Fountain City, Indiana: The Underground Railroad's Grand Central Station

In Fountain City, Indiana—formerly known as Newport—stands a modest brick home that became one of the most important stops on the Underground Railroad. Between 1826 and 1847, Levi and Catherine Coffin transformed their house into what historians would later call the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad, helping more than 2,000 enslaved people escape to freedom in Canada. This is Part 1 of a two-part series exploring the Coffins' remarkable 20-year operation.

Levi Coffin's hatred of slavery began at age seven when he witnessed a coffle of enslaved men being driven past his family's North Carolina farm. The men were chained together, separated from their families, destined for sale in the Deep South. That moment, as Coffin would later write, made him "an abolitionist"—though he didn't yet know the word. Raised in a Quaker community that had denounced slavery since 1688, young Levi grew up believing that all people deserved freedom.

When Levi and Catherine moved to Wayne County, Indiana in 1826, they thought they'd left slavery behind. Indiana was a free state. But they quickly discovered that freedom seekers—people escaping enslavement in Kentucky—were arriving regularly in their community, desperately needing help. Most local Quakers weren't actively involved. Free Black residents were trying to help, but their resources were limited. So the Coffins made a decision that would define their lives: they would become conductors on the Underground Railroad.

The Coffins' operation was remarkably organized. As a successful businessman, Levi had resources that many other conductors lacked. Their home could house multiple families at once. They provided food, clothing, medical care, and temporary safety before helping freedom seekers continue north toward Canada. By Levi's own estimate, they helped an average of 100 people per year throughout their two decades in Fountain City.

One of their most famous guests was a young mother named Eliza who had escaped across the half-frozen Ohio River in winter, carrying her infant child. According to Levi's account, Eliza threw her baby onto ice floes and swam after the child, repeating this terrifying process until they reached the northern bank. The Coffins sheltered Eliza and her baby, helped them recover from the trauma, and arranged their passage to Canada. Years later, when Levi and Catherine visited Canada in 1854, a woman approached them at a gathering: "Uncle Levi, Aunt Katie—don't you remember me? I'm Eliza." She had kept the name the Coffins gave her as a symbol of her new free life. Eliza's story would later inspire Harriet Beecher Stowe's character Eliza Harris in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Another remarkable story involves William Bush, a skilled blacksmith who allegedly arrived at the Coffins' home shipped in a wooden crate. Bush would settle permanently in Fountain City and continue the Underground Railroad work after the Coffins moved to Cincinnati in 1847. His story, preserved through oral history in his family, remained a closely guarded secret until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.

In Part 2, we'll explore how the Coffins managed to outsmart slave catchers and law enforcement more than 2,000 times, the operational details of running a station this large, and the legacy of their work in Fountain City.

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