(Editor’s note: "Josh Franklin’s Far Out Family Blog" is 10 chapters of
Civil War history focusing on Ohio’s role, written in a modern tone. Students,
parents and teachers are invited to take the series a little further after
reading it, and discuss the topics suggested below. The series is published
through Ohio Newspapers in Education and was written by Steven Coburn-Griffis.
The illustration is by Isaac Schumacher.)
Chapter three:
We take travel for granted. We’ve got cars and buses to get us around. And there are
trucks, not to mention airplanes, to move more and bigger things. But back when
Uncle Ethan was writing his letters, none of that existed. In fact, the fastest
way of getting things from here to there was on railroads. During the Civil War,
railroads were the supply lines that kept the Union army in food and clothes and
bullets and stuff. They were transportation for newly enlisted soldiers heading
south and for the wounded being shuttled back north. So I guess it’s not all
that surprising that when abolitionists started illegally moving slaves from the
southern states all the way up into Canada, they called that the Underground
Railroad.
Like all railroads, the Underground Railroad had stops along the way, places where
people opened their homes to runaway slaves. Let me tell you that I am proud to
say that Ohio had 13 stops. That’s more than twice as many stops as any other
state. They stretched from as far south as Riley clear up north into Sandusky
and Ashtabula. And even though we were fighting a war to emancipate the slaves,
to free them, it was still against the law to help an escaped slave. The people
who were helping were risking a lot, maybe even prison time. So they did their
best to keep what they were doing secret. They built hidden rooms in their
houses with tricky, secret doors and they built tunnels so that the people
traveling the Underground Railroad could get in and out without being seen.
One of the cool things about now, today, is that none of that stuff is secret
anymore. Sometimes, some of those Underground Railroad stops are even open to
the public, part of a park system or something, so we can go and see where they
were and what they were like. And like I said, there are a bunch of them here in
Ohio, so there may even be one close to where you live.
Anyway, enough about that. I’m going to fail this project if I don’t write at least a
little bit about family. Isn’t that right, Mr. W.? So, here’s the next letter:

September 7, 1862
Wilf,
Even as I am writing this, I am sitting in a train car. There are hundreds of us,
soldiers all, waiting for the train to begin its journey, to take us, to take
me, farther from home than I ever really dreamed of going. We are heading for
Cincinnati and from there, most surely farther south. And the world is stranger
than ever I would have believed.
Today I met a man, a black man. His name is John Langston. He is neither a freed
slave nor a runaway. He was born a free man, here, in the United States, in
Virginia. He is a remarkable man who has been to college and who was even
elected clerk in Lorain County. Now, he preaches abolition and recruits other
black men for service in the Union Army.
Though I miss home, and I most truly do, meeting a man such as Mr. Langston is proof
to me that I have made the right decision.
Ethan
VOCABULARY WORDS
abolitionists
emancipate
Chapter three: questions and activities
Locate the towns of Riley, Sandusky and Ashtabula on a map of Ohio. Using the map’s
scale, calculate how far ‘riders’ on the Underground Railroad had to travel from
one point another across Ohio on their way to freedom.
Do some research at your local library or online to find out if there were any
Underground Railroad stops near your home. If so, how far is it to the next
northern Underground Railroad "station?"
Look through today’s Sentinel-Tribune.
Are there any articles about people who are helping others? Are any of them risking
their freedom or even their lives to do so?