Who's Who in Pennsylvania's Underground Railroad

Documentation: National Park Service, John Brown's Raid, 1973, pp. 21,38.

Ohio born John Kagi was one of John Brown's most trusted lieutenants.  He was stationed by Brown in Chambersburg to take charge of the men and munitions being stockpiled in that town for the raid on Harpers Ferry.  Kagi died during the raid when he was shot by townspeople as he attempted to flee across the Shenandoah River.

Documentation: Richard L. Tritt, "The Underground Railroad at Boiling Springs," in At a Place Called the Boiling Springs, Richard L. Tritt and Randy Watts, editors, 1995, pp. 111-117.

Daniel Kaufman hid fugitive slaves in his barn and in a swampy, inaccessible location known as "Island Grove," in the Yellow Breeches Creek, over a period of thirteen years beginning in 1835.  He was assisted by Stephen Weakley, Philip Brechbill, Mode Griffith and George Sailor. Maryland slaveholder Mary Oliver sued him in civil court in 1847, charging that 13 slaves who had run away from her plantation were last seen in Kaufman's barn.  In 1852 Oliver won her case and a judgment of $4,000 from Kaufman.  Although Kaufman was not bankrupted by the fines, the case did stop his UGRR activities.

Kaufman often received fugitives from Chambersburg by way of Shippensburg and Huntsdale, then would pilot fugitives along the Petersburg Road toward Carlisle and hand them off to conductors who would meet them in a woods south of the town.  From Carlisle, these same fugitives would be guided across the Harrisburg Bridge to William W. Rutherford's house.

Documentation: S.S. Rutherford, "The Underground Railroad," in Publications of the Historical Society of Dauphin County, 1928, p. 3.

Rudolph Kelker, a successful hardware merchant, lived at 9 S. Front Street, next door to Dr. William W. Rutherford. A prominent abolitionist, Kelker owned a barn at Barbara Street and River Alley, to which he was rumored to send fugitives who arrived at his door. The corner of River and Barbara Streets was also the location of a small African American neighborhood that included the home of William M. and Mary Jones, two active conductors on the URR.

Documentation: A Woman Of The Century, Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, editors, 1893, p 432-433; Harrisburg Daily Independent, 10 December 1895.

Born in 1823 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she suffered from ill health as a young married woman. Seeking treatment in New York state, she "was brought into intimate association with Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Abby Kelly Foster and Ralph Waldo Emerson and others of like spirit." She accompanied Abby Kelley Foster, Sojourner Truth and others on the abolitionist speaking circuit and brought abolitionist speakers to Harrisburg. She later enrolled in medical school and became the first practicing licensed female physician in Dauphin County. In addition to medicine, Kemp actively supported women's rights, temperance, childhood education and moral improvement.

Documentation: "Johnson v. Tompkins, et al," Case no. 7416, Circuit Court, Eastern District, Pennsylvania, April Term 1833, Hon. Henry Baldwin, Circuit Justice

The Kenderdines were a well-respected Quaker abolitionist family living near Hatboro, Pennsylvania. In 1821 they took in a fugitive slave from New Jersey, named Jack, hiring him as a farm hand. When Caleb Johnson, Jack's owner, showed up with a group of men at their farm in October 1822 and took Jack, Isachar and John chased them down and got into a violent confrontation before the slave catchers could reach town. The slaveholder, Caleb Johnson, was severely wounded in the head by a thrown rock. The confrontation did not keep Jack from being taken back into slavery, but it may have contributed to his manumission by Johnson several years later. The Kenderdines and several other Quaker neighbors were successfully sued by Johnson in 1833 for their role in the incident. Read a detailed account of the Hatboro, Pennsylvania fugitive slave trials here.

Documentation: Elizabeth Agnes Kilgore, "History of Mercer," unpublished manuscript, 1930.

Documentation: "Mrs. Mary W. Mann," Obituary, January 1899.  Transcribed by Sheri D. Graves at "Early Obituaries of Potter County, PA," http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/potter/Obituaries.html, Accessed 17 November 2006; William J. Switala, Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania, 2001, p. 118-119; W. W. Thompson, Historical Sketches of Potter County, Pennsylvania, 1925, p. 15.

English-born Quaker John King sheltered fugitive slaves in his rural Ceres Township home before forwarding them north to  Angelica, Canandaigua, and Geneseo, in New York state.  His daughter, Mary W. King married John S. Mann, a Quaker lawyer, and the Mann's Coudersport home was a haven for runaway slaves.  The obituary of Mary W. (King) Mann states "The King home in Ceres was the next 'station' to the Mann home in Coudersport of the 'Underground Railway.' "   However King also received fugitives from Joseph Mann, in Millport, who had in turn received them from his brother John in Coudersport.

Documentation: Obituary of Louisa Kingley, 15 June, 1882, quoted in "Women dedicated to unearthing info about Franklin's black heritage," Sheila Boughner-Blair, The Derrick, http://www.thederrick.com/stories/02272006-1102.shtml, accessed 12 May 2006.