Check it out!
The Old Slave House represents one of only two sites on the reverse Underground Railroad still standing in the country.


Coming Soon!
Books on
Southern Illinois
Underground Railroad
— Local U.G.R.R. Stories —

  • Underground Railroad ran both ways in Southern Illinois
    HARRISBURG, Ill. (May 2, 1997) — In ante-bellum Southern Illinois the Underground Railroad ran both ways. Both ran contrary to the law of the land, but while one was a righteous crusade, the other was for criminal profit.
  • Underground Railroad went through [Saline] county
    HARRISBURG, Ill. (Dec. 2, 1996) — According to local tradition free blacks living in the Pond Settlement southeast of what is now Carrier Mills helped runaway slaves and indentured servants escape from the saline works and the Old Slave House.
— Kidnapping Rings — U.G.R.R. in Reverse —

  • Black kidnappings in the southeastern Illinois
    Written for a seminar in Illinois History at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, this paper focuses on the "reverse" Underground Railroad that operated along the Wabash and Ohio Valleys of Southern Illinois.
— Underground Railroad Sites —

  • The North Star: Tracing the Underground Railroad
    In the years before the Civil War, a secret network of people and places, known as the Underground Railroad, helped slaves escape to freedom. Many of the places and people associated with those events have never been documented. This web site is dedicated to that purpose.


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Last updated July 11, 1999 — Back to the Southern Illinois History Page
©1999 Jon Musgrave