In homage to Black History Month, the Bridgeville Area Historical Society welcomed retired Mt. Lebanon High School history teacher Pete DiNardo last Sunday to discuss “Underground Railroads – Myths and Realities”. Mr. DiNardo graduated from Georgetown University in 1987 with a major in History, then earned a Master’s in History at Pitt. He recently retired after 27 years of teaching at Mt. Lebanon High School. His knowledge of African-American history is impressive, as are his skills as a communicator.
His primary message was that our conventional ideas about the Underground Railroad are probably incorrect. Rather than being a massive, well-conceived network of safe houses and inter-connecting routes organized and managed by some central overseeing body, in reality it was a random collection of individuals, each interested in doing his/her part to help runaway slaves find their way to freedom. Typically, the folks who were involved in this effort knew their neighboring peers and had no knowledge of any bigger operation. Being an historian, Mr. DiNardo accepts as truth only those bits of information that are well documented. The fact that a mansion has a secret room or an escape tunnel doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a station on the Railroad. He did identify a handful of local examples which he believes were credible “stations”.
The term “Underground Railroad” appears to have been coined early in the nineteenth century. Enslaved people escaped from their owners in the very earliest days; the establishment of “safe houses” and a network connecting them began around 1780, primarily sponsored by active abolitionists. A few years later a common vernacular had developed. Safe houses were “stations”, where “stationmasters” hid “cargo”. “Agents” helped fugitives find access to travel on the “railroad”. It is estimated that several hundred thousand escaped slaves had found freedom using the railroad by the end of the Civil War, the bulk of them after 1850. The Underground Railroad had three main lines. One led up the Delaware River through Philadelphia; one along the Ohio River to Cincinnati then north to Toledo; and one followed the Mississippi north to Wisconsin. Prior to the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, most of the escapees got off the railroad once they reached free states; following its passage far more of them (perhaps one hundred thousand) went on to Canada where they were guaranteed safety.
My personal impression of the Underground Railroad is heavily influenced by Russell Banks’ magnificent novel, “Cloudsplitter”, which chronicles the life of abolitionist John Brown. In 1849 the Brown family moved to North Elba, New York, about five miles south of Lake Placid, where they were permitted to purchase prime farmland at a low price in exchange for helping freed African-Americans acclimate to a life of farming in the community of Timbuctoo. They immediately established their farm as a station on the Underground Railroad. The next station to the south was at the mining town of Tahawus, about twenty-five miles to the southwest. The next station to the north was Port Kent, about forty miles northeast of North Elba, on the west shore of Lake Champlain. The station master at Tahawus was the mining camp superintendent, a man named Wilkinson. The Port Kent station master was a ship captain named Keifer; the final forty miles on the Underground Railroad would be a lake voyage ending in Canada. The novel contains a vivid description of one adventure, beginning with a messenger from Tahawus reporting the arrival of two items of cargo there. The Browns and two African-American freedmen from Timbuctoo then hiked overnight through the forest to Tahawus. The next night they retraced their route back to North Elba, where the cargo was stored during the day in their barn loft. The next evening they loaded their wagon with animal pelts on top of their cargo and set out for Port Kent. At Port Kent they loaded their cargo onto Captain Keifer’s sailboat and watched it head north on Lake Champlain. I have no idea of the veracity of this story; I do however suspect that it is based on actual historical information.
Although there were no main Underground Railroad lines running north through western Pennsylvania, there is significant evidence of active stations and Railroad employees in this area. The Abolitionist movement was strong in Allegheny City (now Pittsburgh North Shore), typified by Methodist lay minister Charles Avery. It is well known that Avery was also a strong supporter of the Underground Railroad. He established the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a station on the Railroad, with a tunnel in the basement that led to the Pennsylvania Canal, then to the Allegheny River. In Pittsburgh proper there is reason to believe that John Vashon’s barber shop on Market Street, the Monongahela House Hotel on the Monongahela Wharf, and the Thomas Bigham House on Mount Washington were active stations. The Bigham House has survived and is currently the community clubhouse for Chatham Village. Farther south, in Washington, Pa., is the well preserved LeMoyne House where well-known abolitionist Dr. F. Julius LeMoyne sheltered runaway slaves on their way north. It is credited with being the “first National Historic Landmark of the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania”. It is easy to imagine cargo being transported from the LeMoyne House in Washington to downtown Pittsburgh; one wonders where the station south of Washington was located.
In summary, Mr. DiNardo identified three basic truths about the Underground Railroad. It was the first major example of civil disobedience in our country. It was a spontaneous inter-racial insurrection. It was a direct cause of the Civil War. Understanding this phenomenon is key to understanding the most tumultuous era in our nation’s history.
The next program in the Historical Society’s series will be a talk on “The Berlin Airlift’ by one of our favorite speakers, Todd DePastino. It is scheduled for 7:30 pm on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department.