Browse Items (24 total)

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. 

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,…

This three-paneled mural is located in the Thomas C. Carper Amtrak train station in Macomb. Unveiled November 6, 2025, the mural is titled, "Freedom's Trail: The Underground Railroad in McDonough County." The artist Michael Mahoney created the mural.…

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…

Part of the "History and Culture" of Macomb, Illinois

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.

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…

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…

A map of Illinois free and slave counties in 1824 showing shaded counties that were favorable to legalizing slavery in Illinois

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…