In the North, there were more safe houses, sometimes half a dozen in one city. The distances were shorter too from one station to another. Still, an ex slave and the abolitionists could not drop their guard. For a slave found was a slave most likely to be returned to the South. Canada was the answer for many.
Behind the underground railroad stations were courageous men and women - Quakers, abolitionists and former slaves. Everyone was risking their lives in some areas - heavy fines in others. Some of these former safe houses are now museums. For example, the Levi Coffin House in Fountain City, Indiana has been restored to the 1840's period when the Coffin's lived here and helped slaves. They were Quakers and purportedly helped about 2,000 people pass through to freedom. At the site you can read how they hid the run away slaves in a garret in the house and how Levi, knowing the law, was able to turn away demands to search his house. Levi and his wife Catherine, by their courageous example rallied their community to help feed and clothe former slaves and then send them on their way hopefully to freedom.
The Milton House in Milton, Wisconsin near Milwaukee was another safe refuge. Joseph and Nancy Goodrich, both Seventh Day Baptists and ran a stagecoach inn. The inn also had a tunnel leading to a cabin out back. This setup protected many slaves who disappeared once they got to Milton. http://www.milton.com
In Princeton, Illinois is the Owen Lovejoy House at East Peru and 6th Street. In the late 1850's and early 1860's, Owen Lovejoy, a Congregationalist minister allowed his house to be a refuge and became known in the Underground Railroad world as the "Lovejoy Line."
Presently, there is a push at all levels of government in cooperation with various citizen groups to document fully the Underground Railroad. Unfortunately, many of the sites are not on line yet since they are still in the planning stages. Many also are not museums, but rather site markers or information/interpretive centers. There is a lot of information on the web about this project at sites such as the Harriet Tubman website. Harriet was a former slave and helped many slaves gain their freedom through the Underground Railroad.
There was still hard core resistance to emancipation however. Many slaves remained slaves even after emancipation was declared. This important history is being preserved at such websites as http://www.afroam.org/history/history.ht...
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