QUAKERS AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Another of the historical markers for which Henry Burke is responsible in collaboration with the Ohio Historical Society. This one was erected in 2003 at the Quaker Meeting House in Chesterhill, Morgan County, OH. The text reads, "Despite the fugitive slave laws that prohibited harboring runaway slaves, fugitives found refuge in the Quaker village of Chesterfield, now Chesterhill. Legend tells that no runaway slaves were ever captured here, although many were hidden and helped on their way to freedom in Canada. A well-organized branch of the Underground Railroad ran through Morgan County with Elias Bundy as a principal conductor. Bundy sometimes concealed fugitive slaves in the woods east of Chesterhill. Historian W.H. Siebert says Bundy, Jesse Hiatt, Nathan Morris, Abel W. Bye, Joseph Doudna, Arnold Patterson, and Thomas Smith “belonged the inner circle of old and reliable Friends (Quakers) upon whom dependence could always be placed.” The first Monthly Meeting was held on October 21, 1834 at the location of the present Me3eting House, which was built in 1839."