The Underground Railroad Read online

  Text copyright © 2011 Jeffery L. Schatzer

  Cover image copyright © 2011 Jeffrey Ebbeler

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.

  All inquiries should be addressed to:

  Mitten Press

  An imprint of Ann Arbor Editions, LLC

  2500 S. State Street

  Ann Arbor, MI 48104

  Printed and bound at Edwards Brothers, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI

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  Library of Congress Cataloging Data on File.

  ISBN: 978-1-58726-605-8

  Contents

  Tuesday’s Tizzy

  The Trouble with Two

  Finding a Way

  Looking for Mr. Douglass

  A Word with Mr. Douglass

  Mr. Douglass’ Journey

  The Story of Escape

  Chatting about Mr. Douglass

  The BIG Idea

  The Professor’s Wacky Invention

  No Laughing Matter

  Freedom Wagon

  Fun with Reading

  Who Was George DeBaptiste?

  Waiting for Tamika

  Excitement at the Levi Coffin House

  A Close Call

  Tamika Gets the Jitters

  Sharing about Famous Women

  A Visit from the Professor

  Taking a Trip Backwards in Time

  A Pathway to Freedom

  Watching Dr. Nathan Thomas

  Comfort and Medical Help

  The Kentucky Raid

  The Fight for Freedom

  Outnumbered

  Trouble at the Crosswhite Place

  Running to Midnight

  Gateway to Freedom

  The T. Whitney, Freedom Boat

  Tamika the Brave

  The Learning Adventure Continues

  Author’s Notebook

  Tuesday’s Tizzy

  The Professor’s Office—Today

  On a normal day, I’d knock lightly on Professor Tuesday’s door and step inside his office. He would be sitting behind his desk reading. His salt and pepper hair is usually combed back on the sides, showing a wide bald spot on top of his head. His long white beard covers his shirt and necktie, and his white coat— the kind that doctors wear—would be buttoned up snugly. Sometimes when he reads, he puts his red sneakers up on his desk and leans back in his chair. His dark, brown eyes give you a hint of how smart and kind he is.

  I don’t really know how old Professor Tuesday is, but I’d guess that he is about the same age as my grandpa who lives up north. The professor always has large piles of paper and history books stacked all over his desk. When he reads, his glasses slide down and come to rest at the very tip of his nose.

  I like visiting Professor Tuesday because he is an interesting person. He loves Tuesdays and the number two. Most everything he does, he does in twos— two blinks, two smiles, two eggs for breakfast, two pancakes for dinner, every day at lunch he has a tuna fish sandwich cut in two, and he has a time machine that only works on Tuesdays and only goes back to Tuesdays in history.

  Today, I was shocked when I stepped inside his office at the university. Professor Tuesday was in a tizzy.

  He looked so frightened that I got nervous just looking at him. I’ve seen people who were freaked out before, but this was different. He was bone-rattling, eyeball-spinning, knee-shaking, and tooth-chattering scared. I found him sitting on the floor in a corner. His head was in his hands, and he was as white as a ghost. Goose bumps covered his forearms, and he couldn’t even talk. Professor Tuesday was in bad shape.

  The professor’s time machine, the Tuesday Teleporter, hummed and glowed in the center of his office. The way I figured it, he must have just come back from an adventure in history. Something had gone terribly wrong.

  It seemed that he needed help, so I shouted back to the hallway for my friend. “Tamika, get in here quickly! The professor is in trouble!”

  Tamika called back to me, “Is he bleeding? I don’t like blood.”

  “He’s not bleeding,” I answered. “But, it looks like something bad happened.”

  “Is it safe to come in?” Tamika shouted from the hallway.

  “Tamika, you’re such a scaredy cat,” I called out. “There’s nothing to be afraid of in here. Hurry, I need your help.”

  My friend peeked around the door to the professor’s office. Then she took a few careful steps into the room.

  “Stay with him,” I said as I picked my way through the professor’s office.

  Tamika took one look at Professor Tuesday and turned her head away. “Don’t leave me here alone, Jesse.”

  I scurried behind the professor’s desk to a small refrigerator where he keeps bottled water. I grabbed one, unscrewed the cap, and took it to him.

  “Th-th-th-thank you, J-J-J-Jesse,” the professor stammered. When he took the bottle, his hands shook so badly he spilled water all over himself and the floor.

  “What’s wrong, Professor?” Tamika asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “N-N-No,” he stammered. “J-J-Just give me a minute.” He took a few swallows of water and seemed to calm down a bit. “I th-th-thought sure I was going to be killed.”

  “KILLED! Did you say KILLED?” Tamika screamed. She scurried behind the drapes that hung in front of the professor’s office window. Then she peeked out to see if everything was safe.

  “Come out of there,” I said to Tamika. “Everything is fine. There’s no reason for you to be scared.”

  Slowly, she came out of her hiding spot and crept to my side. I turned to the professor and knelt down beside him. Professor Tuesday swallowed hard and started to relax. Then he began to tell us what had happened.

  “How much do you know about the Toledo War?” asked the professor.

  I turned to Tamika, and she shrugged her shoulders. “Wait, didn’t we learn about that in school last year?” I said.

  My friend’s eyes widened. “I remember now,” Tamika said. “A long time ago, Michigan and Ohio had a war over some land.”

  “That was back in the time when Michigan was trying to become a state,” added the professor.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The fight was over some land called the Toledo Strip.”

  “Right,” answered Professor Tuesday, “both Michigan and Ohio wanted that strip of land because of the Maumee River.”

  “What was so important about the Maumee River?” Tamika asked shyly.

  The professor seemed to be feeling better. “In the 1830s, the best and easiest way to travel and send goods across the country was over water.”

  “Like the Erie Canal,” I added.

  “That’s right,” the professor said. “In those days there were plans to build a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. The Maumee River in the Toledo Strip was the perfect starting point for the canal. Both Michigan and Ohio thought that whichever state owned the Toledo strip would get rich by charging fees for boat traffic on the waterway.”

  “So there was a real war between Michigan and Ohio?” Tamika asked. “Did many people get killed?”

  “Nobody was killed,” the professor answered. “In fact, the war didn’t really amount to much. The two sides mostly shouted at each other. A few fights broke out, and some people were shoved around. I only found one person who was actually hurt. To learn more about the Toledo War, I wanted to travel back in time to see some of it for myself.” The professor scratched his he
ad and added, “There was also a special person I wanted to meet.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Two,” the professor answered.

  “Two what?” Tamika asked.

  “Not Two what,” the professor replied as he shook his head, “the correct question is Two who?”

  Tamika gave me a funny look. “What is he saying?”

  The Trouble with Two

  The Professor’s Office—Today

  The professor burst out in laughter. Tamika and I just looked at him while he carried on. “I’m just saying that Two was a who, not a what,” the professor said.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “Let me explain,” he said with a chuckle. “Because my name is ‘Tuesday,’ I like Tuesdays and the number two.”

  “We know that,” Tamika said. “You do almost everything in twos.”

  “Right,” I added, “and you invented the Tuesday Teleporter—a time machine that works on Tuesdays and only goes back to Tuesdays in history.”

  “That’s correct,” answered the professor proudly. “I was reading about the Toledo War in an old history book when I found someone I just had to meet. His name was Two Stickney.”

  “I never heard of anybody having the name of Two,” Tamika said.

  “I agree that not many people have that name.” The professor got up from the floor and walked over to his desk. “Two Stickney’s father was named Benjamin. At the time of the Toledo War, his family lived in Ohio. Benjamin Stickney and his wife had two sons, and they named them One and Two.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “There really was a person named Two?”

  “That’s right,” answered the professor. “And what Two Stickney did during the Toledo War made history.”

  “So, what did Two do?” Tamika asked. As the words fell out of her mouth, she laughed loudly. “I just said ‘Two do.’ Doesn’t that sound funny?”

  The professor and I laughed as he took a seat behind his desk. He seemed to be feeling much better. “That does sound funny,” he said. “Before I can tell you about Two, you should understand a little about the Toledo War.” The professor settled into his chair and took another sip of water. “In 1835, Ohio and Michigan were working hard to become official states of the United States of America. By that time, Michigan had a constitution and a state government in place. But President Andrew Jackson didn’t sign the bill that made Michigan a state until 1837.”

  “Why was that?” I asked.

  “Mostly because of the Toledo War,” answered the professor. “Both Michigan and Ohio had the Toledo Strip surveyed, and each claimed to own the land. Then all the arguments started. From the Michigan side, men were organized and sent to arrest officials in Toledo. During these raids, some scuffles and a few fights broke out, but like I said before, no one was seriously hurt … that is until some Michigan raiders came upon Two Stickney.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Professor Tuesday leaned forward in his chair and looked right into our eyes. “Joseph Wood, a deputy sheriff from Monroe County, Michigan, was trying to arrest Two. The deputy planned to take Two Stickney back to the Michigan Territory and put him in jail. They scuffled and Two stabbed the sheriff with a knife and escaped.”

  “Was the sheriff okay?” I asked.

  “The sheriff got a cut, but he wasn’t seriously hurt.” The professor finished the last of his water before he continued. “When I went back in time to meet Two Stickney, I got there just minutes before Joseph Wood tried to arrest him. I was talking with Two when we were surrounded by deputies from Michigan. We both got roughed up a bit. When Two Stickney escaped, I was being held by the deputies. They were going to put me in jail. If they did that, I probably wouldn’t have made it back to our time. I would have been trapped in the 1800s for the rest of my life. It was scary, really scary.”

  “I hope you’re alright, professor,” I said.

  “I’m just glad I escaped safely. But I never, ever want to put myself in danger like that again.”

  “Ohio ended up with Toledo, didn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yes, indeed,” said the professor. “And, to settle tensions between the two states, Michigan was awarded the land in what is now the Upper Peninsula. Right after that decision was made, Michigan became a state.”

  “Did Ohio ever build the canal?” Tamika asked. “I don’t remember hearing or reading about it in Social Studies.”

  The professor shook his head. “The Maumee River was never used to build a canal between Lake Eerie and the Ohio River. By the time the Toledo War was settled, railroads started to be a more important form of transportation than canals, so Ohio never got rich from a canal on the Maumee River. On the other hand, the Upper Peninsula provided a valuable source of copper, iron, and timber for the state of Michigan.”

  The professor started shaking all over again as he thought about his close call in Toledo. Then he looked up, “Oh, my goodness. Where are my manners? I’m sorry, Jesse, who is your friend?”

  I stepped forward and nodded toward my classmate. “Professor, this is Tamika Jones. We are in the same grade at Arrowhead School. Our teacher, Miss Pepper, encouraged us to come and see you.”

  The professor scratched his forehead as he thought. “Wait a minute. Tamika, I remember you from the day your class came to the university on a field trip. You were the student who didn’t want to go to Sandusky, Ohio, in 1629 because you are afraid of roller coasters.”

  “That’s her,” I said.

  “Well, I owe both of you my thanks for helping me today. Now, why have you come to see me?” the professor asked.

  I turned to my friend. “Tell him, Tamika.”

  My friend just looked down and didn’t say a thing. “She’s very shy,” I said to the professor.

  “It’s okay, Tamika, the professor is a very nice man. You can tell him why you wanted to visit him.”

  Tamika bit her lip, but didn’t say a word. Then she leaned over toward me, cupped her hand, and whispered in my ear, “You tell him.”

  I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh. “Professor, Tamika wants to go back in time to learn about the Underground Railroad. She told our class that her relatives escaped slavery in the south and traveled through Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan before getting their freedom in Canada.”

  The professor looked concerned. “Traveling the Underground Railroad was very, very dangerous. People were jailed and tortured. Some were even killed. I’m sorry, I can’t put either of you in that kind of danger.”

  A tear tumbled down Tamika’s cheek. “Please.”

  The professor shook his head slowly as he looked at my friend. Then his face softened. “Give me some time to think about it. Come back next Tuesday and maybe I can figure something out.”

  Finding a Way

  The Professor’s Office—The Following Tuesday

  The professor was huddled over a small book when Tamika and I walked into his office the next Tuesday. He seemed shocked when he noticed us.

  “Excuse me, professor,” I said, “You said we could come back to see you today.”

  “You startled me,” he said. “Since my mishap at the Toledo War, I’ve been a bit jumpy.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “We should have knocked before coming in.”

  “Well, that’s okay,” he said. The professor shrugged his shoulders twice and asked how we were doing.

  “Fine,” I replied. Tamika didn’t say anything. Sometimes I wonder why she is so timid. “Are we going to learn about the Underground Railroad today?”

  “In a way, yes,” the professor replied. “We’re going to visit one of the great voices of the anti-slavery movement. We are going to London to meet Frederick Douglass.”

  “Really?” asked Tamika.

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  Tamika stood proudly. “He was an African-American who escaped slavery by running away. When he was free, he gave lectures and speeches about how horrible slavery was. He even w
rote books about his life as a slave and his escape to freedom.”

  “He did that and more,” said the professor. “Today we are going to actually meet him, I hope.”

  “But how are we going to meet him by going to London?” I asked. “Didn’t he live in the United States?”

  The professor just smiled. “You can ask Mr. Douglass that question when you see him.”

  Professor Tuesday went to work hooking up his time machine. Though he calls it his Tuesday Teleporter, it looks more like a pile of junk than any machine I’ve ever seen. He plugged a tangle of wires into his computer and connected red, blue, and green cables to the teleporter globe on his desk. The professor set about to input time and place information into his computer. Finally, he checked to make sure everything was correct and pressed the ENTER key.

  The Tuesday Teleporter jumped to life instantly. Lights and sounds circled the room, growing brighter and louder. My head spun. Over all the noise, I could hear Tamika crying. When I looked over, her hands were covering her eyes.

  A green cloud formed in the office. The professor poked his head inside it for a moment to make sure everything was okay. When he turned back into his office, he walked behind his desk. His head was wet and his glasses were covered with water drops. He took a towel from his desk.

  “I brought my umbrella to work today just in case it was raining in London,” said the professor as he dried his head and cleaned his glasses. “It rains a lot there, you know. That’s why I asked Miss Pepper to make sure you came prepared.”

  The professor returned to the teleporter cloud then looked at us. “Put on your raincoats and follow me.”

  “No,” answered Tamika. “I’m afraid.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, my dear,” the professor said kindly. “I’ve already taken a look at where we’ll be going. It’s perfectly safe.”