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An "Underground" History
By Ken and Katharine Jacobsen

Ethel Caffie-Austin: "My grandfather was a slave and later became a free man. And my father was born in 1893.

"Olney Friends School's oral history project sought to find and record as many authentic, local stories of the underground railroad as possible. Living encounters with American history such as this one took place many times during Olney's 1996 spring term, and all participants and witnesses knew that they were experiencing something of lifetime significance.

Most often the interviewees were Black Americans, whose forebears returned to eastern Ohio after the Emancipation Proclamation because people had been kind to them there.

Michael Nobel Kline: "How did the Underground Railroad work, based on what you've heard your father and grandfather talk about?"

Ethel Caffie-Austin: "It worked in secrecy. In our family there were a lot of secrets. That was another code of a black family, really. Not only my family, but older black people; when you go back to thgenerations that are now seventy, eighty and ninety years old, you'll find they're very secretive about a lot of things, and that was because they were taught, you don't say everything. You have to make certain that some things are kept quiet." My parents would always talk about Miss Ann and Mr. Charlie. I didn't know who Miss Ann was. And they would tell stories about being in conflict with Miss Ann, or talk about what Miss Ann thought she was. And I used to say, "Well who is Miss Ann?" For a long time they wouldn't tell me. I was almost an adult until they finally revealed to me that Miss Ann was the term given to the white woman for whom they worked, or prior to that, of course, the slave master's wife. And Mr. Charlie was a white man. They used those terms and would even have conversations in front of the people. And they, of course, would not even have an inkling that they were being made fun of, or being talked about terribly, right in front of their faces. So when you talk about the Underground Railroad the first thing that comes to mind is secrecy and the coded way- the very ingenious way-that blacks had of getting around what the master or the white man thought he already had control of."

The narratives, which told of almost unbelievable risk and hardship, were laced with rich music. Plantation work songs and spirituals, "soul music" of an earlier time, filled the meetinghouse again and again. We learned how such songs as "Follow the Drinking Gourd," "Lead Kindly Light," "Wade in the Water," and "Go Down Moses" served both to hearten the famished and bruised travelers and direct them away from danger as they moved slowly northward along the Ohio River Valley ridges and ravines in the dark of night.

Ethel Caffie-Austin: "My daddy used to show me the stars. And he showed me where the North Star was when I was a little child. Of course, I didn't see the significance of it then, but after learning about the song, 'Follow the Drinking Gourd,' and finding out that that was a song that was used as a means of indicating to those who were trying to escape that they needed to watch the North Star and the drinking gourd, I found out that was very significant. It was definitely something used as a code for those who were about to leave so they would know: 'Watch the sky.' 'If you get there before I do, tell all of my friends I'm coming too' did not necessarily mean that they were talking about going to Heaven."

Friends from Ohio Yearly Meeting shared their family stories, and we realized that we were hearing accounts that had been kept secret for generations. Participation in the underground railroad was highly controversial among Friends. Those involved were cautious about sharing details with anyone. To our knowledge no Friend ever turned another one in, but the opposition to what was seen as illegal action was often very bitter.

Local historians such as Bruce Yarnall, editor of the Barnesville Enterprise at the time, shared research on other Belmont County Quakers who were active abolitionists. We learned of the unity of purpose of Hicksites such as Dr. William Schooley of Somerton, who transported men, women and children in his hay wagon night after night, and Orthodox Quakers such as William Bundy, whose farm not far from Barnesville served as the next safe spot on routes from Somerton toward Mount Pleasant and Salem.

The blessings from the project are very real. For one thing Olney has learned that the spoken word, as opposed to the written word, deserves to be an acknowledged part of scholarship, particularly among Friends. People who are raised in family circles emphasizing the spoken word often have a uniquely descriptive way of speaking, as well as access to parts of their own memory which may be hidden to those who rely on writing down events and looking up information in books.

The second very genuine blessing came from the conversations which followed the formal parts of the interviews. Olney students were privileged to live into, to experience the lives and times, the struggles and the faith, of those who were being ierviewed.As an example of just such a memorable conversation, an Olney senior, Stefan Hannevig, asked William Taber in the question and answer period following his interview why it took Quakers so long to decide that slavery was wrong. His earnest question, one which had troubled him for years, moved Bill to lead the group in an unforgettable lesson in the meaning of Quaker process.

William Taber: "I start here with a pause. And that pause is important. When a serious question comes up, the typical Quaker response is not a quick answer. We must wait a while and feel from where the right answer must come. If we are truly following Quaker process, we are trying to discern what God would have us do. That's a very sacred thing. We dare not move too fast because we might be making a mistake."

John Woolman, the Quaker who worked all of his life against slavery, was a marvelous example of this. He had a passionate concern against slavery. And he traveled in this concern, often walking on foot through the slave states to preach to Quakers against slavery. He walked because he thought he had to do so to stay humble.

When he stayed in the home of a Quaker slaveholder, and was waited on by slaves, he either gave the slaves money for waiting on him, because he knew they were not being paid, or he would go to the slave owner, give him the money and ask him to give it to the slaves.

"But...John Woolman, this man with a passion against slavery, would never speak against it when he visited a Quaker meeting for business in the south, unless he felt the rising of the spirit of God within him to do so. He could not just speak from the top of his head or even from his heart. He had to speak from that place which was coming from God.

"I give you one example: John Woolman was in a meeting in the south where he wept because he could not speak. He wanted so much to speak against slavery in that meeting; it was in North Carolina. Finally, near the end of the meeting, a local Friend got up and said, 'I have been thinking. I think we should be doing more to give good education to our Negro slaves.'"

That opened a concern in the meeting. It wasn't as far as John Woolman wanted to go, but he knew that having a local person speak this way opened a door which he could not have opened. Somehow the Holy Spirit kept him from speaking."

Discerning what God would have us do takes time. Quakers talk and pray and talk again, until there is a sense of unity. It often takes much longer than a voting process. Taking a vote will result in a decision but it does not result necessarily in unity. It's much harder to walk together with real force if you do not have that deep unity. There is a power in this slowness.

If the Quakers had taken a vote on slavery, say around 1730 or 1740, maybe they would have been ready to outlaw slavery in the Society of Friends. But some Friends were not ready to give up their slaves and would not have done so. Ultimately there was unity-and it came relatively early. Almost one hundred years before slaves were freed by violence in this country, American Quakers released their slaves, often providing them resources for the years ahead. So...even if it took us a long time, we got there before most of the rest of the country."

As the oral history project unfolded in the spring and summer of 1996, many such gifts of living history arose from heart-to-heart encounters between these bearers of history and their listeners. There were lessons on all aspects of the underground railroad, both heartbreaking and heartening; tales of racial enmity and reconciliation, of unjust law and unlawful justice, of cruelty and mercy.

 Ethel Caffie-Austin: "I was a child, living in Fayette County. The saddest part was they taught us you couldn't stand near a window during the night time. You had to have shades or venetian blinds. And they had to be closed as soon as it got dusk because several of the Caffies lost their lives by sitting by a window. The shadow or the images of the individual on the blind was an image that was shot at, and people got killed. Even in West Virginia they still had that tradition that they carried from the South because of their lives so frequently being just like a jack rabbit's. Shoot to kill."

Those of us who participated in the project are left with the prayer and the assurance that the power of conscience may continually overcome the darkness of the human heart.

Ken and Katharine Jacobsen have recently returned to Richmond, Indiana, after several years at Olney Friends School. Two, hour-long, commercial quality audio tapes have been produced and may be obtained from Olney Friends School, Barnesville OH 43713 for $10.00 ea. The first, which includes stories and music of the underground railroad, is called "Riding Freedom's Train." The second, primarily music, is called "I Hear Angels Singing."

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