INDEX OF SITE
"Underground Railroad"
Though The Heroism of the Underground Railroad has wona place in our history and folklore, only one nearly complete record of its operations has been preserved, that kept by William Still of Philadelphia. At the risk of heavy fines and long imprisonment, Still and other members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee helped hundreds of runaway slaves to find safety in Canada. By merely setting down and preserving these records during the 1850's, Still risked the penalties of the Fugitive Slave Law, but record and preserve them he did, and his illustrated compilation forms a series of black profiles in courage of the men, women and children who passed through his station.
Born in New Jersey in 1821, to parents who had emancipated themselves from slavery (one through escape and the other through self-purchase), William Still labored on his parents' farm until 1844. He moved to Philadelphia and within three years had taught himself to read and write. He joined the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, which offered aid and comfort to the slave runaways, and soon became the organization's most important link to the city's black community (largest in the country at that time). By 1851, Still was Chairman of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
During his fourteen years of service for the Underground Railroad, Still interviewed hundreds of Southern bondsmen as they made their way North. In one interview he made the dramatic discovery that the fugitive confronting him was his own brother, from whom he had been separated since childhood.
Intending originally to use the material to assist other escaped slaves find their relatives and loved ones, he decided to compile the detailed information he had gathered. To avoid arrest for his illegal labors, for these records were evidence of a willful effort to violate the law, he concealed his notes in the loft of Lebanon Seminary and in a graveyard. In 1873 he published his best material in book form. Always a successful businessman, he made sure that the book would have a wide circulation by hiring agents to sell it in major cities and twice reprinted it (1879 and 1883).
Until his death in 1902, William Still supported many projects for the improvement of the local Negro population. Before the Civil War he launched a campaign to end Philadelphia streetcar segregation. His ability to unite prominent whites and Negroes behind this effort, and particularly the giant interracial rally he organized on January 13, 1865, finally led to the elimination of these Jim Crow practices.
Still's record is a monumental tribute to Negro bravery and resourcefulness during this critical period. Its heroes are the daring and intrepid Negro fugitives, male and female, who risked all in a hostile white land to secure liberty. Not the least of the volume's many heroic figures is its black author.
General Editor of Underground Railroad
by William Still