 April - June 2003
Beyond The River: A True Story Of The Heroes of the Underground Railroad
by Ann Hagedorn
Lest we forget, the celebrated links that make up parts of history are rooted with the ties that bind and the legacy in which they are allowed to preserve that history. One such entity is the Underground Railroad and the product that fueled it - runaway slaves. This underground path to freedom forged a way not only for escaped slaves to reach freedom, but gave certain status to those that deserve a proper place in American history as heroes, both unsung and noted. Beyond The River is author Ann Hagedorn's gift to historic content embellishing such a storied and misunderstood part of a young nation coming to grips with "the war before the war". In it, she details with facts a well-documented historical accuracy. These are the stories and mindsets of those whom would dedicate their lives to the abolishment of slavery, and the harboring of the slaves fleeing it.
What give this book direction and a pervading sense of identity are the incumbent figures that are tantamount to its success. With this in mind, it could very well serve as a biography of John Rankin, one of Ohio's most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. Rankin (1793-1886), a Presbyterian minister and abolitionist in Ripley, where the Ohio River separated the free state of Ohio from the slave state of Kentucky, was equally well known among the enslaved and their enslavers. Hagedorn tries to bring to life the story of Rankin, his family, free blacks and the other forgotten heroes on the front line who assisted hundreds of blacks on the trek to freedom with other analogies that tend to make her efforts uneven. Rankin's story is inspiring and albeit, may have a place among the legacies that make legends of people, but tend not to be as captivating as those of the other heroes who are secondary characters in the book. One of the more poignant stories is that of a slave woman's nighttime escape across the icy river with her two-year-old (and the woman's risky return across the Ohio three years later to rescue her daughter and seven grandchildren from a Kentucky slaveholder). And there are others.
The author brilliantly chronicles threats of midnight assassins, riots in Cincinnati and a pivotal trial in Kentucky in the 1830s, along with other detail descriptions of survival angst of the period. Hagedorn's relocated to Ripley to insure the book's completion, in my opinion was wise and led to the inspiration for the vivid prose, and wherewithal to bring these historical figures to a wider audience.
If you're a history buff and a bibliophile to this type of collecting, this book should find its place among the others for legitimacy. The gift of research and meticulously giving reference to time and place makes this an enjoyable read. I recommend it for yet another documentation of a process to understand that the most heroic were those who had been under bondage, making the most difficult part of a journey with the help of other enslaved people. Undoubtedly, this will always be an interesting sidelight to other historical content, but will be specific for readers willing to take a chance on this book.
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