Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
Jefferson County
A number of gold coin caches are hidden on the grounds of the Harris Farmhouse , then became Abner Bear Farm. It was used as headquarters during the civil war to smuggle slaves out of the south. Located 3 miles northeast of Madison at the mouth of a hollow on the Ohio River.
Chapman Harris, a free black resident of Jefferson County, was perhaps the most prominent Underground Railroad worker in the area. Harris, a blacksmith, devised an ingenious mode of communication to notify both other agents and slaves on the opposite shore of the Ohio River that he or his sons were about to row their skiff across and all who wanted to accompany them back were welcome. Outside his home at Eagle Hollow, three miles east of Madison, Harris placed an iron plate or anvil in the trunk of a sycamore tree; when the time came to go across the Ohio to pick up fugitives, he would hammer on the anvil.34
Harris was endangered at least twice during his activities as a pilot. Once, another black, John Simmons, also privy to information about the activities, made the nearly fatal mistake of divulging what he knew. Harris and a fellow black worker, Elijah Anderson, led a group of men who nearly whipped Simmons to death. Apparently the only thing that saved the informer's life was that he bit part of Harris' lip off. On this evidence, a judge of the circuit court in Jefferson County convicted Harris of the beating and fined him several hundred dollars.
Chapman Harris moved into Eagle Hollow, about one mile east of Madison, in 1840. His home, located on a high rise facing the river, was reputed to be a place of frequent crossings. He was instrumental in forming a communication network with abolitionists in the Ryker’s Ridge and Lancaster areas.38The nearby community of Lancaster had formed an Abolitionist Society in 1839, calling themselves “abolitionist” when the term was still derogatory. By 1849, the Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society tired of talking about slavery’s evils and decided to take action. They formed the Eleutherian College, an experiment dedicated to the education of blacks, whites, females, and males.39In the Indianapolis Journal in 1880, Auretta Hoyt, daughter of one of the Society’s founders, recalled her memories of these times. Her account details her family’s connectionswith Chapman Harris and various Underground Railroad activities, indicating the strong communication network across Jefferson County that aided fugitives.40Although he operated from his home, just east of Madison, his ties to the city were strong. In 1890, when he died at the age of eighty-seven, he is buried in Madison’s Springdale Cemetery.
Both oral traditions and later newspaper articles tell the stories of the mobs of Kentucky residents in the Georgetown District. During these mid-century years, Madison’s political environment was tense, and there were several attacks on free blacks. Around 1849, a group of white Kentuckians attacked a Georgetown. According to newspaper reports, the attack was in response to slave losses in Kentucky. It culminated in the capture and near drowning of Griffin Booth, one of Madison’s UGRR leaders. Several other attacks led some of Madison’s leading free blacks to flee the city. George DeBaptiste continued his work in Detroit, Griffith Booth moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan and then Canada, Louis Evans, and many others moved further north to Detroit or Canada in the latter years of the 1840s.Madison’s loss of free Black leadership pushed many of the Underground Railroad activities out of the city and into the surrounding areas, where Chapman Harris and the Neil’s Creek group were still active. Madison’s most active years in the Underground Railroad were the years before 1850. In that year, the United States enacted the Fugitive Slave Law, and there was a resulting influx of slave-hunters as well as an emigration of blacks to lands further north.These men actively sought fugitives for capture and return for ransom.This influx of bounty hunters into Madison indicates that contemporaries knew the town to be active in The Underground Railroad, as the men chose this area believing it to be a source of income. The loss of these leaders did not stop the Underground Railroad activity, but the movement changed and reduced in vacinity.The Underground Railroad routes changed after George DeBaptiste, Elijah Anderson, and Griffith Booth left the district. John Carter, William J. Anderson and an Irishman, John Carr still carried on the work, but the routes moved to the far east and the far west of the town of Madison.
Madison Courier, 1853 – 1916.
A number of gold coin caches are hidden on the grounds of the Harris Farmhouse , then became Abner Bear Farm. It was used as headquarters during the civil war to smuggle slaves out of the south. Located 3 miles northeast of Madison at the mouth of a hollow on the Ohio River.
Chapman Harris, a free black resident of Jefferson County, was perhaps the most prominent Underground Railroad worker in the area. Harris, a blacksmith, devised an ingenious mode of communication to notify both other agents and slaves on the opposite shore of the Ohio River that he or his sons were about to row their skiff across and all who wanted to accompany them back were welcome. Outside his home at Eagle Hollow, three miles east of Madison, Harris placed an iron plate or anvil in the trunk of a sycamore tree; when the time came to go across the Ohio to pick up fugitives, he would hammer on the anvil.34
Harris was endangered at least twice during his activities as a pilot. Once, another black, John Simmons, also privy to information about the activities, made the nearly fatal mistake of divulging what he knew. Harris and a fellow black worker, Elijah Anderson, led a group of men who nearly whipped Simmons to death. Apparently the only thing that saved the informer's life was that he bit part of Harris' lip off. On this evidence, a judge of the circuit court in Jefferson County convicted Harris of the beating and fined him several hundred dollars.
Chapman Harris moved into Eagle Hollow, about one mile east of Madison, in 1840. His home, located on a high rise facing the river, was reputed to be a place of frequent crossings. He was instrumental in forming a communication network with abolitionists in the Ryker’s Ridge and Lancaster areas.38The nearby community of Lancaster had formed an Abolitionist Society in 1839, calling themselves “abolitionist” when the term was still derogatory. By 1849, the Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society tired of talking about slavery’s evils and decided to take action. They formed the Eleutherian College, an experiment dedicated to the education of blacks, whites, females, and males.39In the Indianapolis Journal in 1880, Auretta Hoyt, daughter of one of the Society’s founders, recalled her memories of these times. Her account details her family’s connectionswith Chapman Harris and various Underground Railroad activities, indicating the strong communication network across Jefferson County that aided fugitives.40Although he operated from his home, just east of Madison, his ties to the city were strong. In 1890, when he died at the age of eighty-seven, he is buried in Madison’s Springdale Cemetery.
Both oral traditions and later newspaper articles tell the stories of the mobs of Kentucky residents in the Georgetown District. During these mid-century years, Madison’s political environment was tense, and there were several attacks on free blacks. Around 1849, a group of white Kentuckians attacked a Georgetown. According to newspaper reports, the attack was in response to slave losses in Kentucky. It culminated in the capture and near drowning of Griffin Booth, one of Madison’s UGRR leaders. Several other attacks led some of Madison’s leading free blacks to flee the city. George DeBaptiste continued his work in Detroit, Griffith Booth moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan and then Canada, Louis Evans, and many others moved further north to Detroit or Canada in the latter years of the 1840s.Madison’s loss of free Black leadership pushed many of the Underground Railroad activities out of the city and into the surrounding areas, where Chapman Harris and the Neil’s Creek group were still active. Madison’s most active years in the Underground Railroad were the years before 1850. In that year, the United States enacted the Fugitive Slave Law, and there was a resulting influx of slave-hunters as well as an emigration of blacks to lands further north.These men actively sought fugitives for capture and return for ransom.This influx of bounty hunters into Madison indicates that contemporaries knew the town to be active in The Underground Railroad, as the men chose this area believing it to be a source of income. The loss of these leaders did not stop the Underground Railroad activity, but the movement changed and reduced in vacinity.The Underground Railroad routes changed after George DeBaptiste, Elijah Anderson, and Griffith Booth left the district. John Carter, William J. Anderson and an Irishman, John Carr still carried on the work, but the routes moved to the far east and the far west of the town of Madison.
Madison Courier, 1853 – 1916.
