The Freedom Trail

— The Underground Railroad —

"What is life to me if I am to be slave in Tennessee? My neighbors! I have lived with you many years... My home is here, my children were born here... I don't respect this law — I don't fear it — I don't obey it! It outlaws me, and I outlaw it... I will not live a slave, and if force is employed to re-enslave me, I shall make preparations to meet the crisis as becomes a man..."—Jermain Loguen's response to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
On this site, Rev. Jermain Loguen (1813-1872) and Mrs. Caroline Loguen (1817-1867) lived from 1848 on. Jermain Loguen, called the "king" or the "prince" of the Underground Railroad, was born in slavery in Tennessee. He escaped from slavery in 1834 and went to St. Catharine's, Canada. Educated at Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York, he married Caroline Storum (born free in Chautauqua County, New York) in 1840, and arrived in Syracuse in 1841. He became pastor (and later bishop) of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, as well as a teacher, abolitionist lecturer, and Underground Railroad agent. He was proud to call himself a citizen of Syracuse, which he described as "no mean city."
Frederick Douglass, a frequent visitor to this house, described the Loguens' welcome of nine people who arrived here from slavery:
"The night was exceedingly dark



and the rain was very heavy... The children were sick and the rain increasing in violence, and the walk of a full mile-and-a-half before the pilgrims, and two of these are wholly unable to walk... We had scarcely struck the door when the manly voice of Loguen reached our ear. He knew the meaning of the rap and sang out, "Hold on!" A light was struck in moment. The door opened, and the whole company, the writer included, were invited in. Candles were lighted in different parts of the house, fires kindled and the whole company made perfectly at home. The reception was a whole-souled and manly one, worthy of the noble reputation of brother Loguen."
— Syracuse Standard, November 18, 1857
The Loguens' daughter, Amelia, married Frederick Douglass's son, Lewis, in this house in 1869. Daughter Sarah Loguen became one of the country's earliest woman doctors, practicing in Santo Domingo before returning to settle on Westcott Street in Syracuse. Their son, Gerrit Smith Loguen, graduated from Syracuse University as an artist. Caroline Loguen died in 1867. Jermain Loguen died in 1872 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

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