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About the House

About the Blodgetts

About the UnderGround RailRoad

 

 

The Underground Railroad was a large movement of people, white, black and some native tribes, who opposed slavery and worked together at great risk to help people escape to freedom. Not all people escaping slavery had the assistance of the UGRR, but for many it became an organized system of stops where people seeking freedom were hidden all the way from the south to the north in the U.S. until reaching Canada where they were free of slavery. Due to their strong convictions about the injustices of slavery, people united into a far-reaching network that included their home, a barn, a secret room, a basement, a cistern, or anyplace where a person escaping slavery could be hidden until taken to the next stop. This organized system was called "underground" because it seemed as if people would suddenly disappear, as if going underground.  DuPage County was a critical passageway because it was due west of Chicago, the destination for catching boats sailing to Canada, where slavery had been outlawed. The risks for helping on the UGRR after 1850 were substantial. The Blodgetts accepted these risks and used their house as a secret stopover, playing a key role in the Underground Railroad in DuPage county.

THE WESTERN CITIZEN, published in Chicago, was a principal news source about anti-slavery activities in the middle of the 19th Century.  Fragments of this newspaper have recently been found behind the lath and plaster in the 1946 Blodgett House.

1840s WESTERN CITIZEN


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