Michigan Underground Railroad

Adrian, Michigan

Thomas and Elizabeth Chandler Home (Hazelbank) Near Valley Road on Breckel Highway
Thomas Chandler (1773-1817) was one of the circulating agents for the antislavery newspaper, The American Freeman. His younger sister, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (1807-1834) started the Logan Female Antislavery Society in 1832. The Logan society did not last very long as its founder died two years later, but it is considered the first women’s antislavery society to be established in the Old Northwest Territory. The group, though begun in what was a predominately Quaker area, was also comprised of Presbyterians and Baptists.
	Elizabeth Chandler is best known for her poem, "The Slave-Ship," which she wrote at the age of eighteen. She also wrote for the "Ladie's Repository" section of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, wherein she demanded better treatment of Native Americans and the emancipation of slaves. Chandler introduced one of the most famous abolitionist images, "Am I not a Woman and a Sister," which William Lloyd Garrison adopted to head the ladies department of his abolitionist paper, The Liberator, and which Sojourner Truth adopted as the slogan for her famous 1851 speech. Her articles, poems and letters were gathered together by Benjamin Lundy into two books, the proceeds of which went towards abolitionist causes.
Antislavery activity in the area did not significantly increase until after 1834, when the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized. In Michigan, the Logan group was one of the first of two auxiliaries of the national society; the other was organized in Farmington in 1834. It is assumed that Chandler’s home was a center of activity in the movement, given his sister’s and his own inclinations. Thomas Chandler served as the President of the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society several times and was involved in Lenawee and Michigan radical antislavery activities in the 1830s and 1850s. The cemetery at Hazelbank still stands. The status of the house is unknown.


Warren Gilbert Home Countryside on Gilbert Highway Few miles north of the Gilbert-U.S. 223 intersection Warren Gilbert was born in Richmond, Ontario County, New York on April 3, 1822. Gilbert remained with his parents in New York and assisted his father at farm work until he left in October of 1843 to come to Grand River, Clinton County, Michigan. He purchased atract of land, farmed for a year, and then traded it for 93 acres on Section 2, in what was then Rome Township, Lenawee County. Gilbert married Almira M. Reed of New York in 1845. The couple had three children. They settled on the Gilbert homestead and engaged in raising stock. At a time when it was considered a disgrace to be characterized as an abolitionist, a champion of woman's rights or an advocate of temperance, Warren Gilbert was a staunch friend of each, and strove by voice and vote to advance these causes. His home was one of the stations of the underground railroad, and many fugitives were helped on their way to freedom by his aid. Warren Gilbert died on November 21, 1899, and his wife, on November 11, 1901.


Laura Haviland Statue City Hall Main Street

Born a Quaker, Haviland was so effective in her abolitionist activities and work for the Underground Railroad that Southern slave owners offered a $3,000 reward for her capture. In 1834, she and the other leading antislavery Quakers of Raisin Township, including her husband Charles, her father Daniel Smith (later elected as one of the Vice-Presidents of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society), her mother Sene Smith, and fifteen others withdrew from their Quaker meetings over differences they had with the more traditional Quakers regarding slavery. She later joined the Wesleyan Methodists, who had similar views on the issue. Haviland claimed there were 56 members of the Raisin Anti-Slavery Society in 1838; the leaders of which were Daniel Raymond (President), Jeremiah Westgate (Vice-President), Isaac Haviland (Secretary), and Alexander D. Westgate (Treasurer). The executive committee included Levi H. Chase, Allen Haight, Charles Haviland, David W. Baker, and Alvan Doty.


Raisin Valley Institute Southeast on Chase Rd Raisin Township
All that is left of the Raisin Institute	In 1839, Laura Haviland and her brother opened one of the first schools in Michigan to admit African American children, the Raisin Institute. The school and the Haviland farm were two of the leading Underground Railroad stations in Lenawee County from 1839-1861. In her memoirs, Haviland mentions helping at least twelve fugitive slaves who came to her home or school. Haviland was also responsible for recruiting station leaders to expand the reach of the Underground Railroad. After her husband’s death in 1845, Haviland formed the Lenawee County Female Benevolent and Antislavery Society. The Raisin Institute was closed from 1850-56 due to construction needs and, while it was closed, Haviland continued assisting fugitive slaves in Ohio with Levi and Catherine Coffin. The school flourished until 1864, when Civil War disruptions caused it to close. Laura Haviland, her husband, and parents are all buried in Raisin Valley Cemetery.


Raisin Valley Friends Church Michigan Historical Marker 3552 N. Adrian Highway A historical marker stands at the Raisin Valley Friends Church in Adrian where Daniel Smith was the first pastor: The first pastor of the Adrian Friends Meetinghouse (1835-1841) was Daniel Smith, whose Quaker abolitionist daughter Laura Smith Haviland is interred in the church cemetery. The congregation was part of the New York Yearly Meeting until 1869 and then became part of the Ohio Yearly Meeting. Friends worshipped in this building for the first time on June 11, 1835. Until 1874 ministers and elders sat in the gallery facing the congregation during the service. The front row was called the “facing bench.” In 1894 the Ladies Missionary Society began. “Friends” took their name from John 15:14 where Jesus says, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” This Raisin Valley Congregation is Michigan’s oldest surviving Friends Organization.
The Quaker devotion to abolitionist beliefs and activities are mentioned a number of times in the opening chapters to Fergus M. Bordewich’s volume, Bound for Canaan. Quakers were among the first opponents to slavery in eighteenth century Britain, arguing that Christian values demanded taking a stand against the practice. Together, with other British abolitionists and evangelicals, they formed the Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. Bordewich also discusses how Quaker and Methodist lobbying in Pennsylvania reduced slave populations by more than half between 1790 and 1810. Given the history of the Quaker church in antislavery activities, their appearance in Michigan’s works is not surprising.
As the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written before Douglass had much experience with the abolitionist views of the Quaker and Methodist communities of the north, Douglass’ descriptions of the religious individuals he encountered while enslaved were not positive. He instead was focused on the hypocrisy and cruelty of the individuals: I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,—and a darker shelter, under which the darkest foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all the slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists. (57) These sites are all free and open to the public.


Dr. Woodland Owen House 405 N. Winter St. Dr. Woodland Owen was an Englishman who emigrated to America and settled in Adrian in 1848. His Italianate home was more than likely a station on the Underground towards the end of the Civil War. Dr. Owen’s entire family was active in the antislavery cause, including his wife Jane, Jane’s brother Richard Illenden, and friends Ephraim and Sarah Rulon, radical Quaker antislavery activists in Raisin Township. Rulon’s activist daughter was married to Illenden. Woodland and Jane Owen were listed as "Constant Anti-Slavery worker[s]" in the register of supporters of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society from the 1850s. This site has been the location of the Lenawee Sheriff's office and jail since the 1950s.


Fitch Reed Farm Southwestern corner of Section 26 of Cambridge Township 2 miles south of Springville on M-50 and 3 1/2 miles south of Chicago Rd Laura Haviland mentions Fitch Reed in her autobiography as a neighbor who harbored fugitive slaves. He was a farmer. The current status of this site is unknown. In 1893, Reed wrote to William Siebert to tell him of his work helping fugitive slaves escape with John Fairfield from Kentucky.


Sutton Place 3301 Sutton Rd

A small room in the basement of this red brick house was used to hide runaways in the 1840s, when it was owned by farmer Samuel Brown. There was a false door used to get into the basement, and another to let people into the house from the outside. Fugitives were hidden underneath the wooden floorboards. This house is now owned by Wacker Silicones Corporation and functions as the main office on the campus of their chemical plant. Sutton Place was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Resources

Barnard, F.A. "Owen, Woodland." American Bibliographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men...Michigan Volume. Cincinnati, OH: Western Biographical, 1878: 55. Michigan County Histories and Atlases. University of Michigan Digital Library, Ann Arbor, MI. 19 November 2007 <http://quod.lib.umich.edu/>.
Blake, Erica. "Underground Railroad Had Many Stops in Michigan." Toledo Blade. 11 April 2003. 19 November 2007 <http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=73132160275531&Avis=TO&Dato=20030411&Kategori=
NEWS18&Lopenr=104110114&Ref=AR>.
Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.Chandler, Elizabeth. Essays, Philanthropic and Moral. Lemuel Howell: 1836.
Chandler, Elizabeth. The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler: With a Memoir of her Life and Character. Lemuel Howell: 1836.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself. Ed. John W. Blassingame, John R. McKivigan, Peter P. Hinks. New Haven: Yale University, 2001.
"Elizabeth Chandler Organizes the State's First Antislavery Society." This Date in Michigan History. (2006). Michigan History Online. 11 December 2007 <http://www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/date/december03/12_02_1830.html>.
"Elizabeth M. Chandler." Portraits of American Women Writers. (2005). Library Company of Philadelphia. 11 December 2007 <http://www.librarycompany.org/women/portraits/chandler.htm>.
"Elizabeth Margaret Chandler." The Michigan Women's Historical Hall of Fame. 11 December 2007 <http://hall.michiganwomenshalloffame.org/honoree.php?C=0&A=13~15~197~12>.
Haviland, Laura S. A Woman's Life-Work: Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland. Chicago: C.V. Waite & Co., 1887.
Knapp, John I. and R.I. Bonner. Illustrated History and Biographical Record of Lenawee County, Michigan. Adrian, MI: 1903. 12 December 2007 <http://figbert.com/GilbertFamily/essays/WarrenGilbert.txt>.
"Laura Haviland." (1 May 2007). Michigan History, Arts, and Libraries. 28 October 2007 <http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17451_18670_44390-159059--,00.html>.
Lindquist, Charles. The Antislavery-Underground Railroad Movement in Lenawee County, Michigan, 1830-1860. Adrian, MI: Lenawee Historical Society, 1999.
Lindquist, Charles. The "Heavenly" Mrs. Haviland. Adrian, MI: Lenawee County Historical Museum, 2001.
Lindquist, Charles. The Underground Railroad in Lenawee. Adrian, MI: Lenawee Historical Society, 2005.
“Raisin Valley Quaker Church, Cemetery.” Laura Smith Haviland. The Society of Friends River Raisin Settlement. 16 October 2007. <http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohfulton/HavilandRaisinValleyMI.htm>.
Remember the Distance that Divides Us: The Family Letters of Philadelphia Quaker Abolitionist and Michigan Pioneer Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, 1830-1842. Ed. Marcia J. Heringa Mason. Michigan State University: 2004.