‘The Underground Railroad’: Down the Rabbit Hole

I heard old Queen Victoria say,
If we could all forsake
Our native land of slavery,
And come across the lake,
That she was standing on the shore,
With arms extended wide,
To give us all a peaceful home
Beyond the rolling tide.
Farewell, ole master, please don’t come for me,
I’m on my way to Canada, where colored men are free.
                          —Joshua McCarter Simpson (to the tune of “Oh Susanna”)

My hometown of Painesville, Ohio, was founded in 1805 and there are 300 Civil War and thirteen Revolutionary War veterans buried there. In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln gave an address before 4000 people at the Painesville train depot. During those times, Painesville was known as a “red hot abolitionist” town.

Some of my most indelible memories, in the late 1940s and 1950s, were of our home on Skinner Avenue, the last street before reaching the banks of the Grand River, which formed a river boundary between Painesville and Fairport Harbor.

Fairport was one of…