(bright music) (bright music continues) - The Underground Railroad was a network of routes and safe houses used by slaves to escape to freedom.

While Illinois was considered a free state by a lot of people, the issue of slavery and the Underground Railroad was complex here.

Well, there is a new documentary called "The Underground Railroad in Metamora" that examines the village's pivotal role in helping people escape slavery.

We are joined by the film producer and editor, Levi Obery and Jack Weddle from the Metamora Association for Historic Preservation.

Gentlemen, thanks for coming in.

- Thanks for having us.

Thank you, thank you.

- Levi, we'll start with you.

I know you're from Metamora originally.

Tell us a little bit about your background, and what you're doing now in terms of making films.

- Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I grew up in Metamora, in central Illinois, and started a production company here, like when I was going to school, and then for the last 15 years, I've lived in Los Angeles doing film and video projects, and here recently I started doing more documentary work, like on the side, and connected with Jack about this project to the Underground Railroad, and we started working together on this.

And it started as a much smaller project, and then developed into this a larger documentary that we're talking about today.

- [Mark] And how long has this been in the works?

- I think, looking back, I did just look back the other day, and I think it started probably January, February of last year is when we really started talking, 'cause I was doing research for another documentary that I did last year on my family farm's 150th anniversary, and I'd reached out to Jack to see if there's any information that I could use for that, and then this project came up, and I had no idea that Metamora was involved in this part of our country's history, so it's just very interesting to me, and we started chatting on how we could work together, and just evolved over time.

- You don't recall hearing in school anything about how Metamora was a stop on the Underground Railroad?

- Absolutely not, no.

I think we just heard about Harriet Tubman, and that was about it, like, yeah, - Jack, tell us how you first found out about this, because we know in Peoria that the site, actually where the Civic Center is right now, was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and there's a statue there now commemorating that, but when did you first start hearing about this?

- I write the newsletter for the Historic Association, and about 10 years ago, a reader from California emailed us and said, "You know, my grandfathers were conductors on the Undergrad Railroad.

Why don't you do something with that?"

So she fed us some information, and that kind of jump started us on the project, and then, as we went along, it just kind of grew and grew and grew.

And then, oh, about probably two or three years ago, one of our readers said, "Do some more on the Underground Railroad."

And we said, "Okay, we'll look around."

So one of our readers from North Carolina, who's a great researcher there, said, "Hey, you gotta look at this this survey from 1896."

This Ohio State professor reached out to anybody that was still alive that actually experienced the Underground Railroad and had this great, great source of information that we dug into, and when we did that there, it was just like, "Oh my gosh, this is unbelievable there."

So we started feeding that to Levi, and we were very amateur, you should believe me there, and Levi took it in and made it really come alive and really, really move, so it's been a kind of an evolution there over time.

- Well, I've seen bits of the documentary, and it's very well done, very professional, so congratulations on that.

- Thank you.

- We'll talk a little bit more later on on how people may be able to see it, but I wanna talk about, you weren't born in Metamora, but you lived there a very long time.

Is this something people would mention in passing at all, or was it years before you even knew it existed?

- People really didn't know anything about it there, and, you know, we all knew about Lincoln, but we didn't know anything about the Underground Railroad.

In fact, some people thought the Underground Railroad was actually the railroad that ran through Metamora there.

(Jack laughs) And these were, you know, people that had been around forever there, so it was just a real education for the community there, so it's just been great.

- Well, the one thing I remember about the Underground Railroad was that it was neither underground, nor a railroad, so let's get that out, right.

(all laugh) - That's a big one.

- Levi, as you're researching this, what really fascinated you about it?

What clicked and, you know, did you say to yourself, "Wow, now I have to make this documentary"?

- Well, I think it's just a very important story that needs to be told and preserved, and I just, the connection to like my hometown, like made it like special, and like, I just wanted to work with Jack, and Laure, and the Historic Association to just preserve and tell these stories for future generations, and just as we started researching it, one of the things that stood out like was one of the conductors lived on a piece of property that my family farms today, so that was kind of a cool thing to find out.

I had no idea that we had a connection to that, like remotely.

And then another thing while researching that we can't verify it, and I think Jack calls it a history of mystery, while we were out shooting, one of the things that we noticed was there's these lilies that were growing in the road ditches at all these sites that we were going to film, and they weren't at other nearby sites, just at these, so we were wondering, is this a coincidence, or does it like mean something, some like signal that is still growing there like today, because it was just odd to us that every single location we went to, like had these lilies growing while we were filming.

- Any thoughts on any significance with that?

- I mean, we can't verify it, but like, it's a mystery, but interesting that- - Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about, let's go back in history a little bit, and talk about Illinois, and this region, because the Underground Railroad went on for decades until I guess the Emancipation Proclamation, but let's talk about where Illinois was in terms of being free, being a slave state.

What exactly was it?

- Yeah, a lot of the earlier settlers came up from Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap, came up Kentucky, and moved into Illinois, and about a 1/3 of the state, from about Champaign down, was really pro-slavery.

The middle portion of the state, which Metamora included, it was about 50/50.

The New England Congregationalist moved in, so they were very anti-slavery, and then you had these Kentucky pro-slavery folks, and it was gas and oil, or whatever there, and then the northern part of the state was more pro abolitionists there, so we had a real toxic blend of people that were for it or against it, and it wasn't just slavery, they didn't like each other as well.

- So were the slaves trying to get to Chicago, or just as far north as they can?

- Most of the slaves that came through Illinois came from Kentucky and Missouri, which were Union states, but Lincoln allowed to be in the Union, 'cause they were a buffer against the Southern states, so they still had slavery, but the slaves came out of those two states, came across, and a lot of 'em was along the Mississippi River or the Illinois River there, so they came up in from St. Louis through Springfield, and there was actually only three routes that went through Illinois.

Metamora was on one of the routes that came through.

Well, they came up there, went along these routes there, and found abolitionists, these new Englander Congregationalists.

They were derivative of the old Puritans.

You remember the Puritans when you were in school.

Anyway, they were very anti, very strict against slavery there, so here they came.

- Yeah, well, since you mentioned Illinois and Missouri, there's an interesting clip that Levi sent us that we're gonna show you right now, talking about the geography, and how that had an effect on the actual trajectory of the Underground Railroad.

Let's take a look at that.

- The experience across Illinois was very rich.

Freedom Seekers coming out of the South as they come at the Mississippi River Valley, of course, they came right next to Illinois, and then into Illinois.

One of the things that is striking is that there are like close to 200 miles where it's Illinois on one side, and Missouri on the other.

Missouri was a slave state, and that means that folks enslaved could walk to the Mississippi River, and over there, that's freedom.

That's a free state, and so that geography becomes really, really powerful.

Many folks coming up the Mississippi followed then up the Illinois River Valley, mostly were headed for Chicago.

Chicago was seen as the sanctuary city, as a way station on the way to Canada, to Detroit, and then freedom in Canada, and there were numerous places in Illinois where they started to run into people that would be of assistance.

Now here we are sitting in Metamora, and sitting in Woodford County, and it is right on this corridor of movement.

And so literally hundreds of people came right through Woodford County, and we know that many people did that independently, but also we have these remarkable stories right here in Metamora.

- So that was Larry McClellan talking about folks using the Underground Railroad, and how the Mississippi River was kind of a buffer.

I'm just curious, you know, as people are moving, they know they need to go North, but how do you know who's friendly, and who's not, like you said, in Metamora, some folks were friendly and some weren't.

- Nothing was written down, because the fines of being caught for harboring a slave was just enormous, $1,000 per slave, six months in jail.

Most of these conductors were farmers, so they either didn't get their crops in, or they didn't get their crops out, and so it was really, really tough.

- [Jack] In doing your research, did you find any folks in Metamora that really got pinched for trying to help people?

- Nobody got arrested or fined.

Metamora was 50/50.

They kind of looked the other way, but people were always looking there, and in one of the interviews from 1896 says Metamora was a very dangerous place, but Lincoln defended two Metamora folks there, one of the Morses which is the big dominant conductor family, and also defended George Kern who, he still has a lot of family in the area, so he got both of 'em off, Kern, because Lincoln showed that the runaway didn't have the documentation that proved that he was a slave, so he got 'em off.

- Okay, Levi, when you were doing research, you said your family's got a farm there now.

Do they go back that far back to the Underground railroad days?

- Not quite, like, they didn't settle in the Metamora area til 1874, so it was already over, and that piece of property wasn't acquired til much later, but as you'll see in the documentary, they still find pieces of like the house that was there, and there's a scene in the documentary where they go out and try to find some pieces that are still there, but yeah, they found, over the years, different bricks, and like pottery and dishware, and stuff from the house that conductor Norman Dutton used to live in.

- That's interesting.

Do you know if, when they bought the property, if they knew the significance, or did they learn about it later on?

- I don't know.

Like I didn't learn about it until we were doing research, so like I don't know if they knew the significance of the property, and what they were finding.

Like, I don't think so.

'cause I hadn't heard about it until I was looking at the plat maps of where the conductors live, and I was like, "Wait a second, this looks like right where my parents live."

So like, then I like looked at into it further, and then that's where I think it was mentioned that, "Oh yeah, we've been finding stuff like in that field for years."

- Let's talk about the production of this, and you interviewed several different people.

Can you tell us about those folks that you interviewed, and how they were able to help you with this documentary?

- Yeah, for sure, so the documentary features Jack and also Laure Adams from the Metamora Association for Historical Preservation, and they speak a lot of the local Metamora conductors, and then Laure mentions the significance of some of the inscriptions that were left on the tombstones, like where they're buried in Metamora, and how they acknowledge like all the risks and assistance that they did for the Freedom Seekers coming through the area.

And then we were very fortunate to have Larry McClellan come out to Metamora for an interview.

Like, one of the organizations that sponsored the film, Illinois Humanities, they connected us with Larry McClellan, who has written several books, and is done a lot of research into Freedom Seekers in Illinois and the Chicago area, so we're very lucky to have him come up to do the interview at the Metamora Courthouse.

And he went around and visited the sites in Metamora with Jack and Laure, so that was a big, big plus getting him to join for the film.

And then we also interview Jack Voelker, who owns the Parker Morse property today.

Jack mentioned that Morses were one of the predominant conductors and abolitionists in the Metamora area, and then we also, Jack goes out to the Dutton property with my Uncle John, and speaks to him about what they've been finding.

- That's really cool.

I'm guessing one of the challenges of doing a documentary on something that happened long ago is you don't have a lot of pictures, no video.

Looking at, you know, your trailer, which we're gonna show people, and some of the clips you sent me, you have beautiful drone shots and things like that.

Was it a challenge trying to come up with B roll, as we say in the business, to show people in this documentary?

- Oh yeah.

I'm sure Jack can attest to all the emails that I've sent him.

Is there any pictures of this?

Do we have any pictures of this person?

Like yeah, it was definitely like challenging and there's more stuff out there than you think as you saw like in the film, like we were able to find more stuff, and I was surprised at some of the things that we were able to uncover.

One of the images of Dr. Whitmeyer who, he wasn't a conductor, but he did help, like if an opportunity arise, and there's a couple stories in the film about him and in some of the history books, there's this illustration like of him, and I was able to track down, just randomly on eBay, like an original print, like of the image that was used to make this like illustration that was in these history books, so we got that.

So it was very interesting, like where we found different things, and yeah, the drone work I think like really helped, and we had some amazing drone videographers help us with that, Treyton Zoss, and then my cousin, Logan Armbruster did some amazing work for us there.

- Jack, were you able to find anything just by word of mouth?

- Yeah, we had good documentation from this 1896 book about the main route, which followed the stage coach route, and went up through Metamora up to Ottawa, and across the river and on up to Chicago, but Jack Voelker, Levi mentioned there, owned the property, and Jack's, oh, 75, 80 years old, and his family had owned the property since 1895, and so, of course, all these descendants were dead, but just Jack casually mentioned one day, he says, "You know, the route for the Underground Railroad, it went up by the Mennonite Church."

So there was a bypass around Metamora that we didn't know anything at all about there, and Dutton lived on that bypass, so we could never figure out why Dutton was involved with that, because he was so far off the stagecoach line, so boy that really added up a lot of things for us there.

- Sure.

In making this documentary, did you run into any people that said, "No, I don't wanna talk about it" or, you know, even people that may not have been pro-slavery, anti-slavery, what they just, you know, "That's history.

We don't wanna talk about it."

- We had tremendous community support.

- Good.

- Tremendous.

- What do you hope to accomplish with the documentary?

I mean, it's obviously something that was near and dear to your heart, but are you hoping that certain people learn from it, they learn certain things, that it's shown to everyone?

What do you want to come out of this?

- Yeah, I think that we just wanna share it with like interested people, and hope that they learn from it, and I think one of the themes that's important is like the bravery and the extreme risks that the conductors in our community did to help Freedom Seekers, and they should know that like, 'cause I didn't until doing research, that this was going on like in our ancestors backyards, and in our streets, and it wasn't just something in history books that wasn't really related to our area, but like there's stories like right here, like Larry talks about it in the film that they're right here, like in central Illinois, and I think that that's important to share and yeah, we're premiering it, and then we hope to do further screenings, like and just expand the the audience.

- Do we have any idea, or do you have any idea through your research, how many people may have come through Metamora on the Underground Railroad?

- You get different numbers, but kind of the general consensus, it was about 7,000.

- [Mark] Wow.

- Yeah, and Miss Morse, so one of the survivors, she says about every day some people would come through.

They would come through more in the fall when the fruit was was available there, and it was easier to feed 'em, but about 7,000, and it started from about 1835 to about 18- Dr. Whitmeyer says '61.

The Civil War changed how that all worked.

So that was almost, if you divide it out there, it's almost one a day.

- [Mark] That's a huge number.

- [Jack] Yeah, it is.

- Is there any way to know that if any of these folks, especially later on in the Underground Railroad, maybe near the Emancipation Proclamation of the Civil War, if any of those people might have stayed in the area?

Any families?

- Oh yeah, we have 30 people from the Kern family are coming.

We've got people coming from seven states for this.

One of Morse's granddaughters is coming, great great, or whatever.

- I'm sorry.

I meant did any of the families of the Underground Railroad people, did any of their families stay in the area when the war was over once the Emancipation Proclamation was signed?

- Morse stayed there till 1895.

Then they all moved out to Colorado, but Kerns are still around there.

They still farm the area.

George was a big conductor.

- Wow.

And obviously you're focusing on Metamora.

Did any other towns in our area get mentioned in the documentary then, any of the roles they played?

I know that I read Elmwood, some folks went through there.

Obviously we talked about Peoria.

Any other spots?

- Washington, the route came out from St. Louis, and went around, the people from Metamora were associated with came from Deacon Street, which was a congregational community between Morton and Tremont, so they came up there, they went around Washington.

Washington was considered hostile.

In fact, the Washington mayor turned George Kern in for harboring a slave, and then, if you get on past Metamora there, there was a lot of conductors up around Casnovia in Lowpoint, and then they went on up across the county line to Marshall County when there was conductors all the way up and down the line up there til Ottawa.

- I can only imagine how the slaves must have felt coming into a new area, not knowing if it was friendly or not.

Gotta take a lot of chances - They didn't, you know, nothing was written down, 'cause they didn't want to run the risk of the sheriff, the law of finding out, but it was just amazing there what happened.

- Anything totally catch you guys off guard when you were doing your research?

Anything really surprise you there?

- (hums) I mean, I don't think anything other than just the Dutton property, like my family farming it, and then that mystery with the lilies like in the different locations, like was kind of surprising, but like, yeah, there's just a lot of stories that you'll see in the film, like that just amazing, like what the Freedom Seekers went through, plus with the conductors like risks, like, as Jack mentioned, like most of them are farmers, so if they went to jail, that's like financial disaster for them and their families, so it was, they're risking a lot like to do what was right.

- Absolutely, so we know you've had a showing of this, as we show this interview, is there gonna be a way in the future for people to maybe either see this streaming, or what do you have planned for that?

- Yeah, absolutely, like, well the plan is to do future screenings with different organizations like throughout Illinois, and then like this fall, it'll be available streaming for anyone else to view it that way.

- Anything we haven't mentioned that you all would like folks to know about the documentary, or what you learned in this whole process?

- Levi did an amazing job.

He took a bunch of pretty raw data and content there, and really made it move.

It's great.

- Excellent.

Anything from you, Levi?

- I mean, yeah, it was just a great collaboration between both of our groups, and I think the hard work that we did over the last year paid off, and I'm excited for more and more people to see it and look at what we'll do in the future.

- Any plans for the future?

Any future documentaries centered around our area?

- We are working on developing a documentary on the history of Metamora football and Coach Pat Ryan, who's a coach there for 30 years, so that's a project that we are currently developing.

- Alright, very cool.

Well when you get that over with, come back and see us again.

We appreciate it.

- Absolutely.

That'll be awesome.

- And where can people go to find out more about your productions?

- They can go to tenthirtyone.org, T-E-N-T-H-I-R-T-Y-O-N-E.org.

- And if people wanna find out more about the Metamora Association for Historic Preservation, do y'all have a website?

- Historicmetamora.org, yeah.

- Very good.

Well, Jack and Levi, congratulations on this.

Very interesting stuff, and from what I've seen, very well put together, so congrats on the project.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for having us.

- Alright, thank you.

And thank you for watching.

We appreciate it.

You could check us out anytime at wtvp.org, and on social media.

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Have a good night.

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