Levi Coffin

Levi Coffin Jr. (October 28, 1798 – September 16, 1877) was an American Quaker, Republican, abolitionist, farmer, businessman and humanitarian. An active leader of the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio, some unofficially called Coffin the "President of the Underground Railroad", estimating that three thousand fugitive slaves passed through his care. The Coffin home in Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana, is a museum, sometimes called the Underground Railroad's "Grand Central Station".

Born near what became Greensboro, North Carolina, Coffin was exposed to and came to oppose slavery as a child. His family immigrated to Indiana in 1826, avoiding slaveholders' increasing persecution of Quakers, whose faith did not permit them to own slaves and who assisted freedom seekers. In Indiana, Coffin settled near the National Road with other Quakers in Wayne County, Indiana, near the Ohio border. He farmed, as well as became a local merchant and business leader. Coffin became a major investor in and director of the local Richmond branch of the Second State Bank of Indiana in the 1830s, Richmond being the Wayne County seat. His financial position at the bank and standing in the community also helped supply food, clothing and transportation for Underground Railroad operations in the region.

At the urging of friends in the anti-slavery movement, Coffin moved southward to the important Ohio River port city of Cincinnati in 1847, where he ran a warehouse that sold only free-labor goods. Despite making considerable progress with the business, the free-labor venture proved unprofitable; Coffin abandoned the enterprise after a decade. Meanwhile, during this 1847 through 1857 period, Coffin assisted hundreds of runaway slaves, often by lodging them in his Ohio home across the river from Kentucky and not far downriver from Virginia. Kentucky and Virginia remained slave states until slavery was abolished after the American Civil War.

In his final decade, Coffin traveled around the Midwest, as well as overseas to France and Great Britain, where he helped form aid societies to provide food, clothing, funds and education to former slaves. Coffin retired from public life in the 1870s, and wrote an autobiography, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, published in 1876, a year before his death.

Early life and education

Coffin was born on a farm in Guilford County, North Carolina, on October 28, 1798. The only son of Prudence (Williams) and Levi Coffin Sr., he had six sisters. Both of his parents were devout Quakers and attended the historic New Garden Friends Meeting. Coffin's father was born in Massachusetts during the 1760s and migrated from Nantucket to North Carolina, where he farmed with other Quakers in the New Garden community.

As Coffin later explained in his autobiography, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (1876), he inherited his anti-slavery views from his parent and grandparents, who had never owned slaves. The teachings of John Woolman (who believed that slaveholding was not fair) influenced the Coffin family. Coffin's parents probably met Woolman in 1767 during religious meetings held near their New Garden home with other non-slaveholding Quaker families. His cousin, Vestal Coffin, probably attended the meeting and beginning as early as 1819, became one of the earliest Quakers to help slaves escape from North Carolina.

Educated at his rural home, Coffin received little, if any, formal schooling.

By the time he reached the age of 15, Coffin was helping his family assist escaping slaves by bringing food to escapees hiding on his family's farm. As the repressive Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 became more rigorously enforced, the Coffin family needed to increase the secrecy under which they assisted escaping slaves, doing most of their illegal activities at night. Local scrutiny of known abolitionists worsened as North Carolina passed the 1804 Black Laws. By the early 1820s, Quakers in North Carolina were being openly persecuted by those who suspected them of helping runaway slaves. Nonetheless, in 1821 Coffin and his cousin, Vestal, established a Sunday School to teach slaves to read the Bible. The plan proved short-lived; slaveholders soon forced the school to close.

Marriage and family

On October 28, 1824, Coffin married his long-time friend Catherine White at the Hopewell Friends Meetinghouse in North Carolina. Members of Catherine's family were also anti-slavery activists and abolitionists and it is likely she met Coffin because of these activities. In 1826, they settled in Newport (now Fountain City) in Wayne County, Indiana.

Like her husband, Catherine actively assisted fugitive slaves, including providing food, clothing, and a safe haven in the Coffin home. As Levi commented on his wife's humanitarian work, "Her sympathy for those in distress never tired, and her effort in their behalf never abated. Catherine White became known as Aunt Katie to slaves on the run." In later years Coffin credited the success of his business, which he expanded in the 1830s, with providing him the ability to become heavily involved in the costly enterprise of the Underground Railroad, a risky enterprise that provided a network of stopover sites for fugitive slaves as they traveled north into Canada.

Although the term "Underground Railroad" did not come into use until the 1830s, the network was operating in Indiana by the early 1820s. According to Coffin, not long after moving to Newport his home became one of the Underground Railroad stops. Coffin had numerous collaborators. In Madison, George DeBaptiste's barber shop was a key nerve center in the 1830s and 1840s.

Slave hunters frequently threatened Coffin's life. Many of his friends who feared for his safety tried to dissuade him from his covert activities by warning him of the danger to his family and business. Coffin, who was deeply moved by his religious convictions, later explained his rationale for continuing the effort:

After listening quietly to these counselors, I told them that I felt no condemnation for anything that I had ever done for the fugitive slaves. If by doing my duty and endeavoring to fulfill the injunctions of the Bible, I injured my business, then let my business go. As to my safety, my life was in the hands of my Divine Master, and I felt that I had his approval. I had no fear of the danger that seemed to threaten my life or my business. If I was faithful to duty, and honest and industrious, I felt that I would be preserved, and that I could make enough to support my family.

In 1838 Coffin built a two-story, Federal-style brick home as his family's residence in Newport. Because the Levi Coffin House, its present-day name, had so many fugitives passing through it, the home became known as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad.

During the 1840s, pressure was brought to bear on the Quaker communities that helped escaping slaves. In 1842 the leaders of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) advised their members to cease membership in abolitionist societies and end activities assisting runaway slaves. The leaders insisted that legal emancipation was the best course of action. Coffin continued to take an active role in assisting escaping slaves, and the following year the Quaker society expelled him from membership. Coffin and other Quakers who supported his activities separated and formed the Antislavery Friends; the two rival groups remained separate until a reunification occurred in 1851.

Despite the opposition, the Coffin family's desire to help the runaway slaves only increased. Coffin's wife, Catherine, who was also dedicated to the effort, organized a sewing society that met at their home to produce clothing to give to the runaways.

Over the years, Coffin came to realize that many of the goods he sold in his business were produced with slave labor. Through his travels Coffin learned of organizations in Philadelphia and New York City that only sold goods produced with free (non-slave) labor. He began to purchase stock from these organizations and marketed free-labor goods to his fellow abolitionists, though the products provided him with little profit.

Free-labor proponents in the East also wanted to create a similar organization in the western states. In the 1840s, members of the Salem Free Produce Association approached Coffin to see if he would be interested in managing the proposed Western Free Produce Association. At first he declined, saying he lacked the money required to fund the venture, and that he did not want to move into the city.

Cincinnati Coffin moved to the Cincinnati area in 1847, where he took over the management of a wholesale warehouse of free-labor goods. With the intention of returning to Newport, Indiana, after fulfilling his obligation in Cincinnati, Coffin rented out his Newport business and made arrangements for his Indiana home to continue serving as an Underground Railroad stop. At Cincinnati his first task was working with the eastern organizations to set up a steady supply of free-labor goods for the business. The enterprise's ongoing problem was the poor quality of its goods. Coffin had difficulty procuring free goods, such as cotton, sugar, and spices, whose quality was competitive with the goods produced by slave labor. With inferior quality goods to sell, he had a difficult time finding purchasers for the goods. The problem plagued the business for years, causing the enterprise constant financial struggles.

The problem of obtaining good-quality free-labor products forced Coffin to travel south to seek out plantations that did not use slave labor to produce their goods. He met with only limited success. Coffin located a cotton plantation in Mississippi, where the owner had freed all his slaves and hired them as free laborers. The plantation struggled financially because it had no equipment to automate cotton production. Coffin helped the owner purchase a cotton gin that greatly increased the plantation's productivity and provided a steady supply of cotton for Coffin's association. The cotton was shipped to Cincinnati, where it was spun into cloth and sold. Other trips to Tennessee and Virginia were less successful, although he did succeed in spreading the word about the free-labor goods movement.

Despite his constant attention to the business, the poor supply and insufficient supply of free-labor products proved to be insurmountable, making it impossible for Coffin to find a replacement to run the company so that he could return to Indiana. The company remained in business primarily through the financial support of wealthy benefactors. Coffin sold the business in 1857, after deciding it would be impossible to maintain a profitable business.

Cincinnati already had a large anti-slavery movement who had violent conflicts with slavery proponents in the years before Coffin moved to the city. Coffin purchased a new home at the corner of Elm and Sixth Streets and continued to be active in the Underground Railroad. He also set up a new safe house in the city and helped organize a larger network in the area.

Although Coffin and his wife moved several times during their years in Cincinnati, they finally settled at a home on Wehrman Street.

One of the classic account of slaves that escaped on the Underground Railroad was Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional work, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which relates the story of Eliza Harris, a young slave girl who escaped the South by crossing the Ohio River on a winter night. Barefooted and carrying her baby, the fictional Eliza was exhausted and nearly dead when she reached safety. After receiving food, clothing, new shoes, and shelter from Stowe's fictional Quaker couple, Simeon and Rachael Halliday, Eliza continued her journey to freedom in Canada. Stowe, who was living in the city at the time, was acquainted with the Coffins, who may have been the inspiration for the Halliday couple in her novel.

Coffin's role began to change as the American Civil War approached. In 1854 he made a trip to Canada to visit a community of escaped slaves and offer assistance. He also helped found a Cincinnati orphanage for Black children. When the war broke out in 1861, Coffin and his group began preparation to help the wounded. As a Quaker pacifist he was opposed to war, but supported the Union. Coffin and his wife spent almost every day at Cincinnati's military hospital helping to care for the wounded. The Coffins prepared large quantities of coffee, distributed it freely to the soldiers, and took many of them into their home.

In 1863 Coffin became an agent for the Western Freedman's Aid Society, which offered assistance to the slaves who were freed during the war. As Union troops moved into the South, Coffin's group coordinated aid to slaves who had escaped to Union territory and began collecting food and other goods to distribute to former slaves who were now behind the Union lines. Coffin also petitioned the U.S. government to create the Freedmen's Bureau to assist the freed slaves. After the war he became involved in helping freed slaves establish businesses and obtain an education. In 1864, as a leader of the Freedman's Aid Society, he sought aid in Great Britain,

Coffin did not enjoy being in the public eye and considered his job soliciting financial aid as begging for money, which he thought to be demeaning. He stated in his autobiography that he gladly gave up the position once a new leader for the organization was selected. Coffin became concerned about giving money freely to all blacks, some of whom he believed would never be able to care for themselves unless adequate education and farms were provided. He also believed the Society should give their limited resources only to those who were best able to benefit from them. The Society continued to operate until 1870, the same year that black men were guaranteed the right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Historians consider Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, published in 1876, among the best firsthand accounts of the Underground Railroad. Coffin's wife, Catherine, who died four years later on May 22, 1881, is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery as well.

Known for his fearlessness in assisting runaway slaves, Coffin served as a role model who encouraged his neighbors to help contribute to the effort, although many were wary of providing them with a safe haven in their homes as he and his wife did.

Historians have estimated that the Coffins helped approximately 2,000 escaping slaves during their twenty years in Indiana and an estimated 1,300 more after their move to Cincinnati. (Coffin did not keep records, but estimated the number to be around 3,000.) When questioned about his motives for aided fugitive slaves, Coffin once replied: "The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book."

On July 11, 1902, African Americans erected a tall monument at Coffin's previously unmarked gravesite in Cincinnati. Indiana's state government purchased the Coffin home in 1967 and had it restored to its original condition. The home features the actual secret hiding places where slaves would hide while on the run. Also featured at the home is an original false-bottom wagon where slaves would hide while Coffin would take them to their next destination without being discovered. The Coffin House was ranked as "one of the nation's Top 25 Historical Sites" by the History Channel. In 2016, the Smithsonian named the Levi Coffin House Interpretive Center "one of 12 new museums around the world to visit," while the Indiana Office of Tourism Development voted it as one of the top museums in the State of Indiana. The home opened to the public as a historic site in 1970.