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Friday, November 16, 2001
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
"Just a few months after Knox College was founded in 1837, the Galesburg colony formed an anti-slavery society," said Owen Muelder, director of Alumni Affairs at Knox College, in a talk on the Underground Railroad to the Galesburg Noon Rotary Club on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2001, at Jumer's in Galesburg. (Download photo 300 dpi)
Among the few written records of Underground Railroad activity in the area, Muelder said, is a journal kept by the Rev. Samuel Wright, a Knox trustee from 1849 to 1872.
Muelder read from Wright's journal entries that tell how, for more than a decade, the clergyman sheltered and aided runaway slaves escaping through Galesburg:
February 6, 1843 — Friday, another fugitive from slavery came along, which makes 21 that have been through this settlement on their way to Canada.
January 5, 1847 — Arrived home Friday evening and learned that two fugitives had been along... pursuers had gotten a search warrant... they searched our premises in vain, however, for the birds had flown.
June 6, 1848 — Friday carried a fugitive to Osceola and preached at half-past four.
September 18, 1854 — Sabbath, preached three times and after I got to sleep, was awakened by the arrival of fugitive on UGRR. I went and carried him to Mr Winslow.
Wright's unpublished journal, covering the years 1839-1860, is in the Knox College Library.
"As late as autumn of 1859 there were reports of kidnappers prowling the vicinity (of Galesburg) in order to capture blacks and return them to servitude," Muelder said. "Our community remained deeply involved with the underground railroad and abolitionist cause right up to the beginning of the Civil War."
Muelder earned a bachelor's degree in history at Knox in 1963, and has been alumni director at Knox since 1992. His late father, renowned historian Hermann Muelder, is the author of two major works on local history — "Fighters for Freedom," and "Missionaries and Muckrakers."
Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 47 states and 42 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Related Pages
2001 Book Finds New Evidence on Underground Railroad
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