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Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad

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I have read and reread Beyond the River by Ann Hagedorn. I have found the book to be compelling and believable. Ms. Hagedorn takes us beyond where most Americans are comfortable when it comes to examining the history of slavery, race, gender and class in America. With firm, powerful language, and with documented historical accuracy, she allows the reader to understand that Abolition was more complicated than the hiding of helpless people of African decent by the good Whites in the North and the bad Whites in the South. Ms. Hagedorn makes us understand that most Whites in the North did not support Abolition, and most Abolitionists did not support what we would today call integration.
She immerses the reader in the physical, political, and cultural landscape of Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and the America of the 1830s-1860s. Her depiction of the "face off" between the sons of John Rankin, their mother (Rankin was out of town during the incident), and an armed group that attempted to burn the Rankin barn places the reader in the middle of the action.
When a man can pass on a noble idea to his sons and daughters, as well as to his neighbors, he has left a legacy. Sons and daughters often run from the awesome weight associated with their parents' "Moral Crusades." John Rankin's son Lowry resisted his father's urgings to become a "Major" in the war against slavery until hi witness the sale of a Black woman docked at Ripley (the Kentucky border extends north to the low water mark of the Ohio River) to a young man. The young woman was to serve as a mistress, a "sexual toy," to her new owner and in the tradition of the day she had no say in the matter. Ms. Hagedorn's description of the physical examination of the Black woman who was reduced to physical intrusions reserved for prostitiutes, felons and farm animals confronts the reader with a major unspoken element of slavery, sexual exploitation.
Interracial cooperation between Black and White Abolitionists did not occur on a widespread basis in America, but in the region which includes Ripley,Ohio a few partnerships of longstanding existed between Rev. John Mahan (Sardinia, Ohio), John D. Hudson (Gist Settlement), Moses Cumberland, and several other Black people who in the Gist Settlement became involved in several violent confrontations with those who assisted the "Slave Regime". During one confrontation in the Gist Settlement during wich time a group of 18 'vigilantes' were attempting to take Moses Cumberland into custudy the Black residents, John Mahan and his supporters rallied to his support. In the violence that followed John Hudson's sister Sally was shot in the back. Un-armed, Sally Hudson scratched, kicked, bit, fought, outfought Grant Lindsey, and another man on Sunday, April 30, 1839. Breaking free, Sally ran towards her home only to be shot, her spine severed: two weeks later she died.
Ann Hagedorn's pen has revived Sally Hudson's brave story, she has rescued Ms. Hudson from obscurity, and the trite images too often reserved for women. She captured Sally's fire, she has given Sally Hudson's passion for freedom, life and Sally's spirit is as big as that of any man who has walked thi earth. Ann Hagedorn allows us to legitimately, and with historic accuracy, expand the definition of Abolitionist Heroes to include women, youth, people of African descent, and to understand that the most heroic were those who had been enslaved and most of the time made the most diffucult part of their journey with the help of other enslaved people.
Using the larger than life images of John Rankin, and John Parker as a palette, Ms. Hagedorn celebrates the secret weapon of the Underground Railroad, people of conscience, and good will.
Carl Westmoreland, Senior Advisor, National Underground Freedom Center

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.

So you think you know all about the Underground Railroad, the secret network that fugitive slaves used to escape bondage? Try this quiz:

1. Once they reached one station of the UGRR, how did fugitives reach the next station?

2. What role did women and children play in the UGRR?

3. What religious group do you associate with the UGRR?

So those questions are easy? Try these:

4. What connection did Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, have with Ripley?

5. How many years did the citizens of tiny Ripley, Ohio serve as major players in the Underground Railroad?

Ann Hagedorn answers all these questions and more in Beyond the River. In her skillful hands, a century and a half fades away and the people of Ripley spring to life. By day, they live a surprisingly civilized life-- none of those rustic log cabins and barefooted trips to the outhouse that you read about in many attempts to bring history alive. By night, the sophisticated network of friends and neighbors bands together for one purpose: "a solemn promise to fight slavery until it is dead or the Lord calls me home."

As a girl in the 1960's, I traveled through Ripley, Ohio a couple of times a year to visit my grandparents. I knew a little about the Rankin family and the Underground Railroad from reading the historical marker near Rankin House, but until Ann Hagedorn's book, the story of Ripley was lost history. Read Beyond the River the first time for the gripping story, the second time for the historical accuracy, and the third time for the inspiration to make our world a better place.

Ann Hagedorn offers the reader a captivating perspective on America's struggle with slavery in her work, "Beyond the River." The uniqueness of her work eminates from two particular aspects of her work, both of which begin with the way she takes her subject out of the macro world of politics and economics into the smaller world of the lives of the people effected by the souths 'peculiar institution.' Looking slavery through the eyes of individuals, the reader gains a far greater appreciation of the suffering, torment, and most of all, the fear generated by those who stood in opposition.

Interesting also is the location the author focuses on, the Ohio River where on one side men are free and on the other live in chains. Most texts present slavery at great distances, like The Carolinas an and New York. Here we see just how intimate the slavery and the abolitionist could be and the blood spilled by both sides.

Most importantly, Hagedorn writes in a cool clear voice that is enjoyable and informative. She delivers facts and passion in the same sentence without ever becoming melodramatic or shrill. Readers who enjoy this fictional work may also want to look at "Cloudsplitter," Richard Bank's novel on The Brown family's war on slavery.

Ann Hagedorn's new book, Beyond The River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad has taken a story people in this area already know and given it flesh and blood. Her characters were real, live, breathing human beings, and they come to life again in her writing.

Hagedorn came to live in Ripley, Ohio, to get the flavor of the river and to do research for her book. Beyond The River is meticulously researched using primary sources: letters, journals, newspaper articles, and memoirs. Beyond The River is also meticulously written, and the descriptions of the land and the people, the suffering and the courage are all engrossing.

Most of us have read about the Civil War, but Hagedorn brings the fifty years leading up the war right into our living rooms, where in fact they did occur. I have always known, of course, that the Ohio River is part of the Mason-Dixon line which divides north from south, but I never considered people from Maysville and Mayslick and Augusta actually attacking the folks across the river in Ripley and Georgetown. Ruffians, bounty hunters, and slave catchers from the slave state of Kentucky did just that. Some of the wealthiest families in the area supported slavery, and some of the wealthiest families in Ripley were closet abolitionists.

The community of these people who risked life and family to help the oppressed was a new idea to me. Rankin involved his entire family, of course, but other large families in the area and on the Ripley line as it ran north were also involved. Many of these families intermarried and were otherwise associated. Adam Lowry, John and Jean Rankin's oldest son, was attending Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati when he fell ill and could not take a hidden slave north. He wasn't sure whom he could trust except for Professor Calvin Stowe. Stowe had never been involved in the Underground Railroad, but he stepped into the breech. And he, of course, was the husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Hagedorn tells the story of Eliza, the escaped slave who returned to rescue her daughter and grandchildren from slavery, risking her own hard-earned freedom. Harriet Beecher Stowe combined this story with others for her fictional Eliza. But Hagedorn reveals the irritating fact that Eliza's daughter wouldn't leave without two to three hundred pounds (!) of goods that she had saved all her life. This attachment to material goods made the escape much more difficult, and Eliza's daughter and six grandchildren had to hide for an entire day, with dogs and slave catchers searching for them.

One thing I simply cannot imagine is getting away from slavery and then going back for other people. This, I believe, is the highest form of bravery. The white people who worked on the Ripley line risked their lives, their livelihood, and their families. They risked being jailed for aiding "property" to escape. Some were, in fact, jailed for long periods of time. Many died while in jail. But the free black people and the escaped slaves who went back into slave territory to help others risked all these things as well as being enslaved again. Hagedorn tells us about Billy Marshall, Polly Ann Jackson Caldwell, Eliza, and John Parker. They could have gone north to Canada and rested in safety, but they chose the better path.

There are many more stories in Beyond The River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad. Many people worked on the Ripley line, and Ann Hagedorn has included them. As she has done, readers should go to the source-a beautifully written, engrossing, and inspiring book.

Beyond the River was just named one of the American Library Association's Notable Books for 2004. The annual list is highly regarded and identifies 25 very good, very readable and very important books.

This is a tremendous honor for Beyond the River and one that is richly deserved; this book lovingly weaves together tales of the abolitionist heroes in the town of Ripley, Ohio in the years leading up to the Civil War.

By reaching back to pre-Civil War newspapers, letters and court documents, Hagedorn paints a vivid picture of what it felt like living on the knife edge between slavery and freedom. She makes a reader actually understand the bravery of these Ohio abolitionists by showing us their daily lives, and what it was like to risk your life to help another person to freedom. Once I got into the story, I could not stop reading this compelling history, and I'm usually a reader of fiction rather than non-fiction. Hagedorn's gift for research is matched only by her ability to weave those facts into a fascinating story of these people, this town and a momentous era in our nation's history.

This is a great read, suspenseful and thoughtful, one of the best page-turners I have read in a long while. I strongly recommend the book to anyone, of any race, of any religion, and from any part of the U.S. It has made me reflect on what 'weak' creatures most of us are when it comes to moral risk-taking, and how courageous other Americans in the past have been. This is a book that will make you feel very humble about how 'morally righteous' you really are.

Unlike one of the other reviewers, I have enjoyed reading the 'large blocks of text'--the original written voice of the people livng at the time, and their [lists of] names make the events very real. These folks were a whole lot more articulate than myself--read this book!

What a compelling story of the heroes of the underground railroad movement along the Ohio River! I am not usually a reader of history, but this book was an enjoyable read. I literally couldn't put it down. Ms. Hagedorn's style makes history come alive.

Author Ann Hagedorn, who moved "on location" to complete her research and add inspiration to her writing, offers a rarely seen individual account of the underground railroad. Most other books on the topic take a view from 50,000 feet. Hagedorn focuses in on one river (the Ohio), two states (Ohio and Kentucky), and one man (John Rankin). The abolitionist work of this Presbyterian minister (whose letters about abolition are a crucial primary source) serves as the backdrop and foreground for Hagedorn's exposition. Though focused on Rankin, the author does not fail to provide compelling real-life stories of many other "key players" both slave and free. For a compelling, unique read of the courageous men and women conducting the underground railroad, "Beyond the River" is the book to read.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction , Spiritual Friends, and Soul Physicians.