“Mr. Rankins had a regular ‘station’ for the slaves.  He had a big lighthouse in his yard, about thirty feet high and he kept it burnin’ all night.  It always meant freedom for slave if he could get to this light.

“Sometimes Mr. Rankins would have twenty or thirty slaves that had run away on his place at the time.  It must have cost him a whole lots to keep them and feed ’em, but I think some of his friends helped him.

“Those who wanted to stay around that part of Ohio could stay, but didn’t many of ’em do it, because there was too much danger that you would be walking along free one night, feel a hand over your mouth, and be back across the river and in slavery again in the morning.  And nobody in the world ever got a chance to know as much misery as a slave that had escaped and been caught.

“So a whole lot of ’em went on North to other parts of Ohio, or to New York, Chicago or Canada; Canada was popular then because all of the slaves thought it was the last gate before you got all the way inside of heaven.  I don’t think there was much chance for a slave to make a living in Canada, but didn’t many of ’em come back.  They seem like they rather starve up there in the cold than to be back in slavery.

“The Army soon started taking a lot of ’em, too.  They could enlist in the Union Army and get good wages, more food than they ever had, and have all the little gals wavin’ at ’em when they passed.  Them blue uniforms was a nice change, too.

“No, I never got anything from a single one of the people I carried over the river to freedom.  I didn’t want anything; after had made a few trips I got to like it, and even though I could have been free any night myself, I figgered I wasn’t getting along so bad so I would stay on Mr. Tabb’s place and help the others get free.  I did it for four years.

“I don’t know to this day how he never knew what I was doing; I used to take some awful chances, and he knew I must have been up to something; I wouldn’t do much work in the day, would never be in my house at night, and when he would happen to visit the plantation where I had said I was goin’ I wouldn’t be there.  Sometimes I think he did know and wanted me to get the slaves away that way so he wouldn’t have to cause hard feelins’ by freein ’em.

“I think Mr. Tabb used to talk a lot to Mr. John Fee; Mr. Fee was a man who lived in Kentucky, but Lord! how that man hated slavery!  He used to always tell us (we never let our owners see us listenin’ to him, though) that God didn’t intend for some men to be free and some men be in slavery.  He used to talk to the owners, too, when they would listen to him, but mostly they hated the sight of John Fee.

“In the night, though, he was a different man, for every slave who came through his place going across the river he had a good word, something to eat and some kind of rags, too, if it was cold.  He always knew just what to tell you to do if anything went wrong, and sometimes I think he kept slaves there on his place ’till they could be rowed across the river.  Helped us a lot.