Greene County and Wilberforce

American Visions, April-May, 1995 by Henry Chase, Charles Blockson

Thirty years of research has shown me that in most cases, wherever there was an African Methodist Epispocal church before the Civil War, it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. From the late-18th-century inception of the church in Philadelphia under Richard Allen, it participated with others in protecting escaping slaves from the South. The church's efforts in this direction followed the geographical spread of its congregations around the country.

Allen and others who followed him--such as Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, who later served as the president of Wilberforce University--gave their services widely, both literally and figuratively, because many of them served as circuit riders. As they moved from one church to another, they spread the word of the Underground Railroad; they were circuit liders not only of the churches, but also of the antislavery movement.

Wherever they traveled, they learned about the various communities, the communities' protectors and the communities' menaces: slave hunters and the like.

In the time of slavery, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was unique--a nationwide autonomous African-American institution, exclusively conceived, birthed and raised by and within the black community. And it was this church that founded and led Wilberforce University, which from its inception in Xenia, Ohio, was an important station on the Underground Railroad in the Midwest. Although the black community there was small, it was committed to protecting its African-American brothers and sisters who had fled from the South.

Wilberforce University's role was also critical to the black community in another sense. As far back as the Free African Society, which was founded in the 1790s, our community had as one of its central aims the establishment of educational facilities for African Americans. When Wilberforce was established, the center of this driving force, this urge toward education, was transferred from Philadelphia and New York to Ohio. Of course, there were Lincoln and Cheyney universities in Pennsylvania and Oberlin in Ohio, all of which served blacks, but Wilberforce--with Payne and other highly educated and impressive people--was a fully African-American enteprise, a unique statement of black determination and capacity. This distinction is significant, and it was certainly seen so by our ancestors.

The farmhouses, fields and rural towns of Greene County, Ohio, that once offered refuge to fugitive slaves have long since been dramatically transformed. Nevertheless, Wilberforce University still stands proudly, and so do the remains of many of Greene County's Underground Railroad stations. Today, visitors to the area not only can take a guided tour of the old Underground Railroad; they can also wander through museums, walk through historic mills, take part in cultural festivals, witness a re-enacted clash between Ohio's first settlers and the Shawnee Indians they displaced, and examine the home of Paul Laurence Dunbar--the first African-American poet to achieve national prominence.

The Greene County Underground Railroad Tour is a guided one--you will be hard pressed to find the old stations on your own, as even those houses that still stand lack historical markers describing their 19th-century roles. Among the places highlighted on the tour are: the Rev. Samuel Wilson House (site of an Ohio Anti-Slavery Society convention in the early 1830s), the Rev. Jones Farm (Jones, Wilberforce University's fourth president, hid runaways in a barn that had a false-floored hayloft), the Mitchell House (with three stairways capable of concealing runaways), the Hilltop Road House (a pantry floor lifted out to reveal an underground room), and the Nosker Residence (a trapdoor revealed steps leading to a tunnel that connected to a small cave in the front yard).

The tour is still a work in progress. For information on times, duration and fees, call either the Greene County Convention and Visitors Bureau, (800) 733-9109, or the National Afro-American Museum, (800) BLK-HIST.

Related to this tour is the Col. Charles Young House. Although in slavery days runaways hid in its cellar and its barn, the house transcends the Underground Railroad, for it was later the home of America's leading black soldier, a man who served his country in an exemplary fashion and, in return, saw his chance for senior field command destroyed exclusively on racial grounds.

As the United States entered World War I, it had one black graduate of West Point as a field officer. Lt. Col. Charles Young spoke Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and German; had secured recognition for his successful training, organizing and disciplining efforts of the raw recruits of the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the earlier Spanish-American War; and was a combat veteran of Pershing's expedition into Mexico in search of Pancho Villa, Scheduled to assume command of the renowned 10th Cavalry (which, excepting its officers, was all-black), Young saw his career crushed by President Woodrow Wilson's direct and personal intervention. When a white officer of the 10th expressed his dislike of taking orders from a black man, Secretary of War Newton Baker first thought he should "either do his duty or resign." But Wilson, alerted to the issue by a Mississippi senator, presidentially "suggested" to Newton that the white officer be transferred to another unit. Soon other politicians followed suit, and Baker had Young placed on the retired list on medical grounds. In response, Young rode on horseback 500 miles from Wilberforce, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to establish that he was not medically unfit for service. Perhaps it is indeed better to travel than arrive, for Young's ride was in vain. He could lead black troops in action, but not white troops to the mess hall, and certainly he could not order a white officer and gentleman to do an officer's duty. Not until five days before the signing of the armistice was Young readmitted to the service and placed in command of a training camp in Indiana.