Underground Railroad -- A Place Of Refuge In Small-Town Ohio

RIPLEY, Ohio - It was the Fourth of July.

I stood in front of a red brick two-story house that overlooked the Ohio River. A rock walkway, about 50 yards long and a foot wide, stretched across the green lush grass. Dark brown clapboard crowned its slanted roof. Two large hemlocks stood to the side, like sentinels protecting a castle.

But this was not a castle of grandeur.

It was a castle of hope.

Here, more than 2,000 fugitive slaves - perhaps some of my ancestors - had sought refuge as they fled the Deep South in search of freedom during the mid-19th century.

Here, fugitive slaves had huddled in hidden closets, sometimes for days, until it was safe for them to walk to the next Underground Railroad station on their way to freedom in northern states or Canada.

Eliza Harris, who lived on a plantation in Kentucky, was one of them.

Two of her children had died. Now her slavemaster planned to sell her only surviving child. She was terrified. That night, Harris grabbed her toddler son and raced to the Ohio River. The water was dotted with ice floes, so she sought temporary shelter at a nearby house.

But slavecatchers were closing in; she couldn't stay.

She rushed from the house with her son. At the river she leaped onto an ice floe, than jumped from one chunk to the next. Suddenly, she sank and plunged waist deep into the river. Frantically she placed her child onto other cake of ice, then pulled herself up.

Eventually, she made it across the river into Ohio and found safety, support, food and shelter at a nearby place that became known as the Rankin House.

It was the Rev. John Rankin who had come to her aid.

And it was he who later shared the story of Harris' desperation and courage with Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," who made Harris' experience known to the world.

A sacred place

The Rankin House sits on a bluff called Liberty Hill in Ripley, a small town about 45 minutes southeast of Cincinnati. White markings on the window trim accent its red brick exterior. Behind it, blue sky frames a panoramic view of Kentucky to the south.

The house was built in 1828 by Rankin, a Presbyterian minister, who operated one of the most successful Underground Railroad stations in the Midwest. Fugitive slaves considered it a sacred place. For many Americans, it still is.

Now I'd arrived, on this Fourth of July, at this same house of hope and freedom.

I had driven 15 hours from Bucktown, Md., the birthplace and hometown of Harriet Tubman - one of the most notable fugitive slaves and abolitionists in American history. The trip was exhausting.

But with each mile my thoughts centered on what this place meant to fugitive slaves as a place of kindness, safety and shelter. For even as I traveled in the relative comfort of my car - without slavecatchers or dogs chasing me, without swamps and mountains obstructing me - I still felt an uneasiness.

But now I sensed I'd arrived at a place of refuge and felt an instant kinship with other travelers visiting this landmark. It seemed to me that we were celebrating the theme of American freedom in the most powerful way imaginable: visiting an Underground Railroad station where runaway slaves found safety, support, shelter and assistance.

About 6,000 tourists come here annually to pay tribute to John Rankin, who risked his livelihood and his life to help guide fugitive slaves to freedom.

Here's why:

During much of American slavery, Ohio was a free state. Kentucky, across the river, a slave state. Ripley was a major Underground Railroad way-station. John Rankin was the leader.

Ohioans and Kentuckians differed deeply on the issue of slavery. And the hard feelings weren't softened by the fact that slaves were being auctioned off just 11 miles south of Ripley, in Washington, Ky.

"I believe some people still harbor resentments," said Lobena Frost, 76, a resident of Ripley and the curator of the Rankin House.

Yet others harbor hope.

"Those people stood all the way up against slavery," said Brett Wright, pointing to the front door of the Rankin House. "They did everything to abolish it."

Wright and his wife, Rhonda, of northern Kentucky, simply wanted to see with their own eyes where those first steps out of Kentucky slavery led fugitive slaves.

Frost led the Wrights and other tourists across the home's oak floors into the living room. Here, Rankin's 200-year-old Bible and wooden globe rested on a table and floor. She led us into a bedroom, then a dining room, where the Rankins' favorite China dishes sat neatly upon a wooden table.

Upstairs we saw hiding places - small compartments with wooden doors - that hid slaves. At the back of the house were 100 wooden steps leading several hundred feet down to the Ohio River - steps of freedom for fugitive slaves. Rankin built these steps in 1828.

Near the side of the house we looked up at the second-floor window.

"Rev. Rankin (or his wife, Jean) would go up and place a lantern in that window," Frost explained. "The slaves knew not to cross the river unless that lantern was shining. They knew that if the light was not in the window, the slavehunters were in Ripley."

Hearing such words of courage made me feel that Americans could find something good seeping from the wounds of slavery:

- Black Americans could look beyond the shame of enslavement and find strength in knowing our ancestors embarked on a dangerous journey for freedom. And prevailed.

- White Americans could look beyond the shame of enslaving and find pride in ancestors like John Rankin and other abolitionists who dedicated their lives to aiding fugitive slaves.

- All Americans could point to the Rankin House and the Underground Railroad as an example of America's best democratic virtues.

Uncertainty amid celebration

Yet as I drove toward downtown Ripley, where hundreds of people gathered on the riverbank to celebrate the Fourth of July, I still felt uncertain about why Rankin had risked his all for black fugitive slaves.

At the center of town, I parked my car and sat down on the riverbank. I watched motorboats zoom up and down the river. I was weary and wanted to rest. But the image of Eliza Harris, who'd crossed the ice-filled Ohio River with her child more than a century ago, leaped into my mind. She stood there, smiling. It was a beautiful smile, full of joy and hope, love and courage.

I wondered if Eliza had crossed the river in front of me or to my left or right. Had she decided to cross at the shortest distance or simply crossed where she could? I wondered if she'd pulled herself off the riverbank where I now sat.

Preserving the memories

As dusk came and the crowd, in anticipation of the fireworks, increased from 200 to 2,000, my mind raced with other thoughts about what I'd seen and heard this day.

"Those people are trying to preserve a way of life, a life of caring, a life of commitment," Joanne Draper, a tourist from Chicago had said a few hours earlier, referring to the curators of the Rankin House.

"And I'm glad. Because that house, just like the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman and the abolitionist movement, shows what our nation moved away from. It shows how we, as a nation, have overcome ourselves. We need that.

"These days we look around and we don't see our nation overcoming anything. And sometimes it takes looking back to get a clearer focus."

Draper, 34, said she had driven up the winding road to the Rankin House, walked inside the long wooden gate, marched the more than 50 yards to the door entrance, stepped inside and felt her spirit rise.

"These were people who sat down together and prayed together," she said. "They had faith. That's what they left behind - a sense of faith. And I think we as individuals and as a nation need to draw on that.

"If (Harriet) Tubman were alive today, she would see that she still has work to do. Instead of going to sheds in the South to find enslaved blacks to lead across rivers and swamps and mountains into the North, she would be going to blacks in jails and to gang members on the streets, telling them they need to be free.

"She would say to them that freedom starts in the heart of man and it works itself out in his mind and manifests itself in his actions. That's what she would tell them."

Now, as I sat on the riverbank, I realized Draper had identified better than anyone I'd spoken to that day the reasons why John Rankin risked his life for black fugitive slaves.

Like Tubman, he cherished humanity.

The crowd stirred and a sound, like an explosion, startled me. A series of multicolored lights painted the night sky. A hush swept across the riverbank, then a collective "oooooooooooooh" rose from the thousands along the Ohio River.

It was the Fourth of July.

The fireworks had begun.

And I - for one of the few times in my life - truly felt like an American.