Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1915 — Slaves Passed Through On “Underground” Railway. [ARTICLE]

Slaves Passed Through On “Underground” Railway.

Residents of Rensselaer during the civil war will recall the operations of the so-called “underground” railways by which slave sympathizers in the north helped slaves to make their escape from their masters in the south. One of these routes was through this city, where there were many who were glad to aid the slaves in making their escape. In the Indianapolis Star of Feb. 18th under the beading “Today in Indiana History and Biography” the following article was printed: Fifty-seven years ago today a colored man named Louis Weigant reached the northern part of the state on his way from Kentucky to Detroit over the “underground” railroad'.” He was but one of a large number of slaves who escaped from the slave states to the north over these railroads in the few years just peceding the eivil war. These routes were so called because the negroes were helped on their way to Michigan and Canada by slave sympathizers, who direeted them from bouse to house. There were several of these railroads in Indiana in the years Just before the war. One Hoosier route led from Evansville through Vincennes, Blbomington Terre Haute, Lafayette, Rensselaer and South Bend to Niles, (Mich. Another went from New Albany through Salem, Columbus, Indianapolis and South Bend,where it tnet the other route, and the third went from Lawrenceburg to Greensburg, Richmond, Ft Wayne and Kalamazoo to Detroit Scores of slaves, after escaping from their southern masters, were sent along from the home of one slave sympathizer to another until they ■finally reached safety.