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Caption: The Covenanter Church / The Underground Railroad Marker - right image
Additional Description: December 5, 1895

Dear Professor Wilbur H. Siebert,

I was first settled as pastor in Southfield, Michigan, 16 miles from Detroit, in a good but retired community of people, mainly abolitionists and had in my house or in my congregation always a supply of escaped slaves. They would come from Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, and sometimes singly, sometimes in groups of from two to ten into the keeping of the faithful, who either sent them to me or to Canada for shelter and employment.

They frequently returned to me from Canada when wages were low and workers superabundant. Slave-hunters oftem came to Detroit in pursuit of valuable slaves. J. Sella Martin, a slave from Alabama, was pursued to Chicago and then to Detroit and a reward of $1,000 offered for his capture. He was six weeks in my house and was the smartest man I have ever met. I put him through a theological course in that time. He afterward became a very eloquent Baptist minister in Boston
Submitted: January 3, 2020, by Joel Seewald of Madison Heights, Michigan.
Database Locator Identification Number: p506671
File Size: 3.407 Megabytes

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