(music) - [Narrator] A white house with bushes on both sides of the entrance. A wood-framed house with a
green roof and twin chimneys. A red clapboard house with black shutters. These houses in Fall River, Massachusetts resemble many others in the city, but in fact they are no ordinary places. All were once stations on
the Underground Railroad, the secret network that
helped thousands of slaves escape their masters
during the Civil War era. - The Underground Railroad was a system usually in the Northern states to assist runaway slaves who were
coming from the South and needed either financial
or physical assistance to reach the Canadian border
and then to freedom in Canada. Nationally, the Underground
Railroad was in service from about the early 1830s
up until the Civil War. - [Narrator] Members of
the Underground Railroad concealed runaway slaves in their homes and helped them move from
one hiding place to the next as they traveled north. Secrecy was essential,
so they spoke in code. Slaves were called passengers or cargo and the places where they were hidden were called stations or safe houses. The people who ran the safe houses were known as conductors
or station masters. It is no surprise that
the Underground Railroad made its way through Fall River. Whether for religious
or humanitarian reasons, many citizens of the city
were ardent abolitionists. Starting in the 1830s and continuing throughout the next three decades, they endeavored to stop slavery, and Fall River became an important center on the Underground Railroad. 1,000 people met in 1834 at
the Baptist Meeting House to establish the Fall
River Anti-Slavery Society. Anti-slavery lectures,
concerts, and fairs were held. Groups including the
Anti-Fugitive Slave Law Society and the Anti-Slavery
Sewing Circle were formed, although not without resistance. Abolitionist Elizabeth Buffum Chace told of a protest in her book,
"Anti-Slavery Reminiscences." - [Elizabeth] We organized a female anti-slavery society at Fall
River about the year 1835. In the village were a few very respectable young colored women who
came to our meetings. One evening soon after
the society was formed, my sister and myself went to
them and invited them to join. This raised such a storm
among the leading members that for a time, it threatened the dissolution of the society. We maintained our ground, however, and the colored women were admitted. - [Narrator] Runaway slaves usually came to Fall River from New
Bedford after being smuggled out of Virginia on
commercial sailing ships. They would be fed and kept overnight before moving on to Rhode
Island, Vermont, and Canada. - The route for the
Underground Railroad locally ran from Virginia in the South to New Bedford or Cape
Cod, to towns on Cape Cod, to New Bedford, to Fall
River, out toward Providence, and up through Vermont to Canada. That was the route in New England. There was also another route that led north from Fall River through Steep Brook and then up and over toward
Cumberland, Rhode Island. - [Narrator] Activity on Fall
River's Underground Railroad was at its height in the mid-19th century. Up until then, slaves
who escaped their masters were able to live in states
such as Massachusetts, where slavery was prohibited, but the Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850 made escape from slavery a federal offense and authorized slave hunters to go north to search for runaways. Slaves who were captured were branded, flogged, imprisoned, or
sold back into captivity. Some were even killed. Conductors on the Underground Railroad now faced serious consequences. Anyone caught feeding or
sheltering runaway slaves was subject to a fine of $1,000
and six months in prison. - After the passage of
the Fugitive Slave Law, the punishment became a lot stricter. While it was rare, there were agents that were sent from the North to the South to actually recruit people as runaways, and in Delaware there was
one agent from the North, an abolitionist who was
caught and murdered, so these type of occurrences did occur. - [Narrator] Elizabeth Buffum Chace and her husband ran a safe house in Valley Falls, Rhode Island. She described the fear they experienced when they sheltered a female slave. - [Elizabeth] She had
escaped from Maryland sometime before with her family and established herself at
Fall River as a laundress, had made herself a home,
and was doing well. Her eldest boy of 17
years worked in a stable and after a while had gone six miles away to work for a farmer. - [Narrator] Soon after, an officer who had captured a runaway slave in Boston arrived in Fall River and began prowling around the stable
where the boy had worked. Fearing for the safety of
the laundress and her family, members of the Underground
Railroad intervened. - [Elizabeth] They hurried this woman off with her three children
in the darkness of night to await at Valley Falls the disposal of her household effects and bringing of her son from the farmers. We kept them three or
four days in hourly fear and expectation of the
arrival of the slave catcher, our doors and windows fastened
by day as well as by night, not daring to let our neighbors know who were our guests, lest
someone should betray them. We told our children, all at that time under 14 years of age, of the fine of $1,000 and the
imprisonment of six months that awaited us in case
the officer should come. On the third or fourth
day, the boy arrived with money from the good
friends at Fall River and we sent them off, still fearing their capture on the road. - [Narrator] Chace also
described a disguise used to save a male slave who had escaped from Virginia
with his wife and child. The man had been living in New Bedford for almost a year when his former master tracked him down and began pursuing him. - [Elizabeth] The man was
hurried off to Fall River before the man-stealers
had time to find him, and the friends there dressed him in a Quaker bonnet and shawl and sent him off in the daylight, not daring to keep him until night lest his master should follow immediately. - [Narrator] The rescue was successful, much to the disgust of the master who complained that New Englanders were indifferent to his interests. Because of the need for secrecy, very little information is available about safe houses and
their station masters. We do know that there were at least six stations in Fall River where slaves found help and protection. The people who ran them
were a diverse group of city residents with little in common except for their ideals and their courage. Among them were an abolitionist mayor, a postmaster, two schoolteachers, a doctor, a well-to-do businessman, and an eccentric newspaper publisher. The best known safe house belonged to Nathaniel Briggs
Borden, a community leader with interests in banks and railroads who served in the Massachusetts
House of Representatives and the State Senate. He was the third mayor of Fall River, elected first in 1856
and then again in 1857. Borden married into a family of dedicated Underground
Railroad conductors when Sarah Buffum, one of the founders of Fall River's Female
Anti-Slavery Society became his wife in 1843. The couple's house served as a transfer point to Sarah's sister. - [Elizabeth] Slaves in
Virginia would secure passage, either secretly or with
the consent of captains, in small trading vessels
and thus be brought into some port in New England, where their fate depended
on the circumstances into which they happened to fall. A few landing in some town on Cape Cod would reach New Bedford and thence be sent by an abolitionist there to Fall River to be sheltered by Nathaniel
B. Borden and his wife, who was my sister, Sarah, and sent them to Valley Falls
in the darkness of night and in closed carriage with Robert Adams, a most faithful friend,
as their conductor. - [Narrator] The Bordens'
house on 2nd Street is no longer standing. The Academy Building in downtown
Fall River was constructed as a memorial to Nathaniel Borden in 1875. (laid-back music) Squire William Barnabas
Canedy, born in 1784, was a postmaster in the Steep
Brook section of Fall River. His house was a station on
an Underground Railroad route that led to Cumberland, Rhode Island. Canedy served in the State Legislature and was the father of 13 children. After his death in 1855, three of his daughters continued his work. Betsey and Anne Canedy went south to teach the children of freed slaves near the end of the Civil War. Mary Canedy and her
husband, Albion King Slade, managed to operate a station even though they did not own a house. From 1857 to 1861, Mary and Albion, both schoolteachers in their 30s, were tenants in a double
house on Pine Street. Working from their rented rooms, they took in runaway slaves and hid them in their landlord's basement. Mary at one time was an assistant editor of the New England Journal of Education, and she wrote the lyrics
to several pieces of music. When a local official became
suspicious of the Slades, she used her way with
words to distract him. Her granddaughter, Annie Malcolm Slade, recalled the incident. - [Annie] The sheriff came to investigate but Mrs. Slade received
him as a social caller and talked so industriously
about everything but slavery that she got him out of the house without him remembering what he came for. Several prominent men in Fall River adopted resolutions urging the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. One of them was a homeopathic
physician named Isaac Fiske. He was a devout Quaker. - [Anna] My father was a great reformer and anti-slavery, women's
suffrage, prohibition man. All these objects held his
sympathy and consideration. The noon hour when I
came home from school held many surprises for me. There might be an escaped
slave at the house on his way north to freedom in Canada, whose presence must be
mentioned with bated breath. - [Narrator] Henry Box
Brown, a well-known fugitive who was active in an
anti-slavery lecture circuit between Providence and Boston, is believed to have been one of the people who was sheltered in the Fiske house. Brown escaped from slavery
in Virginia at age 33 by having himself mailed in a wooden crate to abolitionists in Philadelphia. The Fiske house is located in Fall River's national historic district. The Preservation Society of Fall River recently purchased the house and plans to restore and maintain it. Andrew Robeson Jr.'s story illustrates the resourcefulness
and collaboration that characterized the
Underground Railroad. Born in 1817, Robeson was
a prominent businessman who worked with two
well-known Quaker operatives, Robert S. Adams and William Hill Sr., to help slaves trying to reach Canada. Robeson converted a wine cellar in his mansion into a hiding place, and in 1843 Adams camouflaged the entrance to it by building a bookcase, complete with books with fake bindings. Slaves on the run were
smuggled into the secret room and when it was time to move
them on to their next stop, Adams transported them in closed carriages under cover of night. On February 18th, 1854,
Robeson sent a letter to Nathaniel Briggs Borden
about an escaped slave whose former master was offering a large reward for his capture. "I could not think of any better plan "than sending him to Fall
River," Robeson wrote. "We are collecting some
money to help him on the way, "and if we don't get enough just now "we will do more when I see you." The Robeson residence was
later moved to 451 Rock Street. It is now home to the Fall
River Historical Society, where the entrance to the
secret room can still be seen. Abraham Bowen and his wife ran a grain shipping business in the 1840s and used the revenue to finance secret anti-slavery
networking at their home. In 1843, Bowen served on a committee that made a bold gesture to express their sympathy for American slaves. The committee members resolved
to wear badges of mourning as they marched at a
4th of July celebration. - Yeah, he was a strange guy. He was independently wealthy because his ancestors were farmers where entrepreneurs wanted to build their mills. So his ancestors automatically had shares in the textile industry, and that generated enough income for him, who was a descendant,
either son or grandson, to do what he wanted, which he did. That was Bowen House, 175 Rock Street, which is also considered a station on the Underground Railroad. Now, he was a free thinker and he published a newspaper
called The All Sorts, which was a sort of
underground-ish alternative news to I guess the established
papers in Fall River, which was very popular 'cause it had a lot of local gossip and news that wouldn't ordinarily be
carried by the regular press. And he tried a number of occupations just to occupy his time, and he was described as quite a figure. He had shoulder-length hair
and he used to wear a shawl, and he used to walk through town. And people commented on his appearance, because that was not
fashionable to look like that, but he made his mark in Fall River and he opened his home
to fugitives running, people seeking freedom in Canada. So he was also one. And he also figured prominently in holding meetings and setting
up and organizing meetings, a lot of which were at City
Hall, anti-slavery meetings, so you saw his name even in the establishment press in Fall River. - [Narrator] Slavery in the United States was abolished on January 31st,
1865, when Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution. The Underground Railroad
was no longer needed and the secret work of Abraham Bowen and the other station
masters came to an end. What was the full extent
of Fall River's role in the anti-slavery movement? That question cannot be answered, but historians believe
that there were more than six safe houses in the city, and the few records that are available reveal a broad and deep commitment to helping American slaves live freely. - There were six known, but
I'm sure there were a lot more. I'd say maybe more like 10 or 15. Well, the thing to
remember about the stations is that these places weren't set in stone, it was sort of very, very fluid. It was sort of like rain on a windowpane. It was like you have all these rivulets, and whatever, whoever
could act as an agent or a station did it
because the opportunity was right for them to do it. So you have in addition
to the core people, you had multiple people who
were willing to do this. - [Narrator] Consider an anti-slavery fair held in 1831 in Fall
River that raised $300, now the equivalent of
approximately $9,000. Reporting on the event in his newspaper, Bowen wrote, "Fall River
people are not slow "in doing the handsome thing
in support of a good cause." Today, more than 180 years later, those words are still a fitting way to describe Fall River's role
in the Underground Railroad. (lighthearted music)
