A new Boone County Public Library feature connects Rabbit Hash and Petersburg to a network that helped more than a thousand enslaved people cross the Ohio River to freedom.
The feature, titled "Agents of Freedom," was published Sept. 9 on the library's BCPL Undiscovered blog. Written by Hillary Delaney, the library's local history associate and lead researcher for African American history initiatives, it profiles Underground Railroad conductors who operated in and around Boone County in the 1840s and 1850s.
The piece arrives nearly three months after Gov. Andy Beshear posthumously pardoned 43 people convicted of helping enslaved individuals escape. Beshear signed the executive order June 15, ahead of Juneteenth.
"These leaders are heroes – not criminals – and they and their families deserve the justice of having their names cleared," Beshear said at the signing, according to LEX 18.
Among those pardoned was Elijah Anderson, a free Black man from Virginia who relocated to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, in 1847. Anderson claimed to have helped more than 1,000 people escape enslavement, 800 of those after 1850.
Several documented escapes began in Rabbit Hash and Petersburg. From fall 1852 to early spring 1853, nearly 70 freedom seekers left Boone County, and the library's feature notes Anderson was likely involved in some of those departures.
Anderson was arrested in 1857 for allegedly kidnapping an enslaved person in Henry County. He was sentenced to 10 years at the state penitentiary in Frankfort. Due for early release in 1861 for good behavior, Anderson was instead found dead in his cell on the day of his scheduled release. The cause remains unknown.
The blog also profiles Sam Barkshire, who was enslaved in Boone County until Joseph Hawkins manumitted him in 1833. Barkshire settled in Rising Sun, Indiana, where he worked as a cooper and coordinated a local Underground Railroad network. Levi Coffin, the Cincinnati-based abolitionist known as the "president of the Underground Railroad," referred Michigan conductor Laura Smith Haviland to Barkshire for help freeing a family enslaved near Rabbit Hash.
Barkshire's three sons served as conductors on the river and along land routes. The youngest, a teenager, led people all the way to Canada. His three daughters also likely helped run a station near the river to hide freedom seekers.
Boone County's geography made it a critical crossing point. The county sits at the northernmost edge of what was a slave-holding state, with 40 miles of river bordering Ohio and Indiana, both free states before the Civil War.
Delaney, a Boone County native, has researched local Underground Railroad history since 2013. Her work has earned recognition including the Thomas D. Clark Award of Excellence from the Kentucky Historical Society and the NAACP Northern Kentucky Community Empowerment Award.
Beshear has encouraged Kentuckians who know of someone who deserves a posthumous pardon for helping enslaved individuals reach freedom to email [email protected].
