Father of the Underground Railroad

You don’t have to read far into William Still’s The Underground Railroad to see exploded the myth that white folks freed the slaves.

Yes, white abolitionists helped the cause enormously after escaped slaves had made the first harrowing step toward freedom. And who else but white abolitionists could have gotten the Empancipation passed.

BUT – and this is a very large BUT – Still’s meticulous narratives that he recorded as escaped slaves passed through his Philadelphia office are a testament to the urgency and agency of enslaved people themselves to gain their freedom and the risks they took to do so.

This man, this William Still, who coined the term Underground Railroad, started as a janitor for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia and eventually became its chief clerk and also chairman of the Vigilant Committee of the Pennsylvania Underground Railroad.

I had no idea that The Underground Railroad Records ran to more than 1,000 pages, but it makes sense as 1,000 narratives and letters are represented in its pages. It can be difficult to read because so many of those escaped had to leave children, spouses, parents, and siblings behind.

William Still’s own birth family is a case in point. His parents were enslaved on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, out of which came also the sainted Harriet Tubman. His father, Levin Steel, was able to buy his freedom and make his way to New Jersey. His mother, Sidney, escaped with the four oldest children, but they were caught and returned to enslavement. She tried again, this time just bring two daughters and leaving her sons behind. Those sons were sold down to Mississippi and eventually to Alabama, where the younger son died in bondage.

William was born free in New Jersey when his father changed their surname to Still. Sidney changed her name to Charity. Years later, when William was working for the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia, he interviewed an escaped slave named Peter. Peter was his oldest brother. It took numerous hazardous attempts to escape; he was caught and returned to slavery several times. Even after a successful escape, he returned to Alabama to try to free his wife. That too took several attempts and cost the life of a white man named Seth Concklin who had actually gotten Peter’s wife and children as far as Vincennes, Indiana, before they were all caught. Concklin’s body was found in a river chained and beaten.

The ways in which enslaved people managed to free themselves are as diverse and canny as the people themselves. Many were able to buy passage on a steamboat but were forced to hide in the engine area for days on end. People found themselves wedged into a small, hot, fetid, noisy area and just when they thought they couldn’t endure more, learned that a storm had caused the boat to go off-course and it would take longer than expected.

One of the most famous escapes, about which children’s books have been written, is that of Henry “Box” Brown, who mailed himself to Philadelphia. With the aid of a friend he was packed up in a crate and off he went. He didn’t think he’d survive it, but he did.

And of course there is that woman named Harriet, who returned to Maryland over and over again and brought 60 people out of their captivity. Anyone who went with her had to be unimaginably brave because she made it clear that if someone didn’t want to continue, they would die by her own gun. She couldn’t afford to have anyone caught and tortured into revealing information about her network.

William Still left a remarkable legacy, not only in his narratives, but also through his children with his wife Letitia. Caroline Matilda Still was one of the African-American women doctors I the country. William Wilberforce Still became a prominent lawyer. Robert George Still was a journalist, and Frances Ellen Still was an educator.

William Still lobbied for eight years to successfully desegregate Philadelphia’s public transportation. He organized a YMCA for Black children, participated in the Freedmen’s Bureau, was a founding member of a church, and helped establish a mission school.

When he died in 1902 at the age of 81, The New York Times hailed him as the Father of the Underground Railroad.