![]() They all have cellars, but there’s not much proof that freedom seekers were actually hidden in them-except possibly at the Hitchock House. There are five underground railroad stops in Iowa that have been preserved (Lewelling House in Salem, Pearson House in Keosauqua, Jordan House in West Des Moines, Hitchcock House in Lewis, and the John Todd House in Tabor). The word “underground” makes people think freedom seekers on the run must have been hidden in basements or cellars. Maybe that’s why the “underground road” became an “underground railroad.” Those who kept “safe houses” for freedom seekers were called “station agents.” Others who guided freedom seekers from one place to another became ”conductors.” Freedom seekers themselves were referred to as “passengers.” Underground Doesn't Mean Under Ground Steam railroads were a new and exciting means of travel in 1831. Returning home empty-handed, Tice’s owner told everyone that his slave “must have escaped on an underground road.” His master followed him to the banks of the Ohio River, but lost track of him when he dived into the water and swam across to Ripley, Ohio. The name may have come from an incident in 1831 when a freedom seeker (runaway slave) named Tice David ran away from a Kentucky plantation. The “underground railroad” was an organized system for helping escaped slaves from the southern states reach freedom in the North or Canada in the years before the Civil War.
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