Iowa TV Schooltime: Landmarks in Iowa History- Lewis

it's TV school time woi TV in association with Iowa State Teachers College presents another program in the Iowa TV school time series landmarks in Iowa history today's topic Louis our teacher is herb faith of Iowa State Teachers College and guessed barrel vinegar I'm on my way to Canada that cold and dreary land the dire effects of slavery I can no longer stand my soul is vexed within me so to think I am a slave I'm now resolved to strike the blow for freedom or the grave Oh Tina don't you cry for me I'm going north to Canada I'm going to be scared all with chickens out of the feedlot hello boys and girls how'd you like that song the chickens here didn't care for it very much dr. Pendergraft has to stay because he's on the program but a long time ago over a hundred years ago this song was probably sung in the cellar of this house this is a station on the Underground Railroad one of the oldest buildings used for that purpose in the state of Iowa it was a parsonage at one time but its historical interest rests upon the fact that it was a station on the Underground Railroad and here at one time the slaves sang this song about escaping to Canada and this was also the place where John Brown Osawatomie brown of bloody Kansas hid from the officers of the law I'm sure you've seen pictures of this kind of John Brown fiery type of rebel looks very much like the Old Testament prophets he believes in freedom for the slave and he was personally responsible for taking a lot of slaves across Iowa to freedom and at one time he hid in the basement of this house in the cellar in a secret room down there goes the sheriff and other officers of the law couldn't find it this is near Louis Iowa let me show you on the map of Iowa where Louis is located Louis is over here not far from the East Mishnah Buckner River this is the nisshin of Buckner some of the people in this part of the state call this the nisshin of botany but the spelling is nish in a Buckner ni sh na b OT na Mishnah Buckner this is the West Commissioner Buckner right here this white dot is Lewis and about a mile west of town is this old slave house this station on the Underground Railroad and I'd like to ask dr. Pendergraft to tell you about that I'm very glad to have dr. Pendergrass with me today not only because he's a good friend of mine but also because he's my boss dr. Pendergraft is director of field services at the Iowa State Teachers College and radio and TV are apart field services so I have to be extra careful today that I say the right thing because he is not only my boss he is also an authority on American history and the history of the West in particular and he can tell you this story of the Underground Railroad much better than I can so dr. Pendergrass would you tell the boys and girls about the Underground Railroad not a glad to heard of course the Underground Railroad what it really means is that the slaves follow this method a secret route to escape from slavery to freedom it has nothing to do of course with a road or a railroad running underground as long as we have any recorded history one man has tried to enslave another man and as long as that's happened we've had many many slaves seeking freedom sometimes it's because they were being cruelly treated overworked but basically because they wanted to be free and as long as that's taken place we've also had the other people who tried to aid these people to be slaves to escape to freedom we've always had a group of people who did not feel that the law which said that a slave should be returned to slavery was a good law that there was a higher law God's law that said a man had a right to be free and therefore he was willing to break this first law now the the title of underground railroad actually came from a place in Ohio Finley's Ohio where a group of slaves were being pursued by their master across the Ohio River and as soon as they landed in Ohio they seem to just disappear into the ground and this old slave owner said it appears that they have taken an underground Road at this particular time of course the railroads were astonishing everyone with their speed and so it wasn't anytime at all until it was said that the Underground Railroad was a method by which the slaves escaped to freedom now these slaves followed various routes across Iowa of course Iowa became a state here in the 1814 1846 and so the first route were in the settled part of Iowa through here Farmington Salem there's Denmark down through here all of which were very famous places stations as you call them on the Underground Railroad through Eastern Iowa Mont Pleasant Crawfordsville Columbus junction Muscatine and so on then there are other routes which aren't shown on the map here at all towns aren't even mentioned Bloomfield and Centerville coming up through here from Missouri you see there are literally hundreds and hundreds of routes for slaves to escape here from the Atlantic Ocean clear all over into Nebraska they weren't really trying to get into the northern states they're trying to get through the northern states into Canada which was free country because as long as it were in any part of the United States they might be returned back into slavery again in fact the federal marshals and the code authorities a sheriff and so on were required to help capture the slaves and to return them to the masters now the the most famous of all these underground roads through Iowa was one that you referred to with a station here at Lewis and this is sometimes called the John Brown route across Iowa you'll note that it came across the Missouri River here at Percival and then on up to Tabor this is also a very famous underground station then across here to Macedonia to Lewis to Anita Stuart Des Moines Newton Grinnell marine goal Iowa City and on across to Clinton ordered a border muscadine and so on now you must remember that this is not a road a well beaten path because even though it's shown like this on the map there were literally dozens of ways that when one particular station became rather too obviously a station on the Underground and the local sheriff had his eye on the place they would take off some other way instead of going from Lewis to Anita for example they might strike down Lewis and go across this way and hit the underground later on they're all heading towards the eastern part of Iowa to Chicago and the Great Lakes where they would take a ship into Canada this was a very significant part of our history his southern slave owners resented very much the whole Underground Railroad method of helping the slaves escape you see we had a federal law at this time the Fugitive Slave Law which said that masters had a right to capture their food there escaped slaves and that's when this happened the sheriff and all the law officers were supposed to help and there was quite a heavy fine and imprisonment for people that helped us slave it now you have the northern people then many many hundreds of them helping these slaves so they were guilty of breaking the federal law and the southerners resented this very keenly they said the whole Constitution and the whole body of federal laws is a compact a contract between all the people over the whole country and when one party to the contract is deliberately breaking the contract as they were doing with the Fugitive Slave Law then the other party the contract has a perfect right to pull up stakes to pull out the Constitution pull away from the rest of state so they can keep their slaves unprotected so the Underground Railroad you see has a very great significance it's one of the main reasons why the South was so bitter towards the north and why they were interested in seceding from the the Union and which of course brought on the Civil War dr. Pendergraft we refer to these places as stations on the Underground Railroad now I've also seen reference to conductors on the Underground Railroad I suppose those were the people who helped the slaves to escape yes they developed a whole vocabulary of names taking their names from the railroad which was so popular in those days the conductors of course were the individuals who took them from one station to another and you also had the engineers other people that there gave them the title for the station master of course would be the person whose secret stem while at a particular station all right Thank You doc tren de Graaff I'd like to show you boys and girls some books that are interesting in connection with the story of the Underground Railroad here is one about Harriet Tubman Ariat Tubman was a negro slave who helped 300 of the people of her race to escape from slavery this is a very interesting story and it's based upon historical fact the story of Harriet Tubman the book written by Anne pay tree and here is another one escape by night I noticed the cover picture their night was the best time to transfer these slaves from one station to another because the law enforcement officers were not likely to be quite so vigilant at that time and as the night was stormy that made it all the more successful to transport the slaves from one place to another so here you see a wagon which is carrying these slaves from one station to another this has some interesting pictures in it here is one here that shows the we one of the conductors taking some of the slaves across country from one station to another here is another one that shows how the slaves were sometimes disguised they were veiled and there is a there's a sheriff standing by watching these women just walk right by under his nose and he doesn't realize that these are escaped slaves and dressed like white folks and the veils over their faces conceal the fact that their skins are black I'm sure your teacher must have a copy of this Iowan magazine for July in 1956 the one that has this picture of the beautiful church with the white spire on the cover this has a very fine article in it about the Underground Railroad in Iowa and shows many places on the map of Iowa which were not indicated on this map with dr. Pendergraft showed you a moment ago a very fine article about the Underground Railroad in this particular issue of the il-1 magazine so you look that up and read the story about the Underground now last summer when I was making arrangements for our visit today I took some movies of the area around this old slave house and I'd like to have you see this film so that you get some idea of how well it was located for this particular purpose you see it was not in town very few of these stations on the Underground Railroad were in the heavily settled parts of the state that is usually the stations were out on the edge of town somewhere so if the neighbors couldn't see what was going on and this particular house was located on a hill where people could look around and see people coming and it was very well located for that purpose the film is in Ames and I'd like to have mr. borke show it to you now so that we can all look at it together if you're all ready mr. borke let's look at it here we go here is a view toward the West which shows the the countryside the Rolling Hills and the many places of concealment that the slaves might use on their way to the house which is coming into the picture here at the left there is the house you see now this was on a hill and there were valleys on both sides of it looking east you see the valley of the east nation of Buckner River winding along and Lewis is on the far side of this stream even today this house is remote from other houses in the neighborhood so there no other location is suitable for it here is the nation of bottner River you see it's just a that's a creek really not a big roaring stream like the Mississippi or the Missouri but it's all the river bridge crossing the stream here now at the time this house was used as a station on the Underground Railroad there was no bridge there were just a ferry and when the water was low of course they could draw cross without taking the boat but when the water was high they had to use a ferry and that sometimes caused some complications and in getting the slaves across the stream here are some views in the village of Lewis itself about a mile from the old slave house very quiet little town business district is about two blocks long and there is the Lewis drugstore where you can buy a copy of a book that I'll show you in a minute that tells the story of the old slave house we have made a complete trip through the business district here but very friendly people living here now just as there were over a hundred years ago and the slaves needed friends not much traffic on the street you see that dog there isn't a bit disturbed by walking across the street very very slowly well here's that book that I wanted to show you the land and the men now and then and inside there is a story of the old slave house you see the picture there at the top of the page two or three pages here about this old slave house and you can order this book you get a copy of it for $1 by writing to the Louis drugstore Louis Iowa at the market I'm not giving a commercial for this book you understand what I mean this is a book which you can only get them at one place now let me show you some pictures of some of the landmarks in this area first of all I'd like to show you a picture of the slave house that we're visiting and I thought perhaps we ought to take a closer look at this in order to show the crack in the wall that has developed here this is made of stone this old house and the walls are very thick but after all it is over a hundred years old and the crack has formed in here and this is all been filled with cement it's still a good strong house but it is interesting because this was a station on the Underground Railroad probably the most famous station in Iowa now remember boys and girls this is a private dwelling now it is occupied by mr. and mrs. Alan Miller and if you go to Louis and want to find this old slave house ask someone to tell you how to get to the Alan Miller place but when you get out there don't just walk in how would you feel if somebody just walked into your house in order to what we must respect the privacy of people who live in a house mr. and mrs. Miller are always very kind and accommodating if you take the trouble to knock and ask whether you might see the basement which was a shelter for the passengers on the Underground Railroad and they'll be very glad to have you come in here is a view of the basement and the fireplace and the slaves were able to prepare their meals here and this was also the first altar for a church in the Loess area the house itself was built by Reverend George V Hitchcock who was the minister in the Lewis area and he believed in helping the slaves escape he didn't support the idea that any man could be owned by another man and he believed as dr. Pendergraft said that there is a higher law on the law of God which says that all men are equal so many times services were conducted here in front of this fireplace and John Brown stood in front of this fireplace many times when he came through this part of the country talking to the people who were his charges and whom he was conducting to freedom this is the outside entrance received and there was a secret room in this cellar which looked just like a part of the wall where the slaves could be hidden and cased the sheriff got on their trail here is a house near the river this is the old Perry house the people who operated the ferry lived here and this was a favorite place for the sheriff and the law law enforcement officers to watch for people who might be coming from the old slave house there's no record that they ever caught anybody but at least they kept watching here is the first courthouse in the copy no there's a private dwelling another interesting landmark in Lewes near the city park and in the park itself there is this Mormon trail marker the Mormon trail also came to this part of the country and I think that's very interesting that the route of the Underground Railroad and the earlier Mormon trail of 1846 came through this same general area and that's that's an interesting coincidence and I'd like to ask you about that dr. Pendergraft is it true that once a trail like this was established for example the Mormon trail that John Brown saw that this was the logical trail to use for the Underground Railroad direction east and west the farmers are going west yes the slaves are going to the east and they would follow the route which would be most advantageous and of course you must remember that when the Mormons went west they did tend to build houses and cabins and they tried to find the best Fords and streams and so on though there were good reasons why the slaves would follow the same general route at me yes well what was the reason for establishing this trail in the first place was it on high ground and therefore easily travel tried to find the easiest route for them to go of course they're also looking for a good campsite whether it be fresh water and things like that and would you say that these old trails are the present highways in a general way yes all the same general paths although the highway doesn't stick very close to this trail itself well I thought perhaps the advantages of this high ground and the fact that they would not get into Lowell places and muddy areas yes it was modern machinery of course they have been able to take off the hills and fill in the level the valleys and so on no to a large extent now as far as the Underground Railroad is concerned I imagine there would be an advantage and staying off some of the main trails that is the stagecoach trails and very definitely and in order to escape detection very definitely that's why the trail very seldom take it's the same route anytime it might vary 1215 miles now would you say that the activity on the Underground Railroad began about the time this house was built around the 1850s as Iowa is concerned the activity on the Underground in Iowa began in the eastern part of this day that is going from north to south it must have Tina through there and Salem somewhat earlier of course did the West this particular routes through Louis it was in the latter part of 1850 from about 18 54 and 55 until about 1860 that as soon as the Civil War began I suppose there was no special reason to operate the Underground Railroad anymore that's right the the slaves were being freed by the advancing armies of the north Authority how do you account for the fact that the there were so many ministers involved in this operation of the Underground Railroad I mentioned the fact that Reverend Hitchcock built this house and built it very largely as a as a refuge for slaves on the Underground Railroad in paper Reverend John Todd was one of the leaders in the Underground Railroad of course the among the leaders of the whole underground movement the anti-slavery movement for that matter throughout the North the certain Creed's like the Quakers and the Calvinistic groups the Puritans efya Presbyterian and so on were very staunch in their beliefs that slavery was wrong so it was logical that they would take leading part in the helping displace escape on thank you very much dr. Pendergraft no I think we'll have time for a little review here before our visit is over let's go over briefly some of the points we've tried to make in connection with our visit here in Lewis remember that this house back here the house built by the Reverend mr. George V Hitchcock was to all outward purposes a parsonage the home for the minister and his family and yet as I've mentioned several times he was thinking at the same time of the use of this house as a station on the Underground railroad this is not the first house that Drebin Hitchcock used there was a wooden building nearest this location which was his first home and the slave soon discovered that here was a friend who would help them on their way and so many people stopped in this wooden structure that mr. Hitchcock decided if you have to have a larger house and the main purpose of the house really was to serve as a station remember also that according to the terminology of the Underground Railroad Reverend Hitchcock was a conductor so this is this was the home of a conductor on the Underground Railroad and as dr. Pendergraft told you the name of the Underground Railroad came from a remark made by a southern planter who said it seems that the slaves are escaping through Canada as though they were travelling on a railroad underneath the ground so perhaps that can serve as the theme for our review cartoon let's assume this is the surface of the ground and here underground is a train of the old days trains that time of 1850s had this tunnel type of smokestack as you remember here are the wheels in the back wheel now of course if this is the top of the ground it would be very difficult for a train actually to go underground it would take a tremendous system of tunnels wouldn't it we know that in the West many times the railroads tunneled through mountains because it was easier to do that and to go over the top but an underground railroad as we use it in American history did not mean that any part of this escape route was underground with the exception of tunnels that were sometimes built between stations in the same community in Salem for example there are two houses about two blocks apart which were actually connected by a tunnel so that the sheriff came to one house the slaves could escape Underground through this tunnel to a house about two blocks away and there is a legend that in Tabor that was also the case that a tunnel ran under the Commons from Reverend Todd's home to another house on the other side of the town commonly that has never really been proved but there is a legend to that effect so don't imagine that the Underground Railroad actually went underground the Underground Railroad was a means of escape which was very useful but the underground feature merely referred to the secrecy with which the conductors operated so we can get a picture of a conductor here a conductor of an underground railroad by just enlarging upon this a little bit and we make a cap out of this you see jaw of an operator of the Underground Railroad a man who was determined to help these unfortunate people escape and who was therefore called a conductor on the Underground Railroad and he wasn't actually underground next week we are going to Mount Vernon and we'll visit one of the Centers of Christian education one of the early colleges established in the state of Iowa until then goodbye today your teacher has been her bake of Iowa State Teachers College landmarks in Iowa history is produced for Iowa TV school time by woi TV in association with Iowa State Teachers College TV school time is presented daily Monday through Friday at 1:30 p.m. by the Iowa joint committee for educational television you