Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting - January 12, 2012
The January 2012 meeting of the Madison
County Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on
Thursday, January 12, at 7:00 pm.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the
meeting to order.
A small group of brave, hardy souls came out
in the cold and the snow to hear our speaker, Kevin Kaegy,
tell us about the Underground Railroad in Southern Illinois. Due to the fact
that most of the normal reports were unavailble, we
dispensed with the normal business meeting.
GIFT
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE
Do you have a family member that is
interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison
County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will
be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $20.00
Patron Annual Membership $30.00
Life Membership $250.00
Contact our Secretary, Barbara Hitch, at racerbarb@aol.com,
about a gift membership.
January
Meeting
On January 12,
2012, Kevin Kaegy, President of the Bond County
Genealogical Society and Historian for the Bond County Historical Society, gave
a presentation titled "Unlocking the Secrets of the Underground Railway in Southern
Illinois." Unfortunately, due to the earlier ice storm and cold windy
weather, only about twelve people were present to hear Kevin.
Kevin stated his interest in the underground railway began when he was very
young. He had been told that an old house in Greenville in the central business
district was a stop on the underground railway. In the late 1990s, he started
trying to prove the house's connection to the underground railway.
A man could travel by horseback or on foot about twenty miles a day. Slaves
coming into Greenville would be coming from the south and Carlyle is about
twenty miles south of Greenville. This led him to start looking for information
on the underground railway activities in Clinton County. He found the story of
a man, A. A. Burlingame, from Sparta in Washington County who made wooden well
pipe and brought that pipe to Carlyle to sell. Hidden in the wagon along with
the pipes and straw, he would have two or three runaway slaves. This gave Kevin
a connection showing him how slaves were coming from Washington County through
Clinton County to Bond County.
Kevin consulted a book titled The Underground Railway: From Slavery to Freedom
by Wilbur Siebert. He found the names of several "conductors" in
Reno, Illinois: Wavers, Douglas, and Cord. Reno is about 8-10 miles from
Greenville.
Kevin was working on church history programs. One of these programs was on the
Reno Bethel Presbyterian Church. An employee of the Bradford Bank in Greenville
found a minute book for the Reno Bethel Presbyterian Church. Kevin borrowed the
book to look for material for the history program. In the book, he found a
signature - Bethel Church, May 27, 1837, Session met ......
Signed Moderator, Elijah P. Lovejoy.
Lovejoy was a Presbyterian minister who published a Presbyterian Newspaper, The
St. Louis Observer. After Lovejoy's anti-slavery articles in his newspaper
incited some people to destroy his printing press, another Presbyterian
minister, Thomas Lippincott, in Alton, Illinois, encouraged Lovejoy to leave
St. Louis and come to Alton to publish his newspaper. Lovejoy did just that,
but his anti-slavery articles in The Alton Observer resulted in more attacks,
and more destroyed printing presses. Eventually, in November of 1837, Lovejoy
was assassinated trying to protect his newest printing press at the Godfrey
& Gilman Warehouse.
Several of the books that Kevin has found about the Underground Railway mention
the same family names as being part of the "conductors" of the
system: Lippincott, Waver, Douglas, Breath, Hill, Davis, and Stephenson.
Kevin's research led him to believe that many of the "conductors"
were young men who probably did not have a farm to lose (which was possible if
you were found guilty of helping a runaway slave) and their fathers were
connected in someway to the Presbyterian or Congregational Churches. That was
the way that information about the underground railway was spread in this area.
This presentation was well received and
generated quite a few questions.