Geography and politics gave Ohio an important role in the Underground Railroad.
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BY VICTORIA ELLWOOD
hen Dewey Scott retired from the hustle and bustle of Cincinnati to the peaceful hillsides surrounding Ripley — an hour to the southeast on land hugging the Ohio River — he thought he’d enjoy life without much on his to-do list.
living in Ripley, and fugitive slaves knew they could come here and live among them.”
“My wife, though, told me I needed a hobby,” he says. “So, I went down by the river to read, opened up the newspaper, and saw the John Parker House needed a tour guide. I walked across the street and applied for the job.”
Ohio’s location was key. “If you look at a map, you’ll see Ohio is the southernmost free state that bordered the northernmost slave states of Kentucky and (then) Virginia,” says Eric Herschthal, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University. That geographic reality made Ohio a natural pathway for fugitive slaves.
That was more than a decade ago. Today, Scott is the manager and docent at the John Parker House museum in Ripley, armed with a knack for storytelling and a wealth of knowledge about the historic home and about Ripley’s standing as a pivotal stop on the Underground Railroad.
Freedom-seekers could assimilate into black communities — such as Ripley — that dotted Ohio’s landscape. Or they could be aided by abolitionists, both black and white, who helped them journey north through Ohio and into Canada via the Underground Railroad.
“You were a free person once you came into Ohio at that time,” he says. “It was known that there were free blacks
Here’s a sampling of Ohio’s historically significant Underground Railroad sites:
A piece of artwork at the John Parker House museum in Ripley depicts travelers and “conductors” on the Underground Railroad; a slave pen that once stood in Mason County, Kentucky, now stands on display at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati; opposite page, the Parker (top photo) and Rankin houses in Ripley.
24 OHIO COOPERATIVE LIVING • APRIL 2020
