Describing leaders of the Underground Railroad
West shares some Underground Railroad lore, remembering Levi Coffin and John Fairfield, two men who helped slaves to freedom.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Don West, January 22, 1975. Interview E-0016. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- DON WEST:
-
I have read a lot of history, studied a lot of history. And run into
characters in history such as Levi Coffin, who was an underground
railroad worker and called himself the father of the underground
railroad and the president and all. And to me, in a lot of ways,
he's a bastard, see. But he did a lot of good inspite of
being a bastard. I remember Coffin and John
Fairfield. Fairfield was a conductor on the underground railroad and
always went armed. He would steal a horse or he would steal a slave. He
would shoot to defend the refugees who were under his care. He would
come through Cincinnati, where Coffin kept his underground station, and
he would never stay with Coffin. He would get help for his refugees as
much as he could, but he would stay out in the black community. Coffin
was always criticizing Fairfield because he was wicked, he was immoral,
he would carry a gun, he would cuss, and he'd said that he
would shoot a slave holder if it meant saving his refugees from being
taken back into slavery. And that was wicked to Coffin.
"But," Coffin would say, "he'd
give the shirt off his back for a refugee." And that was true,
he would do that. So I have always admired Fairfield and I thought
Coffin, in many ways, was a bastard. But he did a lot of good in spite
of it.