An Underground Railroad station emerges near Guilford College
“Dee-ee-eep river, my home is over Jordan/ Dee-ee-eep river, Lord I’m going over into camp ground/ Oh, don’t you wanna go to that milk-and-honey land where all God’s children are free? Dee-ee-eep river, my home is over Jordan.”
James Shields, director of community learning at Guilford College, sang this spiritual yards from a 350-year-old tulip poplar, a historical destination within the New Garden woods, which is listed on National Parks Service’s “Trail to Freedom” map.
“We know this tree was a witness to some of the things Levi [Coffin] talks about, and he talks about as a young boy going to these woods, taking his sack of corn under the pretext of feeding the hogs. He had bacon, sometimes clothing, but most importantly he had information and he had empathy. He would sit and he would listen to their stories, to the songs that they would sing. He would listen to just how hard and cruel slavery was to the point where it continued to encourage him to do his work.”
The North Carolina Fellowship of Friends and the North Carolina Friends Historical Society hosted a standing-room-only event on Feb. 9 at the New Garden Friends Meeting across from Guilford College’s campus. The occasion recognized the bicentennial year of the first known Underground Railroad activity in Guilford County: Levi’s cousin Vestal interceded on behalf of a free black man John Dimery, offering directions to a safe haven in Richmond, Indiana as the sons of Dimrey’s former owner attempted to re-enslave him. Levi, born in the New Garden Quaker society in 1798, is himself a significant figure in the history of Guilford County’s role in the Underground Railroad, and his pursuits illustrate the unique role of children in the loose social networks that supported enslaved people’s journeys to freedom. According to research at Guilford College’s Hege Library, the Coffins helped more than 2,000 slaves escape to freedom.
Read more: https://triad-city-beat.com/an-underground-railroad-station-emerges-near-guilford-college/
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