.jpg)
John Rankin (February 4, 1793[1] – March 18, 1886) was an AmericanPresbyterianminister, educator andabolitionist. Upon moving toRipley, Ohio, in 1822, he became known as one ofOhio's first and most active "conductors" on theUnderground Railroad. Prominent pre-Civil War abolitionistsWilliam Lloyd Garrison,Theodore Weld,Henry Ward Beecher, andHarriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement.
When Henry Ward Beecher was asked after the end of theCivil War, "Who abolished slavery?," he answered, "Reverend John Rankin and his sons did."[2]: 168
Rankin was born atDandridge,Jefferson County, Tennessee, to Richard and Jane (Steele) Rankin, and raised in a strictCalvinist home. His parents were literate, which was unusual in a remote area.[3] They were staunch Presbyterians, and their children had a religious upbringing. Jane was an unyielding opponent of slavery.[3]
Beginning at the age of eighteen, John's view of the world and his religious faith were deeply affected by two things — the revivals of theSecond Great Awakening that were sweeping through theAppalachian region, and the incipientslave rebellion led byGabriel Prosser in 1800.[4]: 22–23
John's school had log walls and an earthen floor. He was able to enroll inWashington College Academy, under the direction of Rev.Samuel Doak, an avowed abolitionist; he graduated in 1816. After graduation he was minister of the Abingdon Presbytery, but because his anti-slavery views were not welcome he left Tennessee in 1817, never to return.[3]
Not a natural public speaker, Rankin worked hard while at Jefferson County Presbyterian Church simply to deliver an effective sermon. Within a few months, however, despite Tennessee's status as aslave state, he summoned the courage to speak against "all forms of oppression" and then, specifically,slavery. He was one of the founders of the TennesseeManumission Society, in 1815. He was shocked when his elders responded by telling him that he should consider leaving Tennessee if he intended ever to oppose slavery from the pulpit again. He knew that his faith would not allow him to keep his views to himself, so he decided in 1817 to move his family to the town ofRipley, across theOhio River in the free state ofOhio, where he had heard from family members that a number of anti-slavery Virginians had settled.
On the way north, Rankin stopped to preach atLexington andParis, Kentucky, and learned about the need for a minister at Concord Presbyterian Church inCarlisle, Kentucky. The congregation had been involved in anti-slavery activities as far back as 1807, when they and twelve other churches formed theKentucky Abolition Society, and Rankin's deepening anti-slavery views were nurtured there by his listeners. He remained for four years and started a school for slaves; within a year, however, they were driven first from a schoolhouse to an empty house, and then to his friend's kitchen by club-carrying mobs, and the students finally stopped coming. Spurred by a financial crisis in the area, Rankin decided to complete his family's journey to Ripley. On the night of December 31, 1821 – January 1, 1822, he rowed his family across the icy river. In Ripley he founded a Presbyterian academy for boys, whichUlysses S. Grant attended in 1838.[5]
In 1822, Ripley was a town of frequent street fights and shootouts, where the most common type of business was a saloon. During the Rankins' first few months there, hecklers and protesters often followed the new preacher through town and gathered outside his cabin while their first permanent home was being built, just yards from the river at 220 Front Street. When the local newspaper began publishing his letters to his brother on the topic of slavery (seenext section), Rankin's reputation grew among both supporters and opponents of the anti-slavery movement. Slave owners and hunters often viewed him as their prime suspect and appeared at his door at all hours demanding information about fugitives. Soon, Rankin realized that the home was too accessible a place for him to properly raise his family.
In 1829, Rankin moved his wife and nine children (of an eventual total of thirteen) to a house at the top of a 540 feet (160 m)-high hill that provided a wide view of the village, the River, and the Kentucky shore,[6] as well as farmland and fruit groves that could provide sources of income. One of the sons was Adam Lowry Rankin, who founded the Tulare Congregational church in California in 1874.[7] Folklore associated with the Rankin home suggested that a lantern or candle was placed in the front window to guide♆ runaway slaves from across the Ohio River, inMason County, Kentucky. However, ex-slave narrative[whose?] recalls a pole with a light. This is a more plausible means of being seen based on the proximity of the house to the river. From there the family could raise a lantern on a flagpole to signal fleeing slaves in Kentucky when it was safe for them to cross into the free state of Ohio.[8][9][full citation needed] Rankin also constructed a staircase leading up the hill to the house for slaves to climb up to safety on their way further north.[10] For over forty years leading up to theCivil War, many of the slaves who escaped to freedom through Ripley stayed at the family's home.[11][full citation needed] According to him, "I have had under my roof as many as twelve fugitive slaves at a time, all of whom made good their way to Victoria's dominions [Canada]," sometimes entire families.[12]: 112 It became known as theRankin House and is now a USNational historic landmark (see photos).
During a visit by Rankin toLane Seminary in Cincinnati to see one of his sons, he toldProfessor Calvin Stowe the story of a woman the Rankins had housed in 1838 after she escaped by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her child in her arms. Stowe's wife (Harriet Beecher Stowe) also heard the account and later modeled the character Eliza in her bookUncle Tom's Cabin after the woman.[13]
Brothers of the Borderland, a film that depicts Rankin's work in the Underground Railroad in Ripley, is a permanent feature of theNational Underground Railroad Freedom Center, inCincinnati, Ohio.[14]
Early in his time in Ripley, Rankin learned that his brother Thomas, a merchant inAugusta County,Virginia, had purchased slaves. He was provoked to write a series of anti-slavery letters to his brother that were published by the editor of the local Ripley newspaperThe Castigator. When the letters were published in book form in 1826 asLetters on Slavery, they provided one of the first clearly articulated anti-slavery views printed west of the Appalachians. Thomas Rankin, convinced by his brother's words, moved to Ohio in 1827 and freed his slaves. By the 1830s,Letters on Slavery had become standard reading for abolitionists all over the United States. In 1832,William Lloyd Garrison printed the letters in his anti-slavery newspaper,The Liberator. Garrison later called Rankin his "anti-slavery father," saying that "his book on slavery was the cause of my entering the anti-slavery conflict."[15]
In 1833 Rankin came to knowTheodore Weld through their involvement in the creation of theAmerican Anti-Slavery Society. Weld had come fromConnecticut, by way ofOneida County, New York, to attendLane Seminary inCincinnati, Ohio. Rankin attended the debates on slavery organized by Weld at Lane in February 1834, and published a pamphlet on its consequences.[16]
In November 1834, at Rankin's Ripley church, Weld began a year-long series of speeches throughout Ohio that raised the profile of the abolitionist movement in the state; at his urging Rankin did likewise. Many local anti-slavery societies were founded.
in April 1835 an Ohio Anti-slavery Society was formed, at whose initial meeting inPutnam, Ohio (todayZanesville), both Rankin and Weld played key roles.[17]
On his way home, Rankin had his first real experience with mob opposition to his efforts, as he was showered with rotten eggs. When he stopped inChillicothe to speak at a church, stones were thrown through a window.[18]
In 1836, Weld invited Rankin to join a group called "the Seventy", who were selected by the American Anti-Slavery Society to travel to churches throughout the Northern states preaching immediate emancipation ("immediatism") and forming local anti-slavery societies. Released by his congregation for one year to participate in the effort, Rankin's passion for the cause grew with the opposition to his "dangerous" views, even among many who opposed slavery but feared provoking a slave uprising. A bounty of up to $3,000 was placed on his life, and in 1841 he and his sons had to fight off attackers who came to burn his house and barn in the middle of the night.[19]
Ulysses S. Grant was a student at Rankin's Presbyterian Academy in Ripley in the fall of 1838. Grant entered theU. S. Military Academy in 1839.[20]
The passage of theFugitive Slave Law of 1850 heightened the danger and profile of their assistance to runaways as it was now illegal to do so, even in free states. At an anti-slavery society meeting inHighland County, Ohio, held by Rankin andSalmon P. Chase, however, Rankin declared that "Disobedience to the enactment is obedience to God."[21]
Opposition within his own congregation, spurred by Rankin's attempts to expel slave-owners from the church, finally led him to resign in 1846 after 24 years as minister of theRipley Presbyterian Church. Over one-third of the church's members left with him and helped Rankin establish what eventually came to be theFree Presbyterian Church, which may have had as many as 72 congregations before the coming of the Civil War.[22][23][24] After the war, Rankin welcomed the reunion of the Presbyterian churches in Ripley.[25] In 1924, when the cupola of the Ripley Presbyterian Church, was removed because it was deemed structurally unsound, news accounts had it that the cupola had been either a shelter for fugitive slaves or a signal tower or a lookout point or all three.[26]
In May 1892, six years after John Rankin's death, a monument aptly named "Freedom's Heroes", was dedicated to Rankin and his wife,Jean Lowry Rankin, on the grounds of the Maplewood Cemetery in Ripley, Ohio.
Rankin was a 2013 Inductee into theNational Abolition Hall of Fame inPeterboro, New York.[27]
Archival material on Rankin is held by theOhio Historical Society, Columbus.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
