The Allegheny Portage Railroad was honored with the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in 2011. Their staff, along with a Penn State Altoona intern, found the documentation to determine that an incident that happened in October of 1855 in the Gaysport/Hollidaysburg area of Blair County was associated with the Underground Railroad. You can find the primary sources and the story of the incident on their web site: http://www.nps.gov/alpo/historyculture/index.htm The Blair County Genealogical Society also has an article written about this incident from the April 12, 1883 Altoona Tribune newspaper.
William Nesbit (1822 to 1895) moved from Carlise, PA and lived in Hollidaysburg from 1844 to 1855. He then moved to Altoona in 1855 and lived in that city for the rest of his life. He is buried in the Union Cemetery in Hollidaysburg, PA (his obelisk is the largest one in the cemetery). According to his obituary, he was involved in the Underground Railroad. He was an abolitionist, who knew Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, Ocatvius Catto, William Howard Day, Henry Highland Garnet, James Forten, Morris Chester and many others from his work as his traveled around the commonwealth and the United States. He went to Liberia in 1853 as part of the American Colonization Society’s efforts to determine if this country was appropriate place for African Americans to move to, rather than deal with issues like the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. His experiences are highlighted in a book called “Four Months in Liberia” in which he declared that this movement was a sham and African Americans should stay in America. After the Civil War, Nesbit was elected as President of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League (1865 to 1877), which focused on obtaining the right to vote for African American men, travel on desegregated transportation, have their children attend desegregated schools and fully participate in the political system of the commonwealth and the United States. After the passage of the 15thAmendment granting the right to vote, Nesbit selects April 26, 1870 as the date to celebrate this “Jubilee”.
Nesbit’s friend, Daniel Williams, Jr. ( -1867), a barber and landowner, was listed as attending the State Convention of the Coloured People of Pennsylvania held in Harrisburg, PA of 1848 and the National Convention of Colored Men held in Syracuse, NY in October, 1864, which established the National Equal Rights League. He and Nesbit also were agents for Delany’s newspaper “The Mystery” (published from 1843 to 1847). His son, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, mentions that runaway slaves were housed in his home in the book, Doctor Dan: Pioneer in American Surgery. By Helen Buckler. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954. Daniel Williams moved to Hollidaysburg from the Lewistown area and often traveled back home for supplies and to stay in touch with family still living there.
http://www.info-ren.org/projects/btul/exhibit/neighborhoods/downtown/down_n105.html
Bibliography
Four Months in Liberia: or African Colonization Exposed. By William Nesbit, of Hollidaysburg. Pittsburgh, 1855, New York: Arno, 1969
The Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League and the Northern Black Struggle for Legal Equality, 1864-1877
Author(s): Hugh Davis
Source: The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 126, No. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 611-634
Published by: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20093576
“Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Equal Rights League held in Cleveland Ohio, October 19, 20 and 21, 1865.” Philadelphia: E.C. Markley and Sons, printers, Goldsmith Hall, Liberty Street, 1865.
“Minutes of the State Convention of the Coloured Citizens of Pennsylvania”, convened at Harrisburg, December 13th and 14th, 1848.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Saturday, April 2, 1870, pg. 3 (Proclamation by the President of the PA State Equal Rights League to the black citizens of the Commonwealth to celebrate the passage of the 15th Amendment on April 26, 1870.
The Elevator April 22 1870 pg. 1 “Celebrations in the Eastern States” (William Nesbit asks the black citizenry of the USA to set aside April 26, 1870 as a day of rejoicing, aka “Jubilee” in response to the ratification of the 15th Amendment, granting black men the right to vote.)
Altoona Tribune, Monday, October, 28, 1895, pg.4 and pg.5
Altoona Tribune, Saturday, March 28, 1896, pg. 1 (The obituary of Benjamin H. Walker names William Nesbit as a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Blair County.)
Doctor Dan: Pioneer in American Surgery. By Helen Buckler. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954.
