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REPORTED STATIONS
The vast majority of the sites reported as having
been associated with Underground Railroad activity in Wisconsin have yet
to be documented sufficiently to meet the verification criteria established
by the National Park Service. They are identified in the following list
with a "U." Sites that have received
Park Service verification are marked with a "V."
Fond du Lac County
Ripon.
The birthplace of the Republican Party in 1854 and in 1860 the principal
site of the violent confrontation between followers of Sherman Booth and
Federal marshals, Ripon has long been reported as a station of the Underground
Railroad in Wisconsin. Caves under Ripon's main street, thought to have
been used as both a sanctuary and an escape route, are now being investigated
by the Fond du Lac County Speleological Society.
Willard
Pond Farm, Alto Township. James B. Pond, the nation's premier impressario
during the latter decades of the Nineteenth Century and a Civil War Medal
of Honor recipient, reported in his 1903 autobiographical book, Eccentricities
of Genius, that he assisted his father in operating a station
of the Underground Railroad on the Pond farm between 1847 and 1853.
[Fairwater Historical Society and Kevin Dier-Zimmel]
Rock County
Milton
House, Milton. Constructed as a stagecoach inn in 1847
by Joseph Goodrich, the octagon-shaped building features a basement tunnel
thought to have been used as an escape route when slave catchers were
in the vicinity. [Milton Historical Society]
Walworth County:
Rev.
Solomon Ashley Dwinnell Residence, Spring Prairie. Sanctuary for
Caroline Quarrels during her 1842 escape. [J. N.
Davidson, Negro Slavery in Wisconsin and the Underground Railroad, 1897]
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