Untold Stories: Elijah Anderson, Martyr of the Underground Railroad

“The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth of the land.” — Henry David Thoreau

“Anderson took numerous trips into Kentucky, where he purportedly rounded up 20 to 30 enslaved people at a time and whisked them to freedom.” —History.com

My depiction of Elijah Anderson, with Underground Railroad in background.

There are so many inspiring, beautiful stories about the great heroes of American history which are scarcely ever told. One happens on them accidentally—buried in a thick, out-of-print biography, in small print on a museum sign, casually and fleetingly mentioned in an obscure educational video. America cannot return to greatness in the future if we do not truly understand the greatness of our past. That is why I am writing an article series to tell a few of these little-known but moving or illustrative “untold stories” of American greatness. Previous articles in this series include how George Washington saved a slave family from being divided; James Armistead Lafayette, the slave turned Patriot double agent; Joe Medicine Crow, a WWII hero and the last Crow war chief; Fr. Capodanno, the “Grunt Padre”; and the story of coward-turned-Patriot hero John Callendar.

February has been titled “Black History Month,” but leftists are no more interested in telling the stories of patriotic black Americans than they are in praising white patriots. One largely untold but inspiring chapter of American history are the black heroes of the Underground Railroad, helping slaves to join them in a life of freedom. Today’s story is bittersweet, for Elijah Anderson helped bring many slaves to freedom—but he lost his life for his admirable work.

The Ohio River was a border between slave and free states, often referred to as the “River Jordan” in abolitionist circles, according to History.com. In the Bible, the Israelites entered into the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan River, and for slaves seeking the freedom God had given them as their natural right the Ohio was the border to their “Promised Land.”  The Ohio river town of Madison, Indiana, became an important crossing point for fugitive slaves, and that was because of the middle-class black citizens of Madison, most particularly blacksmith Elijah Anderson.

Anderson was called “General Superintendent” of the Underground Railroad. Chronicles of Boone County Kentucky provides some background on this remarkable man:

“Anderson, born a free African American in Fluvanna, VA in 1808, left the state at a time that Virginia had began imposing strict rules on free blacks in response to Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831. He arrived in Cincinnati in the early 1830s, married, then settled in Madison County, IN around 1835. There he bought a home, started a blacksmith business and joined an active Underground Railroad community. Anderson is credited with establishing many escape routes, some running north through Kentucky soil. In 1847, Anderson moved to Lawrenceburg, IN when his activities in Madison had become too dangerous.”

That danger was made clear when a mob of white slavery-lovers rampaged in Madison and nearly drowned an operative of the Underground Railroad. It was time for Anderson to find a new base of operations, which he did—to assist a staggering 800+ fugitives.

Lawrenceburg was reportedly not a particularly friendly town for free blacks. Anderson, his wife Mary, and their daughter were all comparatively light-skinned, however, so much so that they could sometimes pass for white people. This worked in Anderson’s favor when he was rescuing slaves on the Underground Railroad. He was known to pretend to be a slave owner when escorting escaping slaves on their way to freedom. Chronicles of Boone County:

“Anderson’s risky method was to take large groups of slaves at one time, rather than many smaller groups. Boone County slave owners began losing slaves by the dozens around the time of Elijah’s arrival in the area. According to the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, the Powell, Norris and Stephens families all lost multiple slaves in 1847 and 1848. Boone County slave owners lost nearly 70 slaves from the fall of 1852 to the early spring of 1853. Anderson himself claimed to have helped nearly 1000 slaves escape, 800 of those after 1850.

Using his blacksmith’s tools, Anderson would hammer out code, sending the message of escape across the river to agents and fugitives on Boone County’s crossing points. The heavily wooded areas and hills provided natural cover for those fleeing toward the river. There were doubtless many local families helping to move fugitives through Boone County to freedom, but helping slaves was risky. Most abolitionists in slave states wisely kept their identities secret; even today names are not easily found in history.”

Sadly, in 1857, only a few years before the Civil War would begin and the slavery conflict would come to a head, Anderson’s work ended. He was arrested for “kidnapping” a slave from Henry County, and sentenced to a ten-year stint at the state penitentiary in Frankfort for “enticing slaves to run away.” By 1861—the very year the war began—he was scheduled for an early release based on his good behavior. Tragically, on the very day of his release, he was found dead in his cell from “unknown causes.” Unsurprisingly, his death was and is considered suspicious.

But whether Anderson was deliberately murdered or died of “natural causes” while serving an unjust sentence in jail, the fact remains that he gave the ultimate sacrifice to help others to freedom. In an America where many Democrat states and white citizens (and some black citizens too) were so dedicated to slavery they were willing to go to war to defend it, surrounded by racism and violent hatred just because he wanted all men to experience the blessings of liberty and equality that the Founding U.S. documents promised, Anderson was not cowed.

He knew that America was meant to be a land of opportunity for all men and women, regardless of their skin color, and that no sacrifice was too great to pay in fighting the horrific moral evil of slavery. So today we salute Elijah Anderson, a true American hero who died in prison so that hundreds of his fellow black Americans could be free.