Cycling the Underground Railroad

 For anyone who is interested, I've consolidated all the posts of the trip from Louisville to Detroit into a single document.  You can access it with this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XqGs3Igqyqk15qekoCVHECAT6K5NVd19/view?usp=sharing

  DAY 21: ROMULUS TO DETROIT, MI Gateway to Freedom Sculpture on the banks of the St. Claire River, looking across to Canada.  This morning the rain was gone, the sun was shining, and although the temperature was 57F on departure, it quickly warmed to 70. A strong wind was blowing, but most of the time it was favorable.   A beautiful day for riding the last U.S. section of this Underground Railroad route.  The goal of many of the freedom seekers was to get to Canada.  The British Empire had outlawed slavery in 1834, and fiercely protected anyone who entered their country.  Canada was "The Promised Land." As I neared the end of this part of the journey, I enjoyed pedaling on the Detroit Riverwalk.   From this vantage point, one can see both countries separated by the mile  wide plus St. Claire River. Heading north along the St. Claire River, Windsor, Ontario, Canada is on the right and Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A. is on the left. More than a...

  DAY 20:  BRITTON TO ROMULUS, MI I discovered this mural on the building where I found the marker for Elijah McCoy and the statue of Harriet Tubman in Ypsilanti.  It would have been easy to miss,  as there was a parking lot between the historical plaques and this art.   But the colors drew my eyes to it. The painting seems to depict the migration of blacks, both slave (notice the broken chains) and free (the well-dressed people at the bottom right). In some ways, it's a picture of the Underground Railroad. It was 50 degrees, windy and rainy when I pulled out of Kyle and Amanda's driveway--and it remained that way throughout the duration of the ride.  I had brought warmer cycling clothes and rain gear with me, but this--the second to the last day of the United States part of this adventure--was the first time I used all of them.  I've been blessed with nice weather for the last 3 weeks.           The Huron River, east...

  DAY 19:  BRITTON, MI (REST DAY) The first paragraph of this plaque by the gifted Black novelist Toni Morrison, found at the Lenawee County Historical Society in Adrian, Michigan, captures so much of the spirit of my Underground Railroad experience.   Pieces of this intriguing period of our history can be found if one looks, but we'll never know the entire story,  including the countless number of human tragedies that resulted from our dark legacy of human bondage. Today Amanda took me to this Historical Society in the nearby town of Adian, Michigan.   Although the museum was closed, there was lots of interesting information all around it. The Lenawee County Historical Society archives and museum is housed in this amazing 1909 Romanesque building. Adrian was strongly anti-slavery and was active in the Underground Railroad.  The quote by Toni Morrison at the top was placed by a commemorative bench in honor of those who vanished trying to escape sl...

DAY 18: BLISSFIELD TO BRITTON, MI David Carpenter Home, Blissfield,  MI with Amanda (Shelley) Boils. My youngest daughter, Amanda, who so graciously pick me up at the end of my ride yesterday, delivered her husband Kyle and I back to Blissfield for today's excursion.  Though overcast and threatening rain all morning, we stayed dry the entire ride.  Kyle Boils and I ready to depart from Blissfield.  Storm moving in near Blissfield. Blissfield is the first of a series of southeast Michigan towns--along with Adrian, Tecumseh, Saline and Ann Arbor--that were very active on the Underground Railroad. The house at the top, built in 1851, belonged to David Carpenter, a prominent and successful businessman who moved from from upstate New York in 1838.  There is little doubt that he was active in aiding fugitive slaves, and may well have hidden them in this very house. The route from Adrian to Tecumseh followed the 8 mile Kiwanis Trail, a paved rail-trail between the two ...

  DAY 17: PERRYSBURG, OH TO BLISSFIELD, MI Today I crossed over into the 8th state on this journey up the Underground Railroad, leaving Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio in the rearview mirror.  This 7 week journey could have take freedom seekers from the South more than a year. Another taste of urban riding awaited in Toledo, although traffic was light on this Monday morning.  The Maumee River runs through the city, finding its way to Lake Erie, with Free Canada on the other side.  The Maumee River looking out to Lake Erie from the Main Street bridge. Just across the river in downtown is The Blade building.   The Toledo Blade ("Toledo" was dropped from the name in 1960) is a newspaper that has been published daily since 1835.  One of its writers,  David Locke (who went by the pen name Petroleum V. Nasby) scribed witty satirical columns about slavery and the Civil War, and was a favorite read by Abraham Lincoln....

  DAY 16: MILAN TO PERRYSBURG, OH Today it was confirmed I was indeed in Johnny Appleseed country...and they were ripe for the picking! This was a rare day when there were not a lot of historical sights along the route.  I was traveling westward toward Michigan. Over 20 miles of today's trek was on the North Coast Inland Trail. The entire network is 65 miles from Elyria to Toledo.  Very impressed with Ohio's trail systems statewide.  Yesterday I saw this train in Wellington and thought it might be significant.  Turns out that the Lorain and West Virginia Railroad was built around 1900 to connect West Virginia coal to the steel mill in Lorain, Ohio.  In 1977, the owners announced they were discontinuing service.  A group of citizens dedicated to keeping local and rail history alive began buying up parts of tje route.  The trains, complete with mid-century locomotives,  operates as a tourist train. Today's mileage: 63.2 miles Total mileage this...

  DAY 15: ASHLAND TO MILAN (VIA OBERLIN), OH Today's "feature attraction" is Oberlin College (but I also discovered some other interesting things). Founded in 1933 as a community and College simultaneously, Oberlin's originators were staunch abolitionists who adhered to the philosophy of "immediacy"--that is, the immediate end to slavery.  It was notably the first college in the United States to recruit both blacks and women.  The long and well-documented history of the institution to this day reveals it has been true to its mission of social justice.  Many of the older buildings are undergoing renovations to meet their goal of a zero carbon footprint.  The College is built in the middle of Oberlin, with the town occupying the land around it. The college has an intentional International focus.  This memorial, located in the central plaza on campus, is dedicated to missionaries who lost their lives in the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900.  These were at...