Liberty Hill

Late November we started a post about our mini vacation outside Nati City.

Then our computer crashed.

But today perhaps the post is relevant for our city became a  "sanctuary city" today.

We have Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport just 14 miles away and we are the home base for Procter and Gamble.  We are a diversified city which believes in freedom for all.

In 1861 Ohio sided with the Union and became a free state.

Our mini vacation took us on the Freedom Trail.  If you were a slave and you made it across the Ohio River (which is to my right in the picture) you could have some help in making your way North. The further North the safer you were.

I, Sweet William The Scot, and Lee are going to climb that hill just like the slaves escaping the South.

At the top of the hill sits the Rankin House, the house has great history.

It was one of many Underground Railroad Stations.

It commands one of the most beautiful views on the Ohio River. Seven bends may be seen on a clear day.  Can you grasp running for your freedom from the other side of the Ohio River.

The climb took Wills and me most of the morning.

One hundred steps led from the town of Ripley to the house on the hill.

http://www.ripleyohio.net/htm/rankin.htm

A minister, Rev. John Rankin  felt with the houses proximity to the river and its owner's fierce opposition to slavery, the Rankin home was a perfect choice to become a stopping point on the Underground Railroad.

Lee is going to interject here that her Quaker ancestors were also a stop on the Underground Railroad at Lebanon, Ohio.

The Rankin family (which included 13 children) was proud of never having lost a "passenger". Most of the 2,000 escaped slaves who traveled through Ripley stayed with the Rankins.

Harriet Beecher Stowe heard Rankin's account of a slave who carried her child across the thawing ice of the Ohio River and was saved from the bounty hunters that chased her when the ice broke up. Stowe later included the story in her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Six of Rankin's sons and one grandson fought in the Civil War, all survived.

Under this porch floor many hid.

The Rankins would keep a light burning in the front window as a beacon for runaway slaves to guide them to their home.  His wife and thirteen children protected the home from bounty hunters and escorted slaves to neighboring stations.

Although slavery was never legal in Ohio, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made aiding escaped slaves a crime.

Allies aided the escape of more than 100,000 slaves along the Unground Railroad.

Rev. Rankin aided more than 2,000 being one of the most active conductors.

Lebanon, Ohio where Lee's ancestors had a stop would be the second dot on the left from the bottom.

Our next stop was the Parker House which I will tell you about next time.

We said goodbye to this stop and climbed back down the hill to our car.

We will show you where we stayed and ate in another post.

Some day we will take you on the barn quilt tour.

Lee has never said what our politics are and we won't but we are humanitarians and have deep roots in believing and promoting human welfare for all.

Thanks for being a friend
Traveling down the road and back again
Your heart is true and your a friend of  mine

Signing Off 

Sweet William The Scot