Bound for the Future: Child Heroes of the Underground Railroad by Shectman Jonathan;

Author:Shectman, Jonathan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO, LLC

Chapter 7

States of Matter Divide the States

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

—Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”1

In December 1821, John Rankin, his wife Jean, and their four small children left their Kentucky home for the free state of Ohio. The party of travelers arrived at the state border on the last day of the year, only to find that the Ohio River was an impassable obstacle to their journey. In place of the cold and gurgling currents they had expected, the travelers found the river a plasmatic blockage flirting with solidity. The mighty Ohio, it seemed, was choking on large slabs of ice.

Right away, it was clear that the large boat necessary to convey the family’s belongings and their horses could not cross. So Rankin made plans to leave his things with a friend, a Mr. Courtney, until the Spring thaw. The next day, January 1, Courtney and his son conveyed the Rankins across the river in two small skiffs. Rankin’s oldest son, Adam Lowry, was just five years old at the time of the crossing. But he never forgot the tedious and “extremely dangerous” passage. Many years later, he remembered “how frightened we were when we were struck by a large field of ice which nearly upset our boats.”2

Old folks remembered times when the Ohio froze solid and a person could walk or skate across from shore to shore and state to state. And those self-same old-timers also remembered other times, when commerce on the river stopped altogether, and few, if any, dared to challenge its glacial waters. For when the river was neither entirely water nor entirely ice, then neither boat nor skate dared to test its awesome inconstancy.

In the end, the Rankins crossed the river just in time. The men who knew the river best predicted that, in another day, the river would be wholly impassable by boat. John Rankin’s careful planning and the assistance of the Courtneys paid off. “New Year’s night, 1822,” Lowry remembered, “was spent in a free state with no definite plan as to what the future would be.”3

As it turned out, both by design and twist of fate, the future would be one of antislavery activism for the entire Rankin family. John Rankin’s magnetic brand of Presbyterian abolitionism became a way of life for the family. During the next two decades, he and his adopted, riverside town of Ripley, Ohio, would become known all along the stretch of the river for providing safety to Kentucky fugitives. For the Rankins, antislavery activism was an affair for the whole family. As they settled into a routine—a recipe, one might say—for helping fugitives, each person in the family had a distinct and specific responsibility. Jean and the daughters did the essential work of cooking and sewing for the fugitives; as conductors, Rankin’s sons formed the backbone of his operational workforce. Very rarely did Rankin himself conduct fugitives.4

So it came as no surprise to 12-year-old John Jr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.