In 1906, when it was no longer dangerous to talk about those who helped enslaved people seek freedom, Jacksonville resident Julia Carter, whose family were local abolitionists, gave a speech about the town’s extensive Underground Railroad (UGRR). This was the network of helpers and “safe houses” freedom seekers used to reach safe locations, such as northern Illinois or Canada. Her talk was printed in the Feb. 4, 1906, Jacksonville Daily Journal.
“In 1841, these fugitives from slavery first began to come through Jacksonville and from that time this always has been a station on the Underground Railroad,” she said. Many fugitives came from St. Louis and traveled to Springfield, Farmington, Tremont and farther.
An enslaved man who had a $1,000 bounty asked former slave Ben Henderson of Jacksonville to help him and a woman flee. It was a big ask. Those found guilty of aiding fleeing slaves could be sued, fined, jailed or killed by slavery supporters.
Henderson put them in his wagon, piled layers of hay and grain containers on top, and drove to Springfield, Carter said. “He went by daylight, drove leisurely, went across the square, stopped to talk by the way as no one suspected that more than $1,000 worth of human flesh and blood and brains lay hidden beneath his load.”
The Jacksonville Area Museum now has an exhibit about Illinoisans, Black and white, who worked on the UGRR.
“We’re really trying to do diverse stories and we’re really trying to make sure that every person who walks into this museum can see themselves in the stories we tell,” says JAM museum manager Tori Ohl about why the museum is hosting the exhibit. “I think it’s incredibly imperative in times like these to keep intellectual freedom alive. That’s everybody’s feeling at the museum; that’s our mission.”
“Journey to Freedom: Illinois’ Underground Railroad” is a traveling exhibition conceived and created by Looking for Lincoln, a Springfield nonprofit that “coordinates telling and preserving the story and times of Abraham Lincoln in Illinois,” says chief executive officer Sarah Watson. This is one of two UGRR exhibits it has loaned to more than a dozen communities throughout Illinois, from Cairo to Freeport, since 2025. “We’re booking into 2027 now,” she says. “It’s been received very well.”
The nonprofit created the exhibit because “there are so many untold stories in Illinois from Lincoln’s time period.”
It features panels with Illinois UGRR conductors’ photos, stories and motives. A video shows reenactors sharing the perspectives of real freedom seekers. Maps outline their routes through the state. One section explains why enslaved people risked “whipping, deprivation and humiliation” to escape.
The UGRR conductors include Moses Atwood and Dr. Benjamin Long of the Alton area, who used their insurance company and a fruit growers’ group as covers to transport enslaved people who were escaping.
Susan Richardson, known as “Aunt Sukey,” was another. She fled slavery only to have her children sold back into it and disappear from her life. She helped freedom seekers travel through Galesburg.
The Jacksonville Area Museum added its own touches to the displays. They’re in a dark room, topped by branches holding lighted lanterns, mimicking the night-time escapes many enslaved people made because that was the safest time to travel. African Americans’ songs play in the background.
“We wanted to take this pre-built exhibit to another level,” Ohl said, who helped create its night-time ambiance. The museum researched local people and buildings thought to be with the UGRR and included those it could verify, such as an Illinois College president and his wife, local business owners and a physician.
“It can be very difficult confirming and debunking who was involved, who wasn’t, and what house was involved,” she says. It’s like putting a puzzle together when you’re missing pieces. Because the UGRR was illegal, its operations were secret by necessity, often leaving little documentation.
“The keys to confirming or denying these individuals’ involvement came down to court records, genealogy research, our own archives, the internet, and records at public libraries in Jacksonville and Springfield,” Ohl said. “Sometimes this requires reading between the lines as some activity had to be hidden in codes or simple phrases so they didn’t attract attention.”
Sometimes confirmation came from a single document. Jacksonville resident J.O. King, who helped create Springfield’s public library, was verified because of a receipt from one of his businesses that was used to try another Jacksonville man for UGRR activities.
The UGRR exhibit will be displayed at JAM through Aug. 1. There are activities related to it this summer, thanks in part to a first-time collaboration among JAM, the Jacksonville African American History Museum and nearby Woodlawn Farm, a UGRR site.
On June 19, there will be a panel discussion with UGRR speakers featuring historian Brian Mitchell. More details will be announced soon.
On July 11 at 6 p.m. (the rain date is July 18) at Jacksonville’s Diamond Grove Cemetery, historian Chad Boehlke will lead “Walk with Heroes,” a tour of local UGRR conductors’ graves. Boehlke has researched what he calls “unsung UGRR helpers who weren’t officially recognized” over the years and has written a book about them, to be published this year.
This article appears in Summerguide 2026.
