John Rankin (abolitionist)

John Rankin (February 4, 1793 - March 18, 1886) was a Presbyterian minister, educator and abolitionist. Upon moving to Ripley, Ohio in 1822, he became known as one of Ohio's first and most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. Prominent pre-Civil War abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement.

Ripley and the Underground Railroad

In 1822, Ripley was a town of frequent street fights and shootouts where the most common type of business was a saloon. During the Rankins' first few months there, hecklers and protesters often followed the new preacher through town and gathered outside his cabin while their first permanent home was being built just yards from the river at 220 Front Street. When the local newspaper began publishing his letters to his brother on the topic of slavery (see next section), Rankin's reputation grew among both supporters and opponents of the anti-slavery movement. Slave owners and hunters often viewed him as their prime suspect and appeared at his door at all hours demanding information about fugitives. Soon, Rankin realized that the home was too accessible a place for him to properly raise his family.

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In 1829, Rankin moved his wife and nine children (of an eventual total of thirteen) to a house at the top of a 540-foot-high hill that provided a wide view of the village, the River and the Kentucky shoreline, as well as farmland and fruit groves that could provide sources of income. From there the family could raise a lantern on a flagpole to signal fleeing slaves in Kentucky when it was safe for them to cross the Ohio River.http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/page.cfm?ID=4626 Rankin also constructed a staircase leading up the hill to the house for slaves to climb up to safety on their way further north.http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/page.cfm?ID=4630 For over forty years leading up to the Civil War, many of the 2000 slaves who escaped to freedom through Ripley stayed at the family's home, and none was ever recaptured there. It became known as the Rankin House and is now a U.S. National historic landmark (see photos). (Hagedorn, pp. 43-44, 56)

Related Topics:
1829 - Civil War - National historic landmark

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The real Eliza

During a visit by Rankin to Lane Theological Seminary to see one of his sons, he told Professor Calvin Stowe the story of a woman the Rankins had housed in 1838 after she escaped by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her child in her arms. Stowe's wife (Harriet Beecher Stowe) also heard the account and later modeled the character Eliza in her book Uncle Tom's Cabin after the woman. (Hagedorn, p. 139)

Related Topics:
1838 - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Film depiction

The film, "Brothers of the Borderland," is a permanent feature of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati (opened 2004) that depicts Rankin's work in the Underground Railroad in Ripley.

Related Topics:
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center - 2004

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