The "A Ride On The Underground Railroad" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking over an  article I had cut out of my Sunday News newspaper that was written by Jack Brubaker, also known as "The Scribbler."  The article was titled "At Underground Railroad station, fugitives learn how to embrace freedom."  When I first read a story about the Underground Railroad as a pre-teen, I had a hard time realizing at first that it wasn't a story about a traditional railroad, like the one that went past my house, but under the ground.  You see....I grew up living a half-block away from the Lancaster Train Station on North Queen Street and loved trains!  Not model railroading like many of my friends, though I did have my own model railroad in my basement, but the great big trains that I sat and watched for hours a half-block from my house.  And, at first I had a hard time believing that they ran underground as well as above ground since I never saw any stairs to take me under the train station.  Late in elementary school it finally hit me that there was something called the "Underground Railroad" that had to do with the history I was reading about in my school books.  Well, my story today, that was written by my favorite columnist "The Scribbler" aka Jack Brubaker, deals with the Underground Railroad that ran above ground.  He was telling me that few operators on the Underground Railroad kept records of the people they helped escape slavery before the Civil War.  Thousands of slaves who had escaped always seemed to remain nameless and have been lost to history.  From 1824 until 1850 when Congess passed the Fugitive Slave Act, slaves escaped using the "Underground Railroad."  And, there was one Quaker couple, Daniel and Hannah Gibbons, who helped many of hose slaves pass to freedom through their home near Bird-in-Hand.  And, as they helped them escape, they assigned new names to all of them which they wrote in a blank book.  Then in 1850, a law required that escaped slaves be returned to their owners.  Hey...good luck with that!  That law also made harboring fugitives a crime.  So, Daniel burned the book he kept!  One freedom seeker who passed through the Gibbons house in Upper Leacock Township was 16-year-old Oliver Cromwell Gilbert who spent a night at the Gibbons farm in Upper Leacock Township in 1848.  He had fled a Clarksville, Maryland plantation. Later in life he described his meting with the Gibbons.  This past August, a Mennonite historian, Joanne Siegrist, who had lived across from the Beechdale property where the Gibbons lived, hosted a meeting of local people interested in the history of the Underground Railroad.  Stephanie Gilbert, the great-granddaughter of Oliver Gilbert had proposed the gathering.  Stephanie spent the week tracing her ancestor's route from Maryland to York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania counties.  Her stops included Thaddeus Steven's home and law office at 45 S. Queen St. in Lancaster where Oliver asked for advice from Mr. Stevens who directed him and 14 others who had escaped with him to the house on Beechdale Road.  Oliver said Stevens gave him a note and told him to present it to Daniel Gibbons.  Oliver said he entered the lane and there was this old bald-headed man, sitting on the porch and looking down at the new arrivals.  He said, "Well, boys, which way are you all going?  I see you are all runaways."  The Quaker suggested they change their Southern clothing that would reveal where they came from.  Daniel and Hanna Gibbons ate supper with the young men and told them to say nothing about where they came from.  Mr. Gibbons told them that "Now thee are free" and must respect themselves and they will in turn be respected.  His time in Lancaster County was his first taste of freedom.  He changed his identity, not only by name, but by mindset.  The next morning Daniel Gibbons awoke the fugitives and told them to dress quickly because their pursuers were on their trail.  Gilbert and his companions ended up going to work on the farms of other Quakers in Bart Township and moved to Philadelphia that autumn.  Gilbert eventually settled in New York, then Massachusetts and then back in Philadelphia.  He married and had six children.  The family formed the Gilbert Jubilee Singers and toured opera houses.  Gilbert gave lectures on his life experiences before his death in 1912.  I would have loved to have sat in on one of those talks!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.