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Abolition City
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.
A trap door
This image shows a trap door inside a Macomb home built in 1854-1855 by George Parkinson, and subsequently owned by Damon Tunnicliff, a prominent Illinois lawyer who opposed slavery and whose daughter, Helen Tunnicliff Catterall, wrote a renowned,…
"Negroes" for sale
Public notices of availability of two African Americans for purchase, a sixteen-year-old girl, and a forty-three-year-old man. Parallel to the Underground Railroad, there existed a "reverse underground railroad," which, as in this item, targeted…
City of Macomb website
Part of the "History and Culture" of Macomb, Illinois
Testimony of a conductor
David Blazer, of Aledo, Illinois, shared his memory and specific details of the underground railroad activities of his father, uncle, grandfather, and of another family, the Allisons, in McDonough County, Illinois before the Civil War.
A Quincy station
Dr. Richard Eells built this home, Quincy's oldest two-story building, now located within its Downtown Historic District, in 1835, four blocks from the Mississippi River. Quincy, Illinois, was the first Underground Railroad station across the border…
Beecher Chapel marker
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…
Illinois early proslavery counties
A map of Illinois free and slave counties in 1824 showing shaded counties that were favorable to legalizing slavery in Illinois
Spoon River Valley site
The road sign in this image was formerly posted in or near Bernadotte, Fulton County. It directed tourists to visit the site of the home of Francis Overton, and his daughter, Harriet Overton, both WIUGRR operators. Francis built a cabin near…
Illinois College's original building
Beecher Hall, the original building of Illinois College, was completed in 1830. It was named for the college's first president, Dr. Edward Beecher, brother of the abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher and the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet…