Still, William

Although the legend of the Underground Railroad is filled with unsubstantiated folklore about stations where fugitives were sheltered and conductors who risked life and property to usher runaways to safety, Still’s role as one of the most effective workers for freedom is indisputable. From the offices of the abolition society and from his home at 832 South Street, Still coordinated the activities that made Philadelphia one of the nation’s strongholds of abolition. He was also one of the Underground Railroad’s most significant historians, maintaining meticulous records of the 649 fugitives who were sheltered in the city prior to the Civil War and the end of slavery. These records contained dates, names, and details of fugitives and those who assisted them, as well as routes and locations of safe houses throughout the East. They also provided information on abolition agents and collaborators in the slave South. Had these records fallen into the wrong hands, they would have endangered many lives and might well have caused the destruction of the movement. Acutely aware of their importance, Still was always careful to hide these documents. At one point he concealed them in a building in an old cemetery and did not unearth them until well after the Civil War, when slavery had been abolished. In 1872 he published his records, along with the personal stories and the correspondence of hundreds of runaways, in The Underground Railroad, a collection that modern historians of slavery and antislavery have found invaluable.

WILLIAM STILL DEAD.

Negro Known as “Father of the Underground Railroad” – Once a Slave, He Died Very Wealthy.

STILL, William, philanthropist and historian of the “Underground Railroad” was born at Shumway, Burlington Co.., N 1, Oct 7, 1821 His father had been a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland, who bought his freedom about 1815 and removed to New Jersey, where he acquired property and became a useful citizen.  When William was but a youth he read the "Colored American," and early imbibed the anti-slavery spirit.  He removed to Philadelphia in 1844, and soon afterward was appointed to a clerkship in the Pennsylvania Anti- Slavery Society.  He filled this position for fourteen years.  During this time he took notes of the remarkable and exciting experiences of many fugitive slaves.  These thrilling stories he carefully preserved and in 1878 published them in a volume of nearly 800 pages.  It gives an authentic account of the operations of the Underground Railroad, an organization for the protection of fugitive slaves, and to aid them in their escape northward.  Mr. Still sheltered the wife, daughter and sons of John Brown while he was awaiting execution at Charlestown, Va., in 1859. During the civil war he was post sutler at Camp William Penn near Philadelphia.  He was one of the original stockholders of the "Nation," of New York, was a member of the Freedmen's Aid Union and Commission, helped to organize the Orphans' Home for children of colored soldiers and sailors; is a trustee of Storer College at Harper's Ferry and of the Home for Destitute Colored Children; president of the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons, and a member of the Board of Trade of Philadelphia, where he has prospered as a merchant. He has also published “Voting and Laboring" and "Rights of Colored People in City Passenger Cars."