Plymouth Church - Underground Railroad Heritage Trail

The congregation of Plymouth Church hired Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) as their first minister, approving of his abolitionist sentiments. Beecher protested the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, exhorting his congregation to place the requirements of sacred law above those of human law and to join the Underground Railroad. He promised to shelter fugitive slaves and treat them as my own flesh and blood." Plymouth Church was on the route used by Reverend Charles Ray (1807-1886), an African American conductor for the Underground Railroad.

 

Beecher held mock slave auctions at the church, raising money to buy slaves' freedom. The first, on June 1, 1856, raised more than the $1200 necessary to pay off a slave trader for Sarah. Sarah used the remainder to buy a small farm where she supported herself for the rest of her life raising chickens and vegetables.

 

Submitted by @lampbane