Lewis Falley, Jr.
Lewis Falley, Jr. was a 12-year-old boy when the angry mob descended upon the Falley family home during that horrifying 1845 mob incident. His mother had sent young Falley, Jr. to get help after the roughians arrived to make trouble. The Lafayette Blues, a citizen militia, heeded the call and stopped the intended violence. Imagine how frightened the young lad must have been when the angry mob first arrived at the house, shouting threats of violence!
When Falley was 76 years old, he shared his knowledge of abolitionist and Underground Railroad activities with Dr. Wilbur H. Siebert, who documented Indiana’s Underground Railroad history. Dr. Siebert was a Harvard graduate and history professor who conducted extensive research into the subject. Included in his research were interviews with people who had firsthand knowledge about the Underground Railroad. In 1899, he published a book entitled, “The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom.”
Falley,
Jr. wrote to Dr. Siebert in a letter dated March 6, 1896. “Mrs. E. L. Pierce
just handed me your letter asking for information of the ‘Underground Railroad’
and requests me to answer it. Enclosed find a map showing routes and stations
through this state as near as I can locate them. The station keepers in Indiana
were mostly Quakers and famous. My father, Lewis Falley, kept the Underground
Railroad station here and helped many a poor fugitive to attain his liberty.
This place [Lafayette] was at the head of navigation on the Wabash River, and
many runaways from the South came here to cross the river, enroute to Canada
and freedom. My father moved here from Fulton, Oswego County, New York, in
1841, and he, with the Doit E. Denning, were the only citizens here who dared
to openly denounce the institution of slavery, for at least nine-tenths of all
inhabitants of this place were decidedly in favor of Slavery, but in the course
of three or four years several other citizens dared to espouse the cause of
Abolition, among whom were Martin L. Pierce, Luther Jewett, J.B. Semans and
Alex Wilson. The Abolition ticket polled
fifty-seven votes in this county when James G. Birney ran for President in
1844.
“The
period of activity [of the Underground Railroad] was from 1844 to 1861.
“The
passengers traveled mostly on foot at night with no other guide than the North
Star.
“The
first station keepers south of Lafayette were Moses Hockett and John and
Benjamin Hollingsworth, all Quakers. They would bring runaways here in a wagon
at night, and father would keep them until he had sent word to the station
several miles north of here. From there a man would come with his farm wagon
and carry them by night beyond the north boundary of the county.
“One
day in the spring of 1845 a steamboat arrived here from Louisville, Kentucky,
and among its deck hands were two slaves who contrived to get ashore and were
secreted by colored people here. They were large stout fellows worth $1500 a
piece, and the steamboat captain, who was responsible to the owner for their
safe return, got after them at once. Martin L. Pierce was then the sheriff of
[Tippecanoe County] and was called on by the captain to help capture the
runaways. As Mr. Pierce was busy with court, then in session, he appointed my
father a deputy to assist him. One of the slaves returned to the boat and gave
himself up. The other was secreted in our house for two days and then sent on
to Canada.
This
affair came near ending in a riot, as some of the sympathizers with the slave
owner threatened to mob and burn our house, but the sheriff ordered the militia
company.
The
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was practically a dead letter here, and when Lincoln
was nominated for President and Governor Morton for Governor of [Indiana] in
1860 the state went Republican by a good majority for the first time… Yours truly, Lewis Falley.”
“When
I was a boy of twelve years of age and also within the last ten years, I have
visited some of the towns south and west of here and learned how fugitive
slaves were assisted to obtain their liberty,” wrote Falley in a letter to Dr.
Siebert.
"There was no route from here to Michigan City for fugitives that I know of until about the year 1854, at which time the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railroad was completed from here to Lake Michigan, and, also south to Louisville. From that year many fugitives must have escaped from Kentucky by traveling the railroad on foot or catching a chance ride on a freight train.
The general superintendent of the steam railroad, William Foster, lived
here at that time, and I believe he did what he could to pass fugitives from
here to Michigan City. From that point
to Canada, it was easy traveling. Foster once told his real train conductors
“when you find a black man on your train you need not ask him where he came
from, nor where he is going; take his ticket.
That is your only business with him.”
Boats coming up from the south would often unload cargo at the Main
Steet wharf where they would be met by abolitionists who would give the black
deck hands a “password” and directions to Canada.”
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