Jermain Wesley Loguen

The Underground Railroad

Caroline Logeun

Since the late 18th century, networks of people had been secretly aiding freedom seekers. After the passage of Fugitive Slave Acts (1793 and 1850), Vigilance Committees were created to protect freedom seekers from bounty hunters. These committees soon expanded their activities to guide freedom seekers “underground” using secret networks of people and places. By the 1840s, the term Underground Railroad was part of the American vernacular. Loguen assisted the Rev. Samuel J. May, a Unitarian clergyman in Syracuse, with his Underground Railroad work but gradually took the lead. Loguen placed letters in the Syracuse press openly discussing his activities and asking for donations to assist freedom seekers. He built apartments on his property to serve as hiding posts and lodging for freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad. As stationmasters on the Underground Railroad, Loguen and his wife Caroline were two of its most active agents. Many historians agree that the Loguen’s own home was a widely known station on the Underground Railroad, and his basement was fitted with bunks and other equipment for freedom seekers.

Frederick Douglass, a frequent visitor to this house, described the Loguens’ welcome of nine people who arrived here from slavery:

“The night was exceedingly dark and the rain was very heavy. . . .  The children were sick and the rain increasingly in violence, and the walk of a full mile-and-a-half before the pilgrims, and two of these are wholly unable to walk. . . .  We had scarcely struck the door when the manly voice of Loguen reached our ear.  He knew the meaning of the rap and sang out, “Hold on!”  A light was struck in a moment.  The door opened, and the whole company, the writer included, were invited to.  Candles were lighted in different parts of the house, fires kindled and the whole company made perfectly at home.  The reception was whole-souled and manly one, worthy of the noble reputation of brother Loguen.”

- Post-Standard, November 18, 1857

Perhaps the most celebrated case in which Loguen was involved took place on October 1, 1851. A freedom seeker by the name of William Henry was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Loguen joined a committee of abolitionists, Black and white, that rescued Henry (known as “Jerry”) and assisted him in escaping to Canada.

Defiance in the Face of Injustice

At the time, abolitionists raised money to purchase the freedom of some freedom seekers, providing them with documentation providing safety in the Fugitive Slave Act era. Loguen declined to ensure his safety by purchasing his freedom, or to allow others to purchase it for him, arguing that to do so would compromise his manhood and his "God-given gift of freedom." This public defiance risked his personal safety, but sent a powerful message to his allies and adversaries.

Source: democratandchronicle.com

Logeun’s public resistance of slavery extended to civil disobedience. Not only did he defy law by his actions on the Underground Railroad, he openly petitioned others to do the same.  A month after the infamous Fugitive Slave Act was passed, Loguen persuaded his adopted hometown, Syracuse, New York, to declare itself a refuge for freedom seekers. On October 4, 1850, the people of Syracuse filled city hall to hear a discussion of the recently passed law. Loguen knew firsthand the horrors of the institution of slavery and the immediate danger he faced by the passage of the new Act. He appealed to his fellow citizens to honor the Constitution by dishonoring the law that would reenslave him and others. He argued that his continued freedom depended upon the willingness of his white fellow citizens to resist the law and protect him if he were threatened. Following his plea that Syracuse be made an “open city” for fugitive slaves, the meeting voted 395 to 96 in favor of his proposal.

After the Civil War, Loguen took an interest in the welfare of the newly freed people and continued his church work. He was elevated to the rank of bishop of the AMEZ denomination in 1868, responsible for the Alleghany and Kentucky Conferences. In 1872, Loguen was about to take up a mission assignment to the Pacific Coast when tuberculosis forced him to resign and seek a cure at the mineral springs in Saratoga Springs, New York. He died there on September 20, 1872. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Syracuse.

Loguen’s Legacy