The history of slavery in the United States stretches back to 1607 when the first slaves were brought to the New World.

The colonies, both North and South, allowed the practice of this institution.

It was after the Revolutionary War that slavery would end in the North, but not in the South.

As the nation advanced toward the Civil War to end slavery, Kentucky would find itself in the middle, as a border state with a main corridor for the enslaved escaping on the Underground Railroad.

[music playing] And in the aftermath of the Revolution, many of the northern states, and eventually all of the northern states, gradually removed the institution of slavery.

And this really sets up a geographic division.

If you follow the Mason-Dixon line all the way from Delaware to the Ohio River, and Kentucky as it becomes a state out of Virginia, you have this clear separation of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon line.

And immediately to the south of this Mason-Dixon line were border states, states caught between the South, where slavery existed, and the North, where it did not.

For Kentuckians, both sides of the issue existed in the Commonwealth.

Lexington was home to one of the nation's main slave markets, Cheapside, where many were sold to owners as far south as Louisiana.

But with its northern border being the Ohio River, Kentucky was also home for those trying to escape the bonds of slavery to the states north of the Mason-Dixon line.

It became part of the Underground Railroad.

It's hard to pin down how the Underground Railroad gets its name.

Some point to an article in 1839 that talks about an enslaved person who ran away from Virginia, a young boy who took some type of Underground Railroad to Boston.

To get to the land of the free, many needed help, for the trip was perilous.

There are slave patrols.

There are white individuals who are trying to prevent enslaved individuals from fleeing.

You don't know who will, or if anyone will, help you, where you'll get food.

And the biggest obstacle is the Ohio River.

Before the Civil War, there is no bridge that extends across the Ohio River.

So, if you're going to cross the river, you need some type of boat to convey you across.

Many Kentuckians would help these black refugees escape slavery, providing stopovers for food and rest.

One of these stops was the Rothier House in Covington, designed with a tunnel that led escapees to the shore of the Ohio River.

In Lexington, Kentucky, stands another stop that was built just a short distance from the Cheapside Slave Market.

The historic St.

Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1820, with the cornerstone of the building being laid in 1826.

The church had great community support for its purpose of helping those fleeing slavery.

We had builders here and painters, plasters, skilled trade.

So, they were able to build this building as they designed it for the purpose of rescuing and moving the enslaved.

These enslaved runaways would climb a stairway to hide in an upstairs room, waiting for Kentuckians to lead them to their next stop.

In another action to help these escapees from being recaptured, the church made a purchase.

Next door was where they parked their animals, and they had the sludge and stuff, and that was utilized.

As the slaves were leaving, they would go through that to be able to hide their scent from the people who were after them.

And it was dangerous for the people who would help them, both the men and women who were conductors on this railroad.

Two such conductors, Calvin Fairbank and Delia Webster, would discover how dangerous, while helping an enslaved man from Lexington, Lewis Hayden, escape with his family.

Webster and Fairbank are going to help Lewis Hayden, his wife Harriet, and their son escape.

They will ride them up through Blue Licks to Maysville, across the Ohio River into Ripley.

There's some problems along the way.

The Haydens are noticed as having escaped.

Questions start getting asked, and people connect the dots that Webster and Fairbank were involved.

Both of them get arrested and tried.

Delia Webster is convicted for a sentence to two years in jail, Fairbank for 15, and he's pretty much tortured and beaten almost every day while he's in the state penitentiary.

Maysville, Kentucky, along the Ohio River, is home to what was another stop for the Underground Railroad that stands today, the Bierbower House.

The Underground Railroad was a system of natural highways and byways in these rural areas that slaves used to avoid and elude capture, aided by people and places and things.

This house on West Fourth Street is at the base of the Buffalo Trace.

And where we are on the hill in Kentucky, it overlooks the Ohio.

The Bierbower family were a family that came from Pennsylvania.

They came here around the 1830s.

And the oral history is that they hid slaves in the lower level of their house.

Today, the Bierbower House is home to the National Underground Railroad Museum, a remembrance of people and families who risked everything for freedom.

The number one reason why slaves ran away was to keep their families together.

When you can say that people cared enough for their freedom to keep their families together, they wanted to keep them together, that's universal.

And this museum tells of fellow Kentuckians who helped these families find their freedom on the Underground Railroad.

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