A Quincy station
Dublin Core
Title
A Quincy station
Subject
Richard Eells House
Description
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 of Missouri—a slave state. Popular information today credits Eells with helping several hundred enslaved people to freedom, surprising, given his prominence in Quincy, and, indeed, across the antislavery North. Eells' most celebrated accomplice was a man named Charley, or Charlie, who escaped from a slave owner in Monticello, Missouri in 1842. Barryman Barnett, a free black man, spotted Charley swimming the Mississippi River and brought him to Eells. After attempting to transport Charley to Quincy's Mission Institute, Eells was arrested and charged with harboring a fugitive slave under the Illinois Criminal Code. Judge Stephen A. Douglas heard the case in 1843, and fined Eells $400. Eells appealed the case, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his conviction. Meanwhile, Eells became president of the Illinois Anti-Slavery Party in 1843 and was a candidate for the Liberty Party for the presidential election of 1844.
Creator
Friends of the Dr. Richard Eells House
Source
https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/il3.htm
Publisher
U.S. National Park Service
Date
1835
Rights
none asserted
Format
jpeg photograph
Type
image
Identifier
WIUGRR #5
Coverage
Illinois, United States
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
website
Files
Citation
Friends of the Dr. Richard Eells House, “A Quincy station,” Traces of Western Illinois' Underground Railroad, accessed October 7, 2026, https://timroberts.org/wiugrr/items/show/5.