On 17 Feb 2005 10:35:17 -0800, wrote:

| Why would you need to hide slaves in northern Ohio? I'm guessing root
| cellar. I have no idea what a root cellar is.
|

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 applied to the entire United States. It
prohibited anyone from assisting slaves to escape from their masters,
among other provisions. Northern Ohio was a main route on the
underground railroad. In this area, most of the "conductors" on the
railroad were Quakers. There was a substantial Quaker population in
Ohio and Indiana in the early- and mid-19th century. Many of them had
themselves migrated from North and South Carolina to avoid life in the
dominant slave-owning society there.

However, if the house is really only a century old, it is not old
enough to have been a station on the underground railroad. It would
have to have been built before 1860 or so, and probably a little
earlier. Maybe it's older than the OP thinks. Except for this, it does
sound like a hiding place for escaping slaves.

The room sounds too large and too deep for a root cellar to me, but
I'm no expert.

"Section 7

And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and
willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or
attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or
them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either
with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to
rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such
claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons
lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the
authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist
such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or
indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or
other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall
harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and
arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such
person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for
either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one
thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by
indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United
States for the district in which such offence may have been committed,
or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed
within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and
shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party
injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for
each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt,
in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose
jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed."