NORWICHS TIES UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

In recognition of Black History Month, City Historian Dale Plummer takes a look at the citys ties to the Underground Railroad and important locations and people in Norwich as they relate to the citys black history.
By Dale Plummer

he Norwich Packet newspaper, started in 1773, printed many ads for the return of fugitive slaves. One ad, ironically enough, appeared in the same issue as the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed the equality of all men. How did Norwich turn from a community that slaves ed from, to a community that slaves ed to? e 1770s were a time of great ferment. e British North American colonies were in an uproar over new trade regulations passed by the British Parliament without American consent. e ideals of the Enlightenment, stressing reason and rationality as the basis for human a airs, were in the air. Yet, as Aaron Cleveland, writing anonymously to the Norwich Packet, observed, we were hypocrites, denouncing British e orts to keep the
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colonists in economic slavery while holding others in slavery ourselves. Local protests against slavery had begun in earnest. e Rev. Levi Hart of nearby North Preston preached a sermon against slavery in 1774. e Rev. Samuel Hopkins issued a pamphlet urging slaveholders to emancipate their slaves, addressed to the Continental Congress. Cleveland published an antislavery poem in 1775. In 1779, as a representative from Norwich in the state legislature, he introduced a bill to abolish slavery. During the Revolutionary War, two emancipation proclamations by the British had o ered freedom to slaves who would ght for them. In turn, Americans recruited slaves to enlist in return for freedom. Leb uy of Norwich served three years a er being freed in order to ght. Unsettled conditions also allowed

many to escape to freedom in distant places. By the 1780s, Northern states, including Connecticut, began to pass laws to end slavery gradually. Connecticuts law was similar to that of several other states, including Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. Slavery was banned completely in the Northwest Territory, which included the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In contrast, slavery remained entrenched in the Southern states. By 1787, when the U.S. Constitution was dra ed, Southern delegates to the constitutional convention were already concerned about the ow of fugitive slaves to the North. A clause in Article IV called for the return of fugitives from service or labor to the state where they had ed. is was followed up by congressional leg-

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islation in 1793, establishing procedures for the return of fugitive slaves. Over the course of the next seven decades, the question of the escape and recapture of these fugitives became part of the controversy, which by 1861 ripped America apart. A network of individuals and organizations emerged which, in the 1830s, became known as the Underground Railroad. e name derives from the declaration of a puzzled slave owner that his quarry had disappeared as if he had taken an underground railroad. In the popular imagination, this has created a vast imaginary network of subway-like tunnels. In fact, the Underground Railroad relied on conventional methods of transportation: steamboats, sailing ships, trains, wagons, horseback and foot. Another myth of the Underground

Railroad is that it was primarily comprised of white men and women helping black slaves escape. In truth, many of the conductors and operators of the URR were free Northern blacks. Escaped slaves put more trust in blacks than whites. Fugitives hiding in a black neighborhood would be far more likely to escape detection than in a predominantly white neighborhood. And black Northerners, many of them only one or two generations removed from slavery, were sympathetic to their plight. Connecticut, however, was not congenial towards blacks. In 1800, the citizens of Norwich had petitioned the state legislature to prevent blacks and mulattos from moving into the state. In 1818, the new state constitution reserved the right to vote for white males 21 years of age or over. In 1833,

The Vernet-Lee House (top) at 118 Washington St. in Norwich is believed to be a stop in the Underground Railroad. Former slave Guy Druck, an accomplished blacksmith, lived at 76 Church St. (above). Photos courtesy The Bulletin.

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David Ruggles was one of the founders of the New York Vigilance Society which became the mainspring of e orts to help fugitive slaves making their way to New York City. As secretary, Ruggles was the primary agent for the work of the Underground Railroad in New York.

a new state law was passed speci cally to ban Prudence Crandalls school for young ladies and little misses of color in Canterbury. An important factor in the rise of the Underground Railroad was the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening. Beginning around 1790, the Second Great Awakening sought converts among the poor, blacks, Native Americans, and extended its missionary focus overseas as well. In Norwich, religious fervor took hold of a number of young women, including Lydia Howard Huntley. Huntley began classes for African Americans, determined to educate them in the basic tenets of Christianity. In 1815, the rst Sunday school in Eastern Connecticut was founded. is soon became associated with the Second Congregational Church in downtown Norwich. In 1817, 41 blacks were attending the school, ranging in age from six to 56. A number were just learning to read, re ecting the poor educational opportunities available to African Americans. e Second Congregational Church became an important institution for African Americans in Norwich: a church which welcomed them as members, o ered badly-needed education, and became increasingly involved in antislavery. Circumstantial evidence seems to indicate that both black and white

members of the church were involved in the Underground Railroad. David Ruggles (1810-1849), raised on Bean Hill, was a student in the African Sunday school, according to his biographer, Graham Russell Gao Hodges. Ruggles, like many restless young men of his time, both black and white, went to sea at 16. He settled in New York City in 1827, the year New York abolished slavery permanently, and opened a grocery store. is was followed by a readingroom and bookstore. From 1838 to 1840, Ruggles published a periodical e Mirror of Liberty. One of the subscribers to the magazine was Francis Asher Perkins, a businessman who taught in the Second Congregational Church Sunday School in Norwich. In 1835, Ruggles was one of the founders of the New York Vigilance Society. Comprised of both black and white members, the Vigilance Society quickly became the mainspring of e orts to help fugitive slaves making their way to New York City. As secretary of the society, Ruggles was the primary agent for the work of the Underground Railroad in New York. In seven years, until blindness forced him to stop, Ruggles estimated that he had saved about 600 people from slavery. Unfortunately, we know little about the routes Ruggles used, or the people who assisted him. Two of those Ruggles

helped, however, le accounts of their escape from slavery. In 1838, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, held as a slave in Maryland, a young man of about 20, engaged to a free woman in Baltimore, escaped via train and steamboat. Directed to David Ruggles in New York, he sent for his ance. e couple was married in Ruggles home. A erwards, Ruggles sent Bailey on to New Bedford, a hotbed of antislavery sentiment, and a major whaling port, in hopes that Bailey would be able to work in one of the shipyards. Bailey changed his name to Frederick Douglass, to escape detection as a fugitive. Douglass was to become the voice of the oppressed, one of the most gi ed speakers and writers America has known. Four months prior to Douglass escape from slavery, another young man from the Northern Neck of Virginia began a similar ight. Lindsey Payne, a shoemaker, and two friends, Zip and Lorenzo, stole a canoe and crossed Chesapeake Bay, landing on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. e three then walked to New Castle, Del., where they openly purchased tickets on the steamboat to Philadelphia. Arriving there, Payne found help and refuge with Simpson, a black barber. A er consulting with local abolitionists, it was decided to forward Payne by steamboat to New York, where he sought out Ruggles. Along the way,

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African Americans on the steamboat and at the dockside assisted Payne with information and directions. Ruggles then decided to send Payne to Spring eld via steamboat in a two-stage journey. Stopping rst in Hartford where Mr. Foster, another African American, welcomed him, Payne continued on to Spring eld, Mass., where he was welcomed into the home of e Rev. Osgood, a Congregational minister. At the Osgood home, Payne slept in the fugitives room, set aside for escaped slaves. Later, he attended Wilbraham Academy, where he learned the essentials of reading, writing, and mathematics that were to sustain him in his business. A er a brief stint on the antislavery lecture circuit, Payne, newly married and renamed James Lindsey Smith, settled in Norwich in 1842. He set up shop on Franklin Square, and soon purchased a home on School Street in the Jail Hill neighborhood. Smith became a respected gure in Norwich, was one of the founders of the A.M.E. Zion church, and the author of a remarkable autobiography published by the Norwich Bulletin in 1881.

In 1840, Abby Kelly, a travelling abolitionist lecturer, stopped for two weeks in Norwich. e citizens had banned the use of public buildings for antislavery activities several years earlier, but Mayor William C. Gilman, a member of Second Congregational Church and former superintendent of its Sunday school, opened the city hall to her use. Kelly reported that a number of former slaves were living in Norwich at the time. James L. Smith arrives in Norwich two years later. Norwich was a place where fugitive slaves could make their homes and nd employment. It was far from ideal: employment opportunities were restricted, education for blacks above the elementary level was discouraged, and discrimination in buying real estate was rampant. But despite these drawbacks, Norwich had much to o er. Pioneers like Smith and the Harris family worked to break down barriers. When Norwich Free Academy was founded in the 1850s, there were no racial restrictions on attendance. In 1850, a er passage of a new Fugitive Slave Act, which greatly

strengthened the ability of slaveholders to recover their lost property, Smith had nightmares about being recaptured. He con ded his fears to friends, who went to the sheri . e sheri told them that if directed to arrest Smith as a fugitive slave, he would resign his o ce. Since the new law provided for extremely high nes and even jail sentences for refusal to aid in the apprehension of escaped slaves, this was a bold statement of principle. In the 1890s, Wilbur Siebert began collecting material on the Underground Railroad. Much of this was oral history, based on the recollections of surviving members of the network and their families. e only name that Siebert uncovered was that of Edmund Perkins, a lawyer and the son of Francis Asher Perkins. Both had died 30 years previously. e association of the Perkins family with the Second Congregational Church and its integrated Sunday school is signi cant. Faced with the lack of documentary evidence, we cannot identify with certainty Underground Railroad sites in Norwich.

Steamships as mode of transportation

Whether Ruggles network continued after his departure from Underground Railroad activity is unknown. The rise of the Underground Railroad was certainly aided by the great advances in transportation in the rst half of the 1800s. The advent of steam power made rapid escape possible. Railroads and steamboats were used extensively by runaways. Steamboats had a number of advantages. New York was the center of an extensive number of routes that gave a number of alternatives. Steamboats usually had connections with rail lines into the interior. Perhaps most important of all, African Americans were ubiquitous in the steamboat trade. They served as cooks, waiters, stewards, and seamen. Black longshoremen loaded and unloaded the boats. For a fugitive looking for help in their journey, the presence of free blacks on board was a godsend. In New London and Norwich, there were sizeable African American communities. Along Hempstead Street in New London, and on Jail Hill in Norwich, an escapee from slavery might nd refuge. In New London, the Hempstead family was deeply engaged in antislavery and Underground Railroad activity. David Ruggles sister, Lavinia Parkis, lived just up the street from the Hempstead House. The room described as Jacks room by the Hempstead family, may well have been a fugitives room. In Norwich, there was a thriving black community clustered on Jail Hill. Its members included former slave James L. Smith, and members of the Harris family, including Charles F. Harris, an early agent for The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrisons abolitionist newspaper. William M. Harris, his brother, was a cook on the steamboat Cleopatra. It is most likely that those eeing slavery would nd a welcome in this neighborhood. We have tantalizing hints of the Underground Railroad here in Norwich. The presence of former slaves in Norwich certainly a ected the attitude of local residents towards slavery. White Norwich citizens had only to observe the industry and zeal of James L. Smith, who established himself
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as a shoemaker, bought his home and paid o the mortgage in three years, and helped found the A.M.E. Zion church in Norwich to realize that slavery had only held back the ambition and drive of African Americans.

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