Enslavementto
freedom
People involved with the story of Pennsylvania's Underground Railroad network, including activists, freedom seekers, station masters, conductors, financiers, lawyers, slave hunters, abolitionists, anti-slavery and pro-slavery adherents, politicians, heroes, villains, and more.
Study Areas
Who's Who in Pennsylvania's Underground Railroad
O Surnames
- Oenslager, John
- Location: Harrisburg, Dauphin County ; Role: Underground Railroad activist and supporter
Documentation: Harrisburg Telegraph, 14 November 1898, page 1.
German-born John Oenslager settled in Harrisburg with his family as a teenaged boy, apprenticing with jeweler and clockmaker George J. Heisley. Oenslager was a jeweler, watchmaker, a shoemaker, and in later years became a wealthy real-estate developer. Published biographical collections, as well as his Harrisburg area newspaper obituaries describe him as an "ardent abolitionist" who was active in the Harrisburg area Underground Railroad network.