BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer

You can help If you know anything about a person or site that was part of the Underground Railroad in Kentucky, please call one of these groups: Northern Kentucky African American Heritage Task Force, 824 Greenup St., Covington 41011. 431-5502. Kentucky Heritage Council, 300 Washington St., Frankfort 40601. 502-564-7005. African American Heritage Commission, 300 Washington St., Frankfort 40601. 502-564-7005.

It was an illegal activity, a trade not talked about freely. A movement secretly conducted.

Under cover of darkness, along streams and creeks in the valleys between rolling hills, slaves ran for freedom, headed north to cross the Ohio River.

Kentucky was a border state central to the Underground Railroad's success. Until now, the state has done little to recognize sites associated with the African-American heritage.

Interest in preserving pieces of the Underground Railroad is rising and there is excitement - especially in Northern Kentucky - about putting on record Kentucky's role in the path to freedom. The task won't be easy.

First those wishing to document the Underground Railroad have to build a bridge to those with the information.

"The main thing is for people who have the information to not fear confrontation. It's not about that," said Ted Harris, a Covington resident on the state's African American Heritage Commission. "It's about understanding the period. And it'll help everything: tourism, academics and the community."

Researchers have plenty of history and a lot of lore to verify but there are no officially documented sites in the state, said Richard Jett, an architectural historian with the Kentucky Heritage Council in Frankfort.

The structures are out there. Mary Northington, director of the Northern Kentucky African American Heritage Task Force, is working with local volunteers and the National Park Service to gather information about Underground Railroad sites in Boone, Campbell, Kenton, Bracken, Mason and other Northern Kentucky counties.

So far there are stories and some minor paper work on 14 locations being investigated.

In Covington, sites include the tower of the Mother of God Church on West Sixth Street, homes on Riverside Drive, the Weisnall House on Highland Avenue, and the house at the corner of 18th and Maryland. The Carneal House on Second Street has a tunnel that leads toward the river. Mr. Harris remembers his first-grade teacher telling how her grandmother used the home - now a bed and breakfast - to escape to Canada.

A tunnel discovered during construction of the Panorama Apartments on Fourth Street also has been linked to the Underground Railroad. Elmwood Hall, on Forrest Avenue in Ludlow, is well-recognized by the National Park Service for tunnels and hiding spaces used by fleeing slaves.

The task force also wants to determine the route Margaret Gardner took from a Boone County plantation to where she crossed into Ohio at the end of Covington's Main Street.

Other stations may have been operated at the Dinsmore Homestead in Burlington; the General James Taylor Mansion on the line between Bellevue and Newport; White Hall in Bracken County; the St. Paul Methodist Church in August; and at Feebrook Farm in Brookville. "We would like to have the resources to pursue some of these leads," Ms. Northington said. "If we can substantiate that this is a strong area of Underground Railroad activity, the park service will help us document and preserve them."

Authenticating history

What supporters need now is to find credible, verifiable ways to prove the stories are true.

"To think that in some way there is a whole element of the story of who was involved on this side of the river that's just not there. That's impossible to me," Mr. Jett said.

"I just can't imagine that it isn't documented somewhere. Maybe those who have it don't put much importance to it."

What state officials and local volunteers would love to find are written accounts or diaries of specific buildings and individuals.

Because discussions about the railroad have remained undercover for so long, the information is hard to come by. Railroad conductors didn't talk about their work and the descendants of slave holders don't like to share their family histories.

But time is running out to pull everything together, Mr. Harris said. The time between the ancestor who traveled the railroad and those living today is getting wider and the facts might get lost. Mr. Harris is working with the history and geography departments at Northern Kentucky University. He'd like to see archaeological digs and other studies incorporated into classes.

At the state level, the heritage council and the African American Heritage Commission are working on plans for research to document and preserve sites.

Officials acknowledge the effort is long overdue. And in a sense, Kentucky is being pushed by the National Park Service and by plans to add the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to Cincinnati's riverfront by 2002.

"As we've become more mature and more insightful we realize the history of America is much broader than that of the very small percentage of people that maybe were the most powerful," Mr. Jett said.

"There's a lot going on now nationally, and Kentucky needs to be a part of that."

History can heal

The coming to light of Kentucky's underground railroad will also help heal racial rifts and bring more understanding between whites and blacks, said Jerry Gore, minority student affairs director at Morehead State University.

"Telling the history of our people, and of the Underground Railroad, is the way to make a change," he said.

This much is known:

In 1790, there were 12,430 slaves and 114 freedmen in Kentucky, according to a census from that year. Between 1790 and 1860, the number of slaves in Kentucky topped off at 240,000.

With 700 miles of boundaries and 24 counties bordering free states, historians believe there were dozens of routes followed to freedom. Main paths led from Paducah to Cincinnati. Others ran along rivers in the eastern part of the state, working their way to Maysville and into Ripley, Ohio.

Remnants of these secret passageways remain. Along the western route is Mammoth Cave, a place of refuge for runaways headed north. In the east is the settlement of Old Washington, now incorporated into Maysville.

Maysville is unique - the community has made concerted efforts to document more than a dozen locations. With the National Park Service's help, the city started the one-room National Underground Railroad Museum in 1995.

"There are many descendants of slave owners here," Mr. Gore said. A Maysville native, he is part of efforts to document the history. "We want those people not to be ashamed but to come forward and share what they know."

Because of the historical integrity of early 1800s Maysville homes like the Paxton Inn and Phillip's Folly, the National Park Service wants to designate Maysville as the starting point for a route that would trace the Underground Railroad movement to Canada, the only place where slaves were truly free.

Those working in Northern Kentucky say the same kind of preservation and knowledge needs to happen there. Ms. Northington was in Maysville this week with National Park Service representatives, talking of ways Northern Kentucky can put sites on the map.

State and local agencies also are working to create a guide to the routes slaves followed. One created for Ohio shows at least 18 trails leading into Kentucky.

"It happened in history and we have to deal with it," Mr. Harris said. "You cannot ignore Kentucky. Kentucky cannot ignore itself. To ignore Kentucky is to say that escaping slaves pole vaulted across the state to reach Cincinnati."

MAYSVILLE ONCE BASTION OF SLAVERY, ROUTE TO FREEDOM
FREEDOM ROAD STORIES SOUGHT FOR HISTORY