Sometimes the history of an event is
more important than the place where it happened. You may come across a local spot where
something unforgettable happened even though the site is no longer considered important.
This is the case with the following story:
In Wheeling, West Virginia, around 1850,
a man named Eber Pettet was staying at the City Hotel. Since this was before the time that
slaves had been emancipated, the Underground Railroad (U.G.R.R), which helped
African-Americans escape from slavery and make their way to free cities in the north, was
in full operation. You may have read about Harriet Tubman and others who led many groups
of slaves to freedom.
According to author Charles
Blockson, Pettet came to know that the
City Hotel was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He met a young black man named
Charley who described his experience in Wheeling.
Charley had stolen a horse and run away from
his owner in Virginia. For two weeks he lived off corn and apples and was almost starved
by the time he reached Wheeling. He went to the hotel before daylight and asked the
landlord for some bread.
"You are a runaway," the landlord
said. Charley started to say no, but the landlord added, "Go with me!"
He took Charley to the barn where he had
left the stolen horse.
"Do you know whose horse that is?"
the landlord asked.
Convinced that he had
been caught and would soon be sent back to his master in chains, Charley told him the
truth and waited for the landlord to call the authorities.
Instead, the landlord said, "You see
that house beyond that lot?"
Charley nodded.
"You go there and tell them I said they
must take care of you, and give you something to eat." The landlord was smiling now,
but it was getting light. "Hurry, go right in the back door."
This is how Charley described what happened
next, according to Eber Pettet:
When I got in [the house] I could see
nobody but a sick woman on a bed. I told what the man said, and soon
I heard horses running up the road, and looking out, saw my master and
another man coming. I began to cry, but she told me to get under the bed and lie still,
and when I had done so she took up her baby, and got it to screaming with all its might.
At that moment, the man who owned Charley
opened the door and looked in and asked if the woman had seen Charley.
"My husband's at the barn," she
said. "He ca tell you if he has been here."
As soon as he had gone toward the barn, the
woman turned to Charley and said, "Go up the ladder and lie down on the attic floor.
Shortly afterward, her husband walked in carrying a milk pail.
"Where is he?" he asked.
"He went up the ladder, and you must
carry him something to eat, poor fellow, he's starved."
They fed Charley and let him sleep all day.
That night, the man took him to the banks of the Ohio River, where they got into a boat
and crossed the river to the Ohio side. There, the man handed Charley two loaves of bread.
"This is a free state, and there is the
North Star," he told Charley, pointing to it. "God bless you."
Within a few weeks, thanks to other members
of the U.G.R.R., Charley was safe and free in Fredonia, New York.
Some people claim to have seen ghosts
associated with the Underground Railroad, but you probably will not read about anyone who
has gone back in time to glimpse the U.G.R.R. in action. The City Hotel is no longer
standing in Wheeling, but a time traveler there could find out where it was and wonder
what a trip back in time to the U.G.R.R. would be like.
