Reminiscences

By Levi Coffin

Subjects: Slavery, Fugitive slaves, Underground Railroad

Description: Levi Coffin (1798-1877) was a Quaker who, with his wife Catharine, sheltered over a hundred escaping slaves per year while living in Fountain City (then Newport) in Wayne County, IN from 1826 to 1847. Their home was known as ‘Grand Central Station’ on the Underground Railroad because of the scale of their work. He then moved to Cincinnati, OH where he continued to be very active in the Underground Railroad. One of the slaves they helped was immortalized as Eliza, the heroine of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. – From Indiana Historical Society