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Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania
Organized in antebellum America to help slaves escape to freedom, the Underground Railroad was cloaked in secrecy and operated at great peril to everyone involved. The system was extremely active in Pennsylvania, with routes running through cities and towns in all parts of the state.
This book retraces the routes with detailed maps, discusses the large city networks, identifies the houses and sites where escapees found refuge, and records the names of the people who risked their lives to support the operation.
This book retraces the routes with detailed maps, discusses the large city networks, identifies the houses and sites where escapees found refuge, and records the names of the people who risked their lives to support the operation.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 10, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 15, 2024
Very well researched.
July 29, 2021
Review title: This train carried saints
to escape the sinners of slavery. Switala has written a modern academic study of the informal Underground Railroad from the few documentary sources available. After all, for the years of its existence, escaped slaves were subject to torture and death upon recapture (think Kunta Kinte in Alex Hailey's Roots), and those who aided their escape became criminals after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act or social pariahs even in states where slavery was outlawed. The courage it took to provide "stations" (in churches, businesses, barns, and family homes) and "conductors" (men and women who hid and escorted the escaped human beings to the next location north) was matched by the wisdom not to write down documentation that would expose them to prison or death.
Switala has written separate guides to the escape routes in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia, in addition to this guide to Pennsylvania, which given its long southern border with the slave state of Maryland was the most important central hub of the railroad. After opening chapters that describe the origins and operations of the concept, he moves from west to east across the state and then south to north on the way to Canada and freedom. Each route consisted of
--A southern station close to the border, where slave chasers and law enforcers were typically in hot pursuit, so this first station was fraught with danger. For 50 of my 62 years I have lived just a few miles north or south of the Mason-Dixon line, so many of the routes diagrammed by Switala pass through or near small towns or villages I am familiar with. There, men and women (often based on their strong religious conviction that slavery is sin) heroically offered aid and hiding places. While there are few physical or archeological sites associated with the conceptual Railroad, it gives me strong feelings of pride and awe that these heroes might have been my neighbors nearly 200 years ago (the earliest reference to an "underground railroad dates to 1831, p. 13-14).
--A route northward toward a larger collection point, for example most often Pittsburgh in the western part of the state where I live, often using either ancient Native American trails, rugged pioneer roads based on them, or the bewildering folds of valleys, streams, and mountains as the route to avoid recapture a step ahead of their pursuers. Switala provides maps of the approximate routes, and often references modern highway route numbers when they coincide. Here in the western part of the state were Forbes' Road, now Route 22, and Braddock's Road which followed the Native American Nemacolin's Path, and later in 1817 became the National Road and then US Route 40. But the deep woods and winding rivers provided better protection.
--From the second stop, where the passengers might need rest, medical recovery, and basic necessities like food and shoes provided by stationmasters or sympathetic supporters, the next stop would be close to the northern border of the state, where freedom might be secured by crossing to Canada by boat across the Great Lakes from Erie, by foot across western New York to Niagara Falls, or even after angling west crossing through Detroit to Windsor in Canada. The documentation of these last stops tends to be even sketchier than the earlier stops as the consolidation of routes from the first to the second stops branched out into an even wider range of routes across more remote paths and potential destinations among smaller towns and villages. Assuming 15 to 20 miles per day as the maximum range of individuals or small groups usually in less than optimal health, Switala augments the meager documentation with educated guesses about where stops must have been located.
As he moves east across the state to areas where I am less familiar with the territory, the account loses some of its immediacy for me, but he follows the same pattern and level of documentation so readers who know those regions will enjoy the journey. While Switala often references modern highway numbers he doesn't do it consistently, and he could improve the maps by showing modern county boundaries and highways to give all readers a better reference point for the underground routes. With these quibbles, the importance of these accounts of the men and women who were the Underground Railroad is so great that they are worth honoring with our attention.
to escape the sinners of slavery. Switala has written a modern academic study of the informal Underground Railroad from the few documentary sources available. After all, for the years of its existence, escaped slaves were subject to torture and death upon recapture (think Kunta Kinte in Alex Hailey's Roots), and those who aided their escape became criminals after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act or social pariahs even in states where slavery was outlawed. The courage it took to provide "stations" (in churches, businesses, barns, and family homes) and "conductors" (men and women who hid and escorted the escaped human beings to the next location north) was matched by the wisdom not to write down documentation that would expose them to prison or death.
Switala has written separate guides to the escape routes in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia, in addition to this guide to Pennsylvania, which given its long southern border with the slave state of Maryland was the most important central hub of the railroad. After opening chapters that describe the origins and operations of the concept, he moves from west to east across the state and then south to north on the way to Canada and freedom. Each route consisted of
--A southern station close to the border, where slave chasers and law enforcers were typically in hot pursuit, so this first station was fraught with danger. For 50 of my 62 years I have lived just a few miles north or south of the Mason-Dixon line, so many of the routes diagrammed by Switala pass through or near small towns or villages I am familiar with. There, men and women (often based on their strong religious conviction that slavery is sin) heroically offered aid and hiding places. While there are few physical or archeological sites associated with the conceptual Railroad, it gives me strong feelings of pride and awe that these heroes might have been my neighbors nearly 200 years ago (the earliest reference to an "underground railroad dates to 1831, p. 13-14).
--A route northward toward a larger collection point, for example most often Pittsburgh in the western part of the state where I live, often using either ancient Native American trails, rugged pioneer roads based on them, or the bewildering folds of valleys, streams, and mountains as the route to avoid recapture a step ahead of their pursuers. Switala provides maps of the approximate routes, and often references modern highway route numbers when they coincide. Here in the western part of the state were Forbes' Road, now Route 22, and Braddock's Road which followed the Native American Nemacolin's Path, and later in 1817 became the National Road and then US Route 40. But the deep woods and winding rivers provided better protection.
--From the second stop, where the passengers might need rest, medical recovery, and basic necessities like food and shoes provided by stationmasters or sympathetic supporters, the next stop would be close to the northern border of the state, where freedom might be secured by crossing to Canada by boat across the Great Lakes from Erie, by foot across western New York to Niagara Falls, or even after angling west crossing through Detroit to Windsor in Canada. The documentation of these last stops tends to be even sketchier than the earlier stops as the consolidation of routes from the first to the second stops branched out into an even wider range of routes across more remote paths and potential destinations among smaller towns and villages. Assuming 15 to 20 miles per day as the maximum range of individuals or small groups usually in less than optimal health, Switala augments the meager documentation with educated guesses about where stops must have been located.
As he moves east across the state to areas where I am less familiar with the territory, the account loses some of its immediacy for me, but he follows the same pattern and level of documentation so readers who know those regions will enjoy the journey. While Switala often references modern highway numbers he doesn't do it consistently, and he could improve the maps by showing modern county boundaries and highways to give all readers a better reference point for the underground routes. With these quibbles, the importance of these accounts of the men and women who were the Underground Railroad is so great that they are worth honoring with our attention.
November 29, 2022
William J. Switala's "Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania" is an interesting and at times hard to read book that goes through the various routes in the Underground Railroad throughout the Keystone state. Across 14 chapters, 11 of them the various routes, we the reader get exposed to how the slaves got into the system that was the state & also what routes would take them to freedom as well as a few other factors that came into play. What makes the book interesting to this reader is seeing a few places that I grew up around & their importance to this piece of the history. What's hard to read are the number of names at times dropped in the book as well as just the detail that exists in certain parts & areas and others not so much. Either way, though, this book from 2008 is one worth reading for anyone with an interest in the Underground Railroad & it's ties to Pennsylvania.
January 26, 2020
Interesting book. A lot of history. I didn't realize how close the underground railroad was to where I live.
February 4, 2017
It was fun to learn new facts about places that I'm familiar with. On the other hand I had to skim through the Eastern side of Pennsylvania. If you aren't already knowledgeable about a given area then it doesn't hold interest for long. The book is well researched and very informative, but not something you would read for enjoyment.
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November 2, 2013Interesting.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews