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Presbyterian and Congregational settlers in Galesburg formed the town's Old First Church in 1837. By the 1850s, their unity fractured over Congregationalists' opposition to some southern Presbyterians' support of slavery. In 1858 Congregationalists…

This nickname of Galesburg appears in a permanent exhibition of Knox College's founding and first decades in the era of the Civil War, in the Whitcomb Heritage Center, third floor of Knox College's Alumni Hall. 

In 1842, indentured servant Susan “Sukey” Richardson, her three children, and another woman, Hannah Morrison, fled north from Sparta, Illinois, assisted by William Hayes, a neighbor of Richardson’s master, Andrew Borders. Borders had brought…

The college's online history emphasizes its founding by opponents of slavery, making Galesburg a regional center of underground railroad activity.