Concord, Massachusetts, A Major Depot for the Underground Railroad

Concord, Massachusetts looms large on the list of significant historical towns in the United States. The town was once home to influential activists such as Ellen Garrison, literary greats such as Louisa May Alcott, and important thinkers such as Henry D. Thoreau. Concord was the site of the legendary battle at the North Bridge that kicked off the American Revolution. One part of Concord’s history that is lesser-known than some of these others, includes its involvement in the Underground Railroad. Through decades of its existence, Concord was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, and it saw many who had escaped enslavement on their way to freedom in the Northern United States and Canada. These are some of the ways that Concordians aided fugitive enslaved people on their journey to freedom:

The Concord Depot – 90 Thoreau Street

The Fitchburg Railroad opened its route through Concord in 1844, with connections north to Vermont and Canada. The original railroad depot, close to the town center, facilitated the efforts of Concord residents to aid the escape of fugitive slaves to freedom on the “Underground Railroad.” Thoreau wrote in his Journal in 1851 about lodging self-emancipated slave Henry Williams and putting him on a train to Canada.

Colonel William Whiting House – 169 Main Street
Colonel Whiting was vice president of Massachusetts’ antislavery society and sheltered runaway enslaved people. Abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison (who published the antislavery newspaper The Liberator), Wendell Phillips, and John Brown were all guests in this house.

Thoreau-Alcott House – 255 Main Street

The entire Thoreau family was instrumental in the antislavery movement, and they housed and aided many fugitives during their journeys northward2. They moved here in August 1850, and Henry David Thoreau wrote in his Journal on 10/1/1851 about helping Henry Williams on his way to Canada.

The Wayside – 455 Lexington Rd

The “muster master” of the Concord Minutemen during the Battles of Lexington and Concord, who owned an enslaved person, lived in the Wayside. This enslaved person, who was named Casey and has also been known as Case, fought in the Revolutionary War for the colonies and returned to Concord as a free man. Later on, the Wayside was home to the Alcott family from 1845-48. According to a plaque on the property, “The Wayside sheltered two self-emancipated slaves during the winter of 1846-47 as they fled north to freedom in Canada. A young Louisa May Alcott learned firsthand lessons about slavery here that would influence her life and writing.”

Brooks House – 45 Hubbard Street

Mary Merrick Brooks, granddaughter and daughter of merchants who had once bought and sold enslaved people, was one of Concord’s leading white abolitionists. She carried antislavery petitions from door to door for neighbors to sign. She organized “ladies’ fairs” to raise money for the antislavery cause and contributed her signature “Brooks cake” to such events.

Mary Rice House – 44 Bedford Street

Mary Rice assisted in the escape of fugitive enslaved people and harbored many in her home. She helped replace John Jack’s gravestone and regularly put flowers beside it. In 1864, she gathered the signatures of 195 schoolchildren on a petition to President Lincoln, asking him to “free slave children.” Copies of this petition and Lincoln’s response now hang in Concord’s three public elementary schools.

Francis and Ann Bigelow House – 19 Sudbury Road

Shadrach Minkins, enslaved in Norfolk, Virginia, hid on a northern-bound vessel and made his way to freedom in Boston in May of 1850. Nine months later, he was seized by bounty hunters, and he became the first refugee from the South to be arrested in Boston under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. A crowd organized by the Boston Vigilance Committee rescued Minkins from custody at the courthouse and put him on a planned escape route, which involved a brief stop in the middle of the night at the home of blacksmith Francis Bigelow and his wife Ann. From Concord, Minkins traveled by train to Canada, where he became a restaurant owner and barber. According to Ann Bigelow, at the height of the abolitionist movement, “one fugitive slave passed through Concord each week.”1

Works Cited

1 “Self Guided Walking Tour – the Robbins House.” The Robbins House, 7 Mar. 2019, robbinshouse.org/projects/self-guided-trail-map/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2023.

2 “Antislavery in Concord | Essay 05 | Special Collections | Concord Free Public Library.” Concordlibrary.org, 2013, concordlibrary.org/special-collections/antislavery/05_essay. Accessed 30 Sept. 2023.