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https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/c6c670f2fcc22001b66284cc3d885cec.jpg
2b1c889ac24057e6c006b3019330e243
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Places
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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John H. and Sarah Tibbets Home
Description
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John Henry Tibbets was born in Clermont County, Ohio, to Dr. Samuel and Susanna Combs Tibbets circa 1820. [1] He was the last son born in the staunchly abolitionist family. The Tibbets were motivated “to help fugitive slaves by personal religious conviction,” as part of their Baptist faith. [2] In the fall of 1838, John aided his “first fugitive from slavery,” riskily escorting the man on horseback at nighttime to a safe location about 15 miles away, with the help of his cousin Thomas Coombs. [3]
In 1843, John H. Tibbets moved to Jefferson County, Indiana, which already boasted a strong community of abolitionists. In 1839, 73 men and women, led by abolitionist Methodist minister Louis Hicklin, established the Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society just north of Madison, Indiana. [4] One of the founding members of this society was Sarah Ann Nelson, who was just 19 at the time the group was formed. [5] In the fall of 1844, John H. Tibbets married Sarah Ann Nelson, and the couple moved to Neil’s Creek to reside with Sarah’s parents, who were also “strong Anti-slavery people” and fellow founders of the Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society. [6] The couple worked together as conductors on the Underground Railroad from their advantageous location just north of the Ohio River. Other prominent conductors operating out of the free black Georgetown neighborhood in nearby Madison, such as George DeBaptiste, Elijah Anderson, and John Carter, were their colleagues in helping fugitive slaves escape northward toward freedom.
In 1853, John and Sarah Tibbets, along with their three young sons, James, Samuel, and Charles Francis, moved just miles northwest of Madison to Lancaster, Indiana where a “whole abolitionist community” of families was gathering. [7] The Tibbets, along with several other families involved in the Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society, which later became Neil’s Creek Abolitionist Baptist Church, founded the Eleutherian College in Lancaster. [8] This institution provided higher education to students regardless of race or gender, and was one of just two schools “west of the Allegheny Mountains to offer its students college-level experience in an integrated atmosphere prior to the Civil War.” [9] Segregation in public schools was not legally prohibited in Indiana for nearly a century, until the Indiana General Assembly enacted a law doing so in 1949. [10] Though the enrollment at Eleutherian College was quite small, the school attracted black students from across the country, including some who had been born into slavery. [11]
In 1870, John, then 52, and his wife Sarah, then 50, moved their family to Labette County, Kansas. Here, he built a small Baptist Church, and set aside land for a cemetery. John and Sarah are buried in that cemetery on their homestead which was located four miles south of Mound Valley, Kansas. [12] The church and graves still stand today.
John H. Tibbets is remarkable in that he recorded significant evidence of his work as a conductor in the Underground Railroad in his 18 page memoir, Reminiscence of Slavery Times. Although the memoir was written in Kansas three decades after his work on the Underground Railroad, Tibbets recalls details of incidents spanning more than 20 years, from 1837 to 1858. [13] The “account overflows with names and places,” and specifications of “dozens of locations that can be traced today on the landscape of southern Ohio and southeastern Indiana,” along with details of each journey undertaken to help at least 37 people towards freedom. [14] Unlike other memoirs of Hoosier Underground Railroad conductors, such as Levi Coffin, Tibbets’ Reminiscence of Slavery Times recounts more than just his own efforts. He documents the network of people working together in Jefferson County to aid freedom seekers, and names 34 of his compatriots. [15] Tibbets’ memoir recalls harrowing situations on his journeys, vividly illustrating “the unexpected difficulties that members of the Underground Railroad faced and solved.” [16]
The Tibbets home still stands in Madison, Indiana today. In 2006, the Indiana Historical Bureau dedicated a Historical Marker in front of the house, honoring the family’s place in Hoosier history. [17] John H. and Sarah Tibbets dedicated their lives to the pursuit of not only the abolition of slavery, but also to providing equal treatment and opportunity to black people in Indiana.
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[1] “John H. and Sarah Tibbets,” Indiana Historical Bureau, accessed October 15, 2019, https://www.in.gov/history/markers/521.htm. <br />[2] Cox, Stephen F. “Twenty Years on the Underground Railroad: John H. Tibbets's ‘Reminiscence of Slavery Times’” The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections 46, no. 4 (2006): 164. <br />[3] “Reminiscences of Slavery Times,” Tibbets Family Antislavery History, accessed October 15, 2019, https://fordwebtech.com/tibbets-history/JohnTibbetsLetter.php. <br />[4] Cox, “Twenty Years on the Underground Railroad,” 164. <br />[5] Ibid. <br />[6] “Reminiscences of Slavery Times,” Tibbets Family Antislavery History, accessed October 15, 2019, https://fordwebtech.com/tibbets-history/JohnTibbetsLetter.php.; Cox, “Twenty Years on the Underground Railroad,” 164. <br />[7] Ibid., 166. <br />[8] Jeffrey D. Bennett, National Historic Landmark Nomination Eleutherian College Classroom and Chapel Building, Lancaster, IN, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, 1996. <br />[9] Ibid. <br />[10] Dwight W. Culver, “Racial Desegregation in Education in Indiana,” The Journal of Negro Education 23, no. 3 (1954): 296. <br />[11] Emma Lou Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana Before 1900 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993): 179. <br />[12] Cox, “Twenty Years on the Underground Railroad,” 168. <br />[13] Ibid., 166. <br />[14] Ibid. <br />[15] Ibid. <br />[16] Ibid., 165. <br />[17] “John H. and Sarah Tibbets,” Indiana Historical Bureau, accessed October 15, 2019, https://www.in.gov/history/markers/521.htm.
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Student Author: Allison Hunt <br />Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson<br />Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
Relation
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<a href="https://www.in.gov/history/markers/5.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a><a href="https://www.in.gov/history/markers/521.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indiana Historical Bureau: Historical Marker for John H. and Sarah Tibbets</a><br /><a href="https://www.in.gov/history/markers/5.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indiana Historical Bureau: Historical Marker for Eleutherian College</a><br /><a href="https://www.in.gov/history/markers/521.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></a>
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Eleutherian College, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eleutherian_College.jpg
1800s
1900-40s
Abolition
education
Indiana Historical Bureau Marker
Jefferson County
Madison
Underground Railroad