Monroe County Underground Railroad Resources

The Underground Railroad (UGRR) is a name for a secret communication network and routes used by enslaved Blacks and their supporters, all who took enormous risks to break the law to find a place to live free.

Oral history––which is not hard evidence––instructs that Monroe County did indeed have an active and choreographed movement to shelter and transport African Americans. The Covenanters or Presbyterians are consistently identified in this movement, offering money, food, blankets, horses, or a safe place to stay the night.

Resources

• Hannah's grandson, Willis O. Taylor (spoke of Hannah's role in the Underground Railroad)
   
• Hannah McCaw's Tombstone (Find-a-Grave)
   
• History of the Bloomington Reformed Presbyterian Church:
  The Underground Railroad
  Covenanter Cemetery
   
• Map of Monroe County (1856) PDF
   
• Map of Monroe County (Survey Utility) GIS
   
• Monroe County Timeline
  A printer-friendly list of events related to the oral history of the Underground Railroad
   
• The Perilous Journey of a Fugitive Slave (a 2020 article by Randi Richardson for Monroe County History Center's Research Blog)
   
• The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in Monroe County, Indiana (1908 article by James Albert Woodburn for the Indiana Historical Society)
   
• The Underground Railroad in Monroe County (a 1917 article by Henry Lester Smith for the Indiana Magazine of History)
  PDF version of the article
   
• For state and regional sources, curriculum, and programs, check out the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) website 
   
• Indiana's Underground Railroad (a 2022 video by and with DNR's Jeannie R. Regan-Dinius)