Coffin and other Quakers who supported his activities separated and formed the Antislavery Friends. As we’ll see during this show, he and his wife were very important in 19th century America. Other neighbors joined in the efforts when they saw what success Coffin was having. Cincinnati was the center of Underground Railroad activity along the Ohio-Kentucky border. Again, the fact that the Coffins’ owned a retail business (and the fact that they had a large family) meant that relatively large amounts of food passing through their shop and their house was not suspicious in itself. In addition to the white abolitionists who aided them in their important work, the Coffins also employed the help of many blacks, such as William Bush. Coggswell described the network of friends: I knew every person between Richmond, Indiana and Michigan who would take us in and keep us all night… We talked over the situation freely among ourselves, but said little or nothing to others. The Coffin House: https://www.indianamuseum.org/levi-and-catharine-coffin-state-historic-site It was one thing to help fugitive slaves, but Coffin also knew that many of the things sold in his dry goods business, and that much of the money that flowed through his banking interests, had their origins in slavery. Everyone who worked on the Underground Railroad was obviously committed, selfless, and heroic. Unlike Newport, the town was divided between antislavery and proslavery activists. The most frequently used disguise was a that of a Quaker woman. One of the problems with dealing in only “free goods” (that is, goods produced only by free labor) was that the number of suppliers was often small. The “conductors” were politically and financially powerful, and even those neighbors who felt no call to harbor ex-slaves, did not report fugitives to the sheriff. Spring Grove Cemetery. Massachusetts had abolished slavery in 1783, but the Fugitive Slave Acts required government officials to assist slavecatchers in capturing fugitives within their state. Levi and Catharine Historic Site. The Coffin home became the point of convergence for three major escape routes from Madison and New Albany, Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio. They had put their own safety, property, and livelihoods at risk. There were such suppliers, even one free cotton plantation in Mississippi, but there weren’t enough to be able to rely on a steady supply of quality goods that northerners and westerners would buy. So they wanted any energy used in the Underground Railroad movement to be put behind the call for emancipation and legal abolition. Conductor Nathan Coggswell remembered transporting refugees in his ox cart north towards Canada. Coffin became known as the “president” of a loose federation of people who assisted fugitive slaves. It was the great good fortune – if not something more – that Levi Coffin was able to complete the story of his exciting and incredible life, not long before he died. The Levi and Catharine Coffin State Historic Site and National Historic Landmark in Fountain City, Indiana (near Richmond, IN) has made it to our short list of all-time favorite travel learning destinations. They used the Bible to teach them to rea, with considerable success. After establishing themselves in Newport, the Coffins contacted these free black groups, and offered to hide some runaways in their own home. She died at the age of 78 from pneumonia. Newport, Indiana was already home to a large-ish number of free blacks (people who were either born free or had their freedom granted to them before moving to Indiana). So each incident was a true act of heroism. With the many guests coming and going, the home was an excellent cover for a station on the Underground Railroad. As he was a skilled businessman the warehouse prospered for a time but was not profitable so he was forced to close it in 1857. The most intriguing for us, and likely most visitors, was the cupboard hidden behind a wall and under the eaves in an upper bedroom. And helping any slave was potentially life-threatening. Nevertheless he was educated sufficiently well at home (with his six sisters) to be able to take up teaching. He remained haunted by this and other encounters, and thus began aiding Blacks -those still enslaved and those on their road to freedom- already in his childhood. The setting may be the Coffin home in Cincinnati. Location: Willow Grove Cemetery, 1 mile south of the Coffin House on U.S. 27. And it was easy (again, -ish) to communicate with fellow Underground Railroad workers in this way. The couple had six children together. Levi was especially brave in demanding that slave catchers show the proper, legal documentation at the door. Although I don’t like “scoreboard history” when it comes to assessing the importance of the work that humanitarians did in the past, this is an enormous number. With the aid of abolitionists in Indiana, he opened a business that sold only goods produced by free laborers. The history of the Underground Railroad is much longer, fuller, richer, and more complex and compelling than what’s depicted in the movie Harriet. Coffin’s wife was in full support of her husband and helped him in his efforts to help the fugitive slaves. She also disguised a number of female escapees in traditional Quaker attire — full-length dresses, blouses with long sleeves, gloves, veils, and a traditional, wide-brimmed Quaker hat helped a great number of women go unnoticed around their house. After the birth of their first child in 1825, Levi and Catherine moved with more or less the whole extended Coffin family to Newport, Indiana (which is now called “Fountain City”) on the Ohio border. Afterward Coffin and his wife moved to Indiana and started businesses that allowed them to participate for approximately twenty years in the Underground Railroad. Yet, I don’t think that we should “rank” these heroes by “stats,” the Coffins deserve a great deal more attention than they’ve been given. As he was writing his autobiography, this old man wanted to stress the centrality and strength of one of his earliest experiences, and the impact it had on how he chose to live his life. By the time he was 15, Coffin was helping his family harbor runaway slaves on their farm. As their involvement grew, the Coffins decided to build a house that could provide strategic advantages to the cause. Sometimes, she even had escaped slaves pose as servants and attendants for other guests at the rooming house, as if they were traveling with them. That is, working in the political realm to end slavery first, and then work on how to improve the lives of freed peoples. This Amish store sells baked goods, bulk foods, candies, cheeses, farm fresh produce, log furniture, and more. Coffin was dedicated to peaceful measures to bring about the abolition of slavery. And if you’ve got tweens, you’ll love this engaging family read-aloud. Levi Coffin : biography October 28, 1798 – September 16, 1877 Levi Coffin (October 28, 1798 – September 16, 1877) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, and businessman. In 1847, the Coffins moved to Cincinnati, where they continued their efforts to help fugitive slaves. 1798. Escaping slaves would run north, and toward places they had heard were safer, hoping that they would find an underground railroad “station” (that is, a safe house or farm, run by people sympathetic to runaway slaves, and willing to hide them). His parents were Quakers, and the family was anti-slavery in their thinking. Their Indiana home is now The Coffin House, a National Historic Landmark in Fountain City, Indiana, but no one’s made a major motion picture about them (although they certainly deserve one). Word of the Coffins’ activities quickly spread through the community of Newport. However, the United States Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 permitted Southern slave owners to go to free states, like Ohio and reclaim fugitive slaves. By the early 1840s, the second school of thought was gaining the upper hand among Quaker leaders. But it soon became obvious that North Carolina was too dangerous for Quaker abolitionists and early underground railroad workers. The Coffins retired from public life and their various humanitarian efforts in 1870. In 1847, Coffin and his wife moved to Ohio. These places were just too obvious, and since the Fugitive Slave Law was a _national_ law, northerners were required to comply with it (no matter what their own personal views on slavery were). October 28, And they built other passageways to make their railroad work both easier and more secret. By the late 1830s, Levi Coffin was in his late 40s and Catherine in her mid-30s. No more reliable source on the life of Levi Coffin, nor more honest telling of the Underground Railroad, can be found than in the person of Levi Coffin himself. In 1867 he attended the International Anti-Slavery Conference in Paris. Although he didn’t believe in war, he supported the Union. Levi Coffin House The Coffins had this two-story, eight-room brick home built in 1839, and several modifications were made to the it to create better hiding places. Required documentation included search warrants and slave-ownership papers, according to the Fugitive Slave Law. (He and his wife are depicted in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.) Young Levi asked him why he was being held in chains. So I don’t want to say that Levi and Catherine Coffin were _more_ important than Harriet Tubman (who is estimated to have saved and transported around 150 slaves). Perhaps the most enduring homage to the Coffins is that they were probably the models for the characters of Simeon and Rachael Halliday in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852.