Levi Coffin was an American Quaker, abolitionist, businessman, and humanitarian. He was an active leader in the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio and was given the unofficial title of President of the Underground Railroad. An estimated three thousand fugitive slaves are believed to have reported to have passed through his care. The Coffin home in Fountain City, Indiana, is often called the Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad. Born in North Carolina, Coffin was exposed to and developed an opposition to slavery as a child. He followed his family and immigrated to Indiana in 1826, following the slaveholders' persecution of Quakers. In Indiana he became a local business leader, merchant, and farmer. Coffin's accumulated wealth from his business interests allowed him to become a major investor in the Richmond, Indiana, branch of the Second State Bank of Indiana, where he served as director in the 1830s. Coffin's financial position and standing in the community also provided the means to supply food, clothing, and transportation for the Underground Railroad operations in the region. At the urging of friends in the anti-slavery movement, Coffin moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1847 to operate a warehouse that sold only free-labor goods. Despite making considerable progress with the business, the free-labor venture proved unprofitable and he abandoned the enterprise in 1857. From 1847 through 1857, Coffin continued to assist hundreds of runaway slaves by lodging them in his Ohio home. When slavery was abolished after the American Civil War, Coffin traveled around the Midwest and overseas to France and Great Britain, where he was instrumental in forming aid societies that provided food, clothing, funds, and education to former slaves. Coffin retired from public life in the 1870s and wrote an autobiography, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, published in 1876, a year before his death.
Continue reading...From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.