Thomas and Charity Rotch of Spring Hill and the village of Kendal were active on the Underground Railroad, and stations were established as early as 1817. Many of the early leaders of Kendal were Quakers like Thomas and Charity and actively supported freedom seekers on their flight to safety. Spring Hill also has a letter written by a freedom seeker on the Underground Railroad. The letter, named the George Duncan Letter, provides insight into the experiences of being on the Underground Railroad and directly links Spring Hill to it.
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 coordinating his journey. George continues by stating that after he left Spring Hill and Kendal, 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 help her avoid Samuel Spriggs, their enslaver. George then asks Thomas not to mention the letter to anyone. Finally, he writes a portion to 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 Kendal or Massillon. Next, they continued north towards Akron and Cleveland and eventually to Lake Erie, where, by 1820, vessels carried the freedom seekers to Canada.
Today, the letter is part of the Massillon Public Library’s Rotch-Wales papers. Click or tap here to view the full letter.
Arvine Wales, the faithful farmhand who became a friend and business associate of the Rotches, was prominent and influential in the early days of the Kendal community. Through working with the Rotches as early as 1809 in Hartford, Connecticut, and moving to Ohio with them in 1811, Arvine was 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.
His first major anti-abolitionist encounter would be in the spring of 1820, when a slavecatcher named DeCamp came to Spring Hill, seeking freedom seekers hidden in the Spring House. Through persuasion and likely intimidation, Arvine and several farmhands were able to drive DeCamp away from Spring Hill, who never returned.
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. However, unlike Thomas and Charity, no primary documents from Arvine Wales’s time have been discovered regarding the continuation of the Underground Railroad at Spring Hill. However, based on many secondary sources, such as family histories and materials written about Arvine, it seems very likely that he continued to operate Spring Hill as an Underground Railroad station.
One such story is that a set of stairs in the basement Dining Room, intended for domestic staff, was also used to quickly escort freedom seekers to a hiding place on the second floor, starting around 1829, when Arvine Wales purchased Spring Hill. While Thomas and Charity Rotch could have used the hiding space, their early deaths before the house was fully finished may have prevented it from being used at all during their time. Instead, they used service buildings such as the Spring House to hide freedom seekers.
In addition to the staircase story, Arvine wrote many letters to associates and family members with a very strong abolitionist viewpoint. He also wrote many letters in the 1840s to his son Arvine Chaffee Wales, who was at Woodward College in Cincinnati. In the letters, Arvine writes, among many topics, about the abolitionist activities in Northeast Ohio, and tells his son to be careful about discussing these topics at college or in letters to keep them both safe. In 1847, Arvine Wales joined the Northern Ohio Liberty Association and was named to their executive committee. The Northern Ohio Liberty Association was a rebrand of the Liberty Party, which was one stance, abolitionist.
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. Arvine Chaffee wrote to his father, Arvine, in 1845 about anti-abolitionist riots in Lexington, Kentucky. 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 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.
Arvine Chaffee was immediately involved with the abolitionist movement. 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.