Traveling the trail between Foster and Loveland, you may have often passed the Ohio Historical Marker at the location of Butterworth Station, and looked across the field to the house where the Butterworth family hid slaves and transported them to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Now another part of that history has been marked along our trail.
Between 1820 and 1850 hundreds of runaway slaves were guided out of Cincinnati through Warren County by Underground Railroad conductors. One of the most unlikely but devoted conductors was Lawry Rankin, a 20-year-old student at Lane Seminary who began conducting a month after he arrived on campus in 1836. Asked to take a runaway slave hidden in the free black community to the home of William Butterworth right away as a $500 reward had been offered for his capture and several parties were hunting him down, Lawry consented even though he was told he had to wade across the Little Miami River to get there.
This story was uncovered by Dr. Karen Dinsmore of Friends of the Twenty Mile House during her research that led to the placement in 2015 of the Butterworth Station historical marker. When she learned that conductors bringing runaway slaves to the Butterworths had to cross the river, she wondered where that fording location might be. Recently FLMSP volunteer Don Hahn, also a member of the Friends of the Twenty Mile House, set out to find that location with the goal of placing a marker there. Last month that goal was reached as Don and fellow volunteers Dan Kindel and Jerry York installed a wooden marker behind the three benches near mile 39.5, about a quarter mile south of the Butterworth Station marker. With wood donated by Dr. Dinsmore, etching done by Don’s cycling buddy Richard Cocks, and the support of ODNR, the marker represents a real community effort that promotes the rich history along our trail. We think Lawry Rankin and the nearly 300 runaway slaves he helped ford the river would be pleased.
Note: One of the slaves who passed through Butterworth Station was Josiah Henson, whose 1849 autobiography is believed to be the inspiration for the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. More about the Butterworths
Thanks to Dr. Karen Dinsmore for her contributions to this article.
November 2022
