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July 1, 2001
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
A new book, "Betwixt Two Suns: A True Story of the Underground Railroad in Illinois," by Carol Pirtle, "establishes with greater certainty than ever before that people from Galesburg and Knox College were directly involved in the Underground Railroad," states Rodney Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. Davis wrote the introduction to the book, which is published by Southern Illinois University Press.
Pirtle will discuss her book at 6:30 p.m., Monday, July 17, at the Galesburg Public Library.
Pirtle's book is "one of the few studies that has detailed both ends of a transaction on the Underground Railroad," Davis says. "It tells much more than we had known previously of the escape of slave mother Susan Richardson and her children to Knox County in 1842." Richardson lived in Knox County for at least 30 years after her escape, but her children were recaptured by the slaveholder.
The book is based in part on newly-discovered letters to and from William Hayes, a farmer from upstate New York who lived in Randolph County, Illinois. Hayes, who was involved in the Underground Railroad in Illinois, was a cousin of Nehemiah Ferris, one of the founders of Galesburg.
Related Pages
Lincoln Studies Center
Rodney Davis
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