up to the clash between North and South. People in the East were opening their newspapers every day to find out what was happening in Kansas, Wildcat says.
Underground Railroad songs
These spirituals were often used to signal the next move to the conductors and passengers en route. The drinking gourd refers to the Big Dipper and the North Star.
Follow the Drinking Gourd
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man is a' waiting for to carry you to freedom.
Follow the Drinking Gourd
h. "Here1 narrative, truth of and asking e United to answer they must in anemi-ntinue to intone as birds as I urge to be the unof-country, and of the re."
n Doy
Wade in the Water
Wade in the water, children.
Wade in the water.
God's gonna trouble the water.
Source: Underground Railroad Association
hn Doy of Iain and Mark Volwhile selling runaways back into slavery and plotting the destruction of the Kansas abolitionist movement. Many of the Jayhawkers had no idea Quantrill was one of the bad guys, Sweets says. There were secret meetings and coded handshakes and signals to know who was on your side. "It kind of reminds you of a gang almost," Wildcat says. "Except they did it for a good cause."
The Jayhawkers were the trusted allies of anyone who sought freedom from a life of servitude. Freed African Americans were also at risk of capture. These were dangerous times and trust was hard to come by. Even William Quantrill, the man who massacred and burned Lawrence to the ground in 1863, acted as a double agent. He associated with the Jayhawkers
Runaways came to Lawrence abolitionists seeking help. But there were also abolitionists who snuck into Missouri and shuttled them to safety at night. Jayhawkers would pose as peddlers and other false pretenses to conspire with slaves to escape. The slaves knew Lawrence must be a place to go because their masters hated it. The best advertisement was the slaves' own masters angrily discussing the free town of Lawrence.
A Noble Rebellion
"The Underground Railroad is a celebration of people who break the law, but it was also symbolic of the American love of freedom," says Paul Finkelman, a Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa. Finkelman is a historian and the author of His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid. Lawrence was the center of the freedom fight in Kansas, but distinct from the Underground Railroad hubs in the East. Unlike New York, where a slave could hop a boat to Canada, there was nowhere to go from Lawrence. Lawrence was a place where slaves had to be defended and protected and where abolitionists were taking greater risks and using greater force, Finkelman says.
The first recorded incident of a runaway slave on the Underground Railroad to Lawrence was in March of 1855. She was hidden in a house two doors down from the Eldfridge Hotel. She was in danger of being captured, so abolitionists told her to walk toward Topeka. Unfortunately, she was found and returned to her master.
There was little time to worry about eating or sleeping while protecting lives and homes from Missouri Border Ruffians. Relief efforts from the East barely helped abolitionists who were sacrificing everything for the cause. Doy lost one child, probably because of malnutrition from a diet of nothing more than green corn and
squash, Sweets and Wildcat say.
Lawrence was in the middle of several pro-slave strongholds, says Mark Volmut, the Underground Railroad Association's historian. Pro-slave Missourians wanted to see Lawrence wiped off the map. "It sat here like a little jewel waiting to be plucked," Volmut says.
Saving the history
The Underground Railroad Association started in Lawrence in 1999, with meetings and speakers centered on education and discovery. Now, Wildcat says, the group has turned its focus to site preservation. Wildcat and Sweets agree the explosion in Lawrence development is a major problem in finding, preserving and studying historical sites in Lawrence. Volmut, who recently re-enrolled at the University, is finishing his undergraduate degree in archaeology. He also edited and re-published John Doy's personal writing, The Narrative of John Doy of Lawrence, Kansas, "A Plain and Unvarnished Tale." Volmut says with the rich history waiting to be uncovered in Lawrence, the University needs a historical archaeology program or some sort of active involvement in preserving Underground Railroad history.
Tours
The Underground Railroad Association gives guided tours of Douglas county Underground Railroad sites. Wildcat and Sweets organize approximately ten tours per year for the association. Some are for local events such as the Sequicentennial and some are custom tours for private groups.
The association wants help and grants in creating an Underground Railroad museum and having archaeologists study old sites before development encroaches on them. Part of the process is applying to put sites on the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network To Freedom. Applications are reviewed by a committee in Washington, D.C., and after a site is approved it is eligible for grants. Before the association applied for Lawrence sites, Kansas wasn't even on the National Park Service's map of railroad sites. Now the homesite ruins of Lawrence abolitionist John Doy are on the network. And near the discovered site, a street has been renamed Dr. John Doy Court.
Living in the past
In the middle of the night a messenger on a panting, mud-soaked horse arrived at Doy's house, calling upon him to help defend Osawatomie against a group of Missourians. As Doy writes in his narrative, tears streamed down his wife's face as she wondered if she would ever see him
For more information on Underground Railroad Association meetings or on arranging a tour contact Wildcat at Waynewildcat@sunflower.com or Judy Sweets at jmsweets@sunflower.com.
or their eldest son again. Trying to gather her composure she says, "But if the holy cause of liberty demands our blood, give it freely, and we will trust in the Providence that feeds the sparrows."
The Robert Miller house at 19th and Haskell streets is now the residence of Dennis Dailey, professor of human sexuality. The foundation of a smokehouse where the Millers hid runaway slaves is still on the property.
Just north of Sixth Street, off of Peterson Road, an 11-year-old boy found what looked like a pile of wood, rubble and a
well. The discovery in the summer of 2000 soon proved to be the ruins of the Doy homestead. John Doy emigrated from New England to help the cause of freedom in Kansas. He helped establish Lawrence and transport slaves north to Iowa and on to Canada.
The only way to relate to a rebel is to live like one. And to live the stories of these abolitionists as best we can today means physically transporting ourselves and our minds to the awrence of 1855.
Whitman property
A few blocks down Peterson Road from Doy's property, is a development of multimillion dollar homes. The land that these houses sit on was once the homestead of E.B. Whitman. It was here that John Brown recruited men for Harper's Ferry—the raid for ammunition that resulted in his capture and eventual execution. On a hill where families now live, Whitman kept watch to signal others of attacking Border Ruffians.
The Miller House, 19 $^{\mathrm{th}}$ and Haskell Streets
One of the former Underground Railroad stations in Lawrence is now the home of Dennis Dailey, professor of human sexuality. The house belonged to Robert Miller, a South Carolinian who left the South because of his anti-slavery views. The Millers hid runaway slaves in a smokehouse behind their home, the foundation of which still exists on the property.
When the Dailys bought the house 20 years ago, they knew it was associated with the Underground Railroad. Over the last two decades, hundreds of groups,
Julia Lovejoy, a Douglas County abolitionist, is buried in Vinland Cemetery outside Lawrence. She often wrote letters to abolitionists on the East Coast about the fight for freedom in Kansas.
especially from local schools, have visited their home. On some days, unannounced visitors who saw the house listed in a tour guide will stop by. Dailey says he's happy to share his home and stories of freedom with the town and visitors. "You can't help but be touched by the history," he says. Especially when he's sitting outside on a quiet night, Dailey thinks about the people who passed through more than 100 years ago, hiding from those who denied them their freedom.
Kansas Riverfront
Runaway slaves, searching for deliverance from living as a master's chattel, unloaded their burden to abolitionists where Abe and Jake's Landing, 8 East $6^{\text{th}}$ Street, stands today. On the Kansas River in the 1850s and '60s, residents used a ferry to cross the water instead of a bridge. Travel-weary runaway slaves used the ferry to cross into Lawrence, hoping to find a freedom-supporter who could take them to the home of a Jayhawker's Underground Railroad station. But often the slaves were under the watchful eye of William Quantrill and his men. A slave
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