reach freedom, she is connected to Massillon.
Missing Massillon Part Five: The Things You Find When You Aren’t Looking For Them
One of the best things about research is that it leads you down some strange paths – and you stumble across things that you were kind of looking for, but at the same time, not actually hoping to find. This past week led to one of these discoveries.
Spring Hill has a Native American artifact in its collection. Not much is known about it, other than the fact that it was given to Arvine Wales sometime about the War of 1812. I found an article pertaining to the artifact in the December 18, 1941, issue of the Massillon Independent.
According to the article, Arvine Wales was given the wooden pipe “during the latter part of the second war with England.” That would be the War of 1812, which we already knew. The story goes on to explain how Arvine heard about an expeditionary raid on Native Americans living in the area. Since he was good friends with a Native American family who “lived in a wigwam at the junction of Newman Creek and the Tuscarawas River,” he went to warn them of the impending danger.
As the story goes, Arvine’s Native American friend was so grateful that he handed him a wooden ladle that he’d carved from a piece of basswood. After that, the friend and his family took off down the Tuscarawas in a canoe, taking as much as they could carry with them.
While Spring Hill’s Director tasked me with looking into the wooden artifact a few years ago, it was placed on the back burner, because I was working on other projects as well. I just stumbled across this article during a search on “Arvine Wales” in the Independent’s online archives.
I also found a brief story from 1868 that described how a horse and carriage belonging to “Mr. Wales” was stolen by someone on a “bender.” They were recovered from the Myers Lake area the next day without incident. While this is less exciting than finding out more information about the wooden ladle, it illustrates exactly what was going on in Massillon in the 1860s: not much.
Yes, neither of these things are in any way related to the Underground Railroad, which is what I’m primarily researching. However, I do need to note anything that I find related to the families of Spring Hill, as they just give us more to present to the public during tours. Every little detail matters.
Missing Massillon Part Six: On the Hunt for DeCamp
A slave catcher named DeCamp is an important part of Spring Hill’s history. According to the tale in Perrin’s History of Stark County, DeCamp went to Spring Hill in 1820. He followed a woman and two children who he believed were escaped, slaves. Thomas Rotch had them hidden on his property when Decamp and one of his cohorts rode up on horseback.
As the story goes, DeCamp handed Thomas a warrant for the slave’s recapture and reminded him that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 gave him the right to return those slaves to their owners. However, DeCamp was scared off when Rotch’s farmhands threateningly encircled him. DeCamp never went back to Spring Hill, regardless of the fact that Thomas and his wife continued their UGRR activities.
Slave catchers were supposedly “everywhere” before the Civil War. Their primary goals were to track down escaped slaves and, with warrants in hand, return them to their owners. In Ohio, this didn’t always go according to plan. The Oberlin-Wellington Slave Rescue of 1858 is a good example of this. In 1858, a federal marshal arrested an escaped slave in Oberlin. He took the man, named John Price, to Wellington, Ohio, but a group of men from Oberlin followed him, overran the marshal and his deputies, and rescued Price.
While the incident at Spring Hill wasn’t quite that dramatic, it certainly set the tone for what was to come. It’s safe to say that although not every citizen of Ohio believed that the slaves should be freed (there was the occasional copperhead – a southern sympathizer who lived in the north), but many made it clear that slavery and slave catchers were not going to be tolerated. DeCamp and those like him were doomed.
I spent some of the past week looking into this story. It certainly could be true. However, I can’t find any records of a slave catcher named DeCamp. There were several men in the area with that last name, notably in Cleveland. According to newspaper records, one, in particular, found himself in quite a bit of trouble with the law in the mid-1800s. He was a seasoned burglar. But was he “the “ DeCamp?
The problem with tracking down slave catcher DeCamp is the lack of a first name. In fact, we don’t even know for sure that his name was DeCamp. He could’ve just used it as an alias. Without more information, I may never be able to find out more about him. That’s not going to stop me from looking though!
*Dr. Roy Finkenbine, who wrote an article and spoke about George and Edy Duncan, freedom seekers who came through Spring Hill, also looked into DeCamp. According to him, DeCamp is a shadowy figure that is mentioned in records in the Ohio River Valley, but there is next to no information on him. We may never know about the real DeCamp.
Missing Massillon Part Seven: Robert Folger and the Underground Railroad
I was (and still kind of am) skeptical of the accounts of the Underground Railroad (UGRR) that Wilbur Siebert managed to catalog. Although I still want additional proof of the tales that were told to him, sometimes I have to admit that some of these stories can prove each other.
What am I rambling on about? Well, the Siebert Collection contains a recollection of facts written by Robert Folger. He told his story to Siebert on August 15, 1895. This included details of his life, including the admission that he had escaped slaves in his house. I initially wanted to prove this through additional primary sources, but couldn’t – at first.
Searches for Folger’s name in Chronicling America brought up many references to Massillon in The Anti-Slavery Bugle. Among these were a meeting of abolitionists that took place in Massillon, hosted by Folger and his wife. I also came across a story in which he threatened to beat up a Copperhead, which I wrote about in a previous column. While those, along with the editorials that he wrote for the paper, show his abolitionist sentiments, they didn’t prove anything.
This led me back to Siebert Collection archives. A search on the term “Massillon” found some interesting results – people in other counties describing the abolitionists that they worked with. I came across the transcript of an interview with Horace Ford from Cuyahoga County. There is already proof that Horace and his father, Cyrus, operated a station on the UGRR. This makes this interview very reputable.
As a part of the interview, Horace began to describe the route that the escaped slaves took to reach his home on Euclid Avenue. Many of them went through Massillon, where they were aided by Samuel Macy, Robert Folger (characterized as “Captain Robert Folger, then a captain on the canal, now a lawyer still living there in Massillon”), and Isaac Bowman.
Horace told a story about two slaves who escaped from Culpepper, VA. They crossed the Ohio River, wound up in Cadiz, and then trekked through Malborough until they got to Massillon. He didn’t mention the names of these “fugitives” or who exactly helped them once they arrived in Massillon, but he doesn’t have to. The fact that he previously mentioned some of the same names as James Bayliss and specifically named Robert Folger is enough.
I’m calling it now – and I’m sure that additional proof will surface – Robert Folger was a station master on the UGRR.
Missing Massillon Part Eight: Arvine Wales and the Northern Ohio Liberty Association
These days, the minor political parties in the U.S. are the Green Party and the Tea Party, although the Tea Party is mostly a faction of the Republican Party. Back in the 1800s, there was the Liberty Party. This was an anti-slavery, pro-abolition party that started in 1840 but pretty much fizzled out over the next two decades.
The Liberty Party was best known for nominating James G. Birney, a former slaveholder who once owned a cotton plantation in Alabama. If this sounds counterintuitive, rest assured that it’s not. Birney turned to religion in the 1820s and began discussing the evils of slaveholding with anyone who would listen. He moved to Cincinnati in 1835, where he founded The Philanthropist, one of the most popular anti-slavery newspapers.
Birney ran for President of the United States in 1840 (he received less than 7,000 votes) and again in 1844 as a member of the Liberty Party. He lost both elections by quite a bit, and the Liberty Party began to fizzle out. Some members joined the Free Soil Party, which promoted one platform – that slavery shouldn’t be allowed in the newly created western states. Eventually, the Free Soil Party merged with the Republican Party.
However, during the Liberty Party’s heyday, local chapters sprang up. The local one was called the Western Reserve Liberty Association. In 1847, the organization renamed itself. It officially became the Northern Ohio Liberty Association. At that same meeting, Arvine Wales was named to their executive committee. He was the only representative of Massillon. The committee appointment was for an entire year.
The other Northern Ohio Liberty Association committee members were from Cleveland, Painesville, and Warren, while the organization’s new officers represented Cleveland. It’s believed that the whole reason behind the name change was to incorporate more of Ohio, not just the section that encompassed the Western Reserve.
Although I still haven’t proven that Arvine Wales operated a station on the Underground Railroad or helped anyone who did, he certainly remained committed to the abolitionist cause. One of the letters that he wrote to his son, Arvine Chaffee Wales, while he was away in college, included instructions on what not to write, just in case someone was intercepting and reading their correspondence.
Is it possible that this is why there’s no record of (the elder) Arvine Wales’ UGRR activities? After all, the Fugitive Slaves Laws were in place. Maybe he just didn’t want anyone to know. I find it hard to believe that someone who was involved in so many abolitionist groups and was strongly against slavery didn’t help in some way. Especially when there was so much UGRR activity going on in the area at the time.
Missing Massillon Part Nine: The Importance of Historical Structures
Few things make me sadder than searching for a historic property and finding out that it was torn down. While it’s nearly impossible to gauge the importance of a structure (and not every old building has historical meaning for that matter), it does stink when there are potential UGRR sites in Massillon that no longer exist.
Why am I writing about this? Well, I spent some time this past week looking into Robert Folger (again) and trying to determine where he lived. We know that he and his wife hosted several abolitionists at their house over the years. At least one of these informal meetings was written about in the Anti-Slavery Bugle. Surely his house still exists, right? You know, the one that he let escaped slaves stay in.
According to a Google map that was created by the archivist at the Massillon Museum, Mandy Stahl, it appears that Folger’s properties are now commercial storefronts. What used to be Folger’s land is now a small shopping center with a Boost Mobile Store, an Arby’s and the Massillon campus of the Living Water Church. A house that used to be owned by Mayhew Folger in the old Kendal section of town was torn down and replaced long ago.
This doesn’t mean that the search is over. It’s entirely possible that the house owned by Folger is still standing. I just have to hunt through the property records to find it. However, this brings up an entirely different dilemma – how many other former UGRR houses are still standing in the area? How many have been torn down because they were just in too bad of shape to justify repairing? And is it truly possible to save every old building?
The answers to those questions aren’t so easy. Since I love old houses and buildings, I tend to be in “save them all!” camp. But, I know that not everyone feels that way. I also understand that sometimes progress gets in the way. As much as I want to research every single old house that I can find just to see if something significant happened there, I don’t have the time. Instead, I’m looking into a very specific set of houses in Massillon, thanks to this project.
I also feel the need to say that not every old house was on the UGRR, but that’s an entirely different can of worms.
Missing Massillon Part Ten: Is Your House On The Underground Railroad?
The Underground Railroad (UGRR) is a hot topic in the news. Just recently Philadelphia finally uncovered the location of William Still’s townhouse – and it’s still standing! But, just because your house is old doesn’t mean that it was on the UGRR – although it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t.
Here are the main criteria (as far as I’m concerned):
- Your house was built before 1850
- It’s in an area known for abolitionism and UGRR activity
That’s really it. Not all houses on the UGRR has secret passageways and hidden rooms. In fact, even if your house is in an area that isn’t known for UGRR activity, it could still have been a stop. It’s possible that the information needed to prove this just hasn’t been uncovered yet.
However, you need more than an old house in the right location to prove that your home was a station. You need actual proof in the form of a primary document. Things like letters and diaries written by the previous owners are key. In order to find them, you need to know who owned (or built) the house that you’re living in. You need to trace the owners all of the way back to the very beginning. This is rather time-consuming, but it’s what I’m working on.
Going through old deeds can make a person want to pull out their hair. Sometimes the names don’t match up. One document that’s supposed to lead to another just… doesn’t. Documents sometimes get lost or misfiled, especially in the race to get them all digitized. And then there are times when I come across a digitized old deed and spend over an hour trying to read it. Those early documents were handwritten and are sometimes not as legible as they should be. After all, even the best-kept ones are over 150 years old!
Is there a way to prove beyond a doubt that some of these houses were on the UGRR? Yes. After all, Spring Hill has letters and diary entries that state clearly what the Rotchs were up to when they weren’t herding or shearing sheep. Can I prove that the Wales family followed in their footsteps? Not yet. I’m still trying!
Is it possible that I might uncover other UGRR sites in Massillon that are still standing? Well, I hope so. I’m compiling housing records and am crosschecking them with many other documents. Maybe I’ll uncover the names and locations of people who helped the Rotchs or the other families that ran UGRR stations. Anything is possible. It just takes time and a little patience.
Do you think that your home in Massillon might’ve been a station on the UGRR? If so, contact Spring Hill’s Director or leave a comment on this post. It’ll give me yet another house to research.