Quaint Ohio town is home to Underground Railroad history | Lifestyles – Travel

But this isn’t just a lovely place to live, visit, shop or dine. Springborough, as it was called when founded in 1815, was settled largely by Quakers, a religious group totally committed to the abolition of slavery. And Springboro (the name comes from the many springs nearby) is located between the Great and Miami rivers and also just a two night run (that’s how they measured things back then) from the Ohio River. That mattered greatly because the Ohio was the crossing point for many enslaved people heading north to freedom, and rivers were safe ways to travel in silence and secrecy. The distance from the Ohio River to Lake Erie and then on to Canada was 250 miles or less, the shortest distance of all the free states bordering slave states or those with decidedly southern sympathies.

That made Ohio among the big players in the Underground Railroad, with approximately 3,000 miles of secret routes leading to safe houses or stations where freedom seekers could rest and be fed in safety while slave catchers tried to follow their trail to return them to the people who claimed to be their “owners.”

The Underground Railroad’s past is so much a part of Springboro’s present that sipping a latte or ordering a sandwich at Heather’s Coffee & Café takes one into the heart of history. Once an active safe house, the restaurant’s basement has a tunnel system where those traveling the Underground Railroad made their way under the city streets.

You can spend the night in the Wright House Bed & Breakfast, built in 1815 and a documented Underground Railroad site, or peruse the collectibles and vintage items at the Federal-style Lamplight Antiques. Built in 1831 and on the National Register of Historic Buildings, it too was a station.

Stop at what was the Squatter’s House, now the Springboro Area Historical Society Museum. Built around 1810, it is the oldest building in the historic district. Here you should be able to pick up a walking tour map of the Springboro Historic District, highlighting the 27 sites connected to the Underground Railroad.

Historic markers scattered throughout the village also help provide context to the area’s history of fighting for human rights. Along Main Street, the prosperous homes known to harbor slaves underline a commitment to lose everything so that all could be free.

There’s the home of Underground Railroad station master Joseph Penrose (1832), and what’s now known as the Joseph Thomas Home, which dates back to around 1835 and was owned by a series of Quakers who were “conductors” on the Underground Railroad. A 1919 Ford service station, the first gas station in town, sits upon the site of the Mahlon Wright home, built in 1818. It too was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Now repurposed as a business, it’s one of Springboro’s 40 original brick buildings that remain.

Even without this history, Springboro is a great destination for exploration. While there, get a taste of history (excuse the pun) at Friesinger’s Candy Factory, where the confections are made as they were when the business opened in 1894. Take in a show at La Comedia, one of the nation’s oldest and largest professional dinner theaters. Now in its 48th year, since opening it’s entertained over six million people with Broadway-style shows. Try the baked apple cinnamon fritters, sour cream donuts and yeast rings at the Donut Haus, which open decades ago. Listen to music, dine and attend one of the painting nights at Ambiance Wine Bar Café. If beer is more your thing, there’s Crooked Handle Brewing with 14 draft taps as well as a choice of premium spirits, curated house cocktails, cider, and wine along with live music.

Magnolias on Main, once the M & J Wright General Store, circa 1854, is a boutique selling clothing, jewelry, gifts, accessories, flowers and more. The two-story building with its second-story porch is a frivolous and delightful architectural addition to the Main Street.

Like its name, Shoppe Smitten is a fun store that sells one-of-a-kind clothes, jewelry and gifts.

Want to pick up a brush and channel your inner Degas? If so, then stop by Paintbrush Pottery.

Springboro was one small town fighting the evils of slavery. For a comprehensive look, there’s the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati less than an hour away.

Here visitors can see the reconstructed slave pen used as a holding pen by Kentucky slave trader Capt. John W. Anderson. It was a place to temporarily warehouse enslaved people who were being taken further south to be sold. Inside, fastened to wood is a shackle that was used to make sure those imprisoned couldn’t escape. The pen was discovered on a Kentucky farm less than 60 miles from where the museum now stands, and is part of the story about how slaves were bought and sold in the U.S.

Brothers of the Borderland is one of the films shown at the museum’s Harriet Tubman Theatre. It tells the story of John Parker and Reverend John Rankin, two abolitionists living in the small town of Ripley, Ohio, and how their aid helped an enslaved woman make her way to freedom. Another exhibit, “ESCAPE! Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad” incorporates storytelling, role-playing and hands-on activities to tell the stories of men and women who between the years 1830 and 1865 fought against slavery and being enslaved.

For more information about Springboro, call 937-748-0074 or visit springboroohio.org/visit. For the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, 513-333-7500 or freedomcenter.org.