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City of Macomb website
Part of the "History and Culture" of Macomb, Illinois
A posthumous pardon
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn pardoned Richard Eells of Quincy and Julius and Samuel Willard of Jacksonville, who in 1843 were convicted of aiding fugitive slaves.
A college's claim to fame
The college's online history emphasizes its founding by opponents of slavery, making Galesburg a regional center of underground railroad activity.
A U.S. federal list of Illinois sites
The U.S. National Park Service's "Aboard the Underground Railroad" list of recognized Illinois sites
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…
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…
"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…
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
A national underground railroad map
Western Illinois' UGRR routes show prominently in this map, including northeast from Quincy through the Military Tract counties to Princeton, the location of prominent UGRR conductor Owen Lovejoy.
An Illinois freedom trail
The site focuses on western and southern Illinois sites Quincy, Jacksonville, and Alton, as well as Oakland and Chicago. Note that the site erroneously describes the underground railroad as active after the Civil War. Actually, with the end of the…