By Samia Khan, Jayplaywriter
One winter night in 1859, John Doy leaves his home, his wife and children near present-day Kasold Drive and Peterson Road with a group of 13 African-American freemen. They travel in two wagons on a north-bound path to safety and liberty.
On the same night, John Brown, a famous abolitionist, who was later martyred for the cause, and an acquaintance of Doy, leaves from a separate Underground Railroad station in Lawrence. He escorts a dozen runaway slaves. Outside Lawrence, a group of pro-slave Missourians misses Brown's traveling party but capture Doy.
Doy is held in a Missouri jail until a gang of 10 abolitionists help him escape from prison. Tricking the jail keeper into believing they had a dangerous horse-thief who needed to be held overnight, the men ambush the guard at gunpoint and rescue Doy.
A three-gun salute welcomes Doy and the group of men back to Lawrence. Doy's rescuers became known as the "Immortal Ten." The news was covered nationally in newspapers. The men and Doy pose for a
picture when they returned, bedraggled with sporting knives, pistols, unkempt beards and large mismatched hats — all with the same earnestly formidable look of purpose.
The Jayhawker abolitionists founded Lawrence for freedom. The Underground Railroad became the lifeline for this struggle to subvert the injustice of slavery and the efforts of the Missouri Border Ruffians. The Underground Railroad was a covert network of people and places, organized by abolitionists to help
It's a history that Tolly Wildcat and Judy Sweets agree most residents aren't fully aware of.
Wildcat is president of the Underground
Underground Railroad terms
African Americans reach escape slavery in the North or in Canada. Somewhere between 300 to 1,000 freedom-seekers traveled north on the Underground Railroad through Douglas County, helped by men and women who risked their lives. More than a dozen Underground Railroad sites have been documented in Douglas County with a handful in Lawrence.
Passengers—(freedom seekers) Fugitive slaves or anyone traveling north in search of freedom
Station house, barn, smokehouse etc. where escaping slaves could find refuge.
Conductor—person who led the slaves to the next station on the Underground Railroad
Station Master—person who had a safehouse where the fugitive slave stayed temporarily or until it was safe to move.
Source: Underground Railroad Association
Railroad Association of
Railroad Association of Douglas County Kansas and a former KU professor of English and western civilization. Sweets is vice president of the association and a Lawrence historian. Both actively research abolitionist history in Lawrence and give Underground Railroad tours. Their goal is to honor those who helped found Lawrence
on freedom by learning the abolitionists' history. "We know them better than our own relatives," Sweets says without hesitation. Wildcat and Sweets recognize these men and women risked everything to settle a town for an ideal, not for land.
Aligning with Freedom
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 left
the state's fate up to the settlers to decide. Settlers would vote whether Kansas would be a free or a slave state. Hearing this news, hundreds of abolitionists from the East began moving to Kansas in an
effort to steer Kansas to freedom. Lawrence became the unofficial headquarters of the abolitionist movement. But pro-s slave Missourians would not cede to the abolitionist efforts. Missourians illegally voted in Kansas elections and raided abolitionist homes and homes of anyone
The Narrative of John Doy
Doy ends his narrative with, "Herel may fittingly close my narrative, vouching for the absolute truth of every word I have written, and asking my fellow citizens of these United States to ponder it well and to answer to their own consciences, as they must to the God of Justice, if such an enormities as I have related shall continue to be practiced — if such sufferings as I have depleted shall continue to be inflicted on the helpless and the unoffending — in this our common country, which should be truly, "The land of the free and the home of the brave." Source: The Narration of John Doy of
Source: The Narrative of John Doy of Lawrence, Kansas, "A Plain and Unvarnished Tale" Edited by Mark Volm-t
harboring runaway slaves. In the years leading up to the Civil War, the battles between Kansas Jayhawkers and Missouri Border Ruffians became the warm-