Now, more than 150 years later, Philadelphia preservationists believe they have finally discovered exactly where that home stands. “The hardest problem of trying to retrieve the story of the Underground Railroad is finding documentation that the sites existed. “When people look at those steps,” Beisert told The Post, “they see the steps where those fugitives stood when they knocked on that door.”In 1872, Still published hundreds of stories of those fugitives in a book aptly titled “The Underground Railroad,” among the most comprehensive first-person accounts of the Underground Railroad ever written. A decade later, after moving to Philadelphia, Still had worked his way up from a clerk at the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society to overseeing its Underground Railroad operations. “The pulse of the four millions of slaves and their desire for freedom were better felt through ‘The Underground Railroad’ than through any other channel.

Source: National Post March 23, 2018 16:18 UTC