Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims
Underground Railroad Heritage Trail
The congregation of Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims hired Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) as their first minister, approving of his abolitionist sentiments. Beecher protested the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1850, exhorting his congregation to place the requirements of sacred law above those of human law and to join the Underground Railroad. He promised to shelter fugitive slaves and treat them "as my own flesh and blood." Plymouth Church was on the route used by Reverend Charles Ray (1807-1886), an African American conductor for the Underground Railroad.
Beecher held mock slave auctions at the church, raising money to buy slaves' freedom. The first, on June 1, 1856, raised more than the $1200 necessary to pay off a slave trader for Sarah. Sarah used the remainder to buy a small farm where she supported herself for the rest of her life raising chickens and vegetables.
"I will both shelter them [fugitive slaves], conceal them,or speed their flight, and while under my shelter, or under my convoy,they shall be to me as my own flesh and blood...."
Henry Ward Beecher
Marker is on Hicks Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
