Underground Railroad In McDonough County

The Illinois leg of the famous Underground Railroad  ran directly through McDonough County from it’s origin in Quincy, IL where slaves arriving clandestinely from the Southern Confederate States via the Mississippi River stopped seeking refuge in free Northern Union States and Canada.  The two most prominent conductors on the “railroad” were the Allison and Blazer families.

Below you will find a photograph courtesy of WIU Professor of History Tim Roberts of the unmarked location of a UGRR station near Macomb, Illinois, “operated” by Harmon Allison, who settled there with his wife Beulah around 1854.

Many of the graves of the Allison and Blazer families can found in Macomb‘s historic Oakwood Cemetery.

Read the full text of D.N. Blazer’s “The History of the Underground Railroad of McDonough County, Illinois“