Though we cannot be sure exactly where Eliza Harris and her child ended up in Canada, we may have one clue. Levi Coffin wrote in his book that he and his wife, Catharine, visited Canada West in the Windsor and Chatham area east of Detroit, Michigan…

Regardless of the exact route that Eliza Harris and her child traveled on their journey to escape slavery, there is evidence that they made it to Canada. There are several possibilities to how that happened. If Eliza continued through Indiana then…

Much of what we know today about the experiences of enslaved peoples on the Underground Railroad comes to us through oral testimonies given after the fact or passed down through the generations. One testimony describes Eliza traveling through…

Free Blacks and formerly enslaved Africans living in northern states like Indiana and Ohio were instrumental in providing support for freedom seekers along with white Americans. Though their history is not as well recorded, there are individuals and…

The historic home of Quaker couple Levi and Catharine Coffin in Newport (now Fountain City), Indiana was connected on the Underground Railroad. The Coffins moved to Newport in 1826 from North Carolina. Growing up in a staunch anti-slavery family and…

The importance of Eliza as a cultural figure can be seen in the variety of stories that exist telling of her journey through different places. Some say that Eliza did not go towards Cincinnati, but further north of Ripley, Ohio into Fayette County.…

Eliza Harris, the Black woman who sought freedom with her child in 1838, journeyed north from the Rankin house. The further she traveled, the closer safety may have seemed. But the reality was that the Underground Railroad was threatened continually…

John Rankin, whose home Eliza Norris first sheltered in after escaping slavery in Kentucky and entering Ohio, was a Presbyterian minister. Presbyterians were split over the role of slavery in the nation with some supporting slavery and others…

We know that it was at the home of Presbyterian minister John Rankin that Eliza Harris had her first moment of safety after escaping from slavery. It had not been an easy journey for Eliza leaving in winter February 1838 from Dover, Kentucky with…

The first courthouse in what was then Washington, Kentucky (now part of Maysville) often was the site of auctions of enslaved Black individuals on the courthouse grounds. In 1833, while visiting one of her students, Harriet Beecher Stowe took a walk…