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Historical Information:
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Joseph Goodrich's Milton House and the Underground
Railroad Joseph Goodrich was born in Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1800; he married
Nancy Maxon in 1819, and in 1821, moved to Alfred, Allegheny County, New
York. He and his growing family, which now included a son, Ezra, and a
daughter, Jane, resided in Alfred until 1838, when they pulled up stakes
and moved to Milton. Goodrich built the Milton House, a stagecoach inn, in
1844. "By 1840 abolitionism and the [underground] railroad were active in southeastern Wisconsin. The passage of slaves through the state was not frequent, but was enough movement to keep people interested (Clark, 1955)." Joseph Goodrich was well-known in the area as a strong anti-slavery man. ". . . He was for many years a decided anti-slavery man, a member of the old Whig party . . . He welcomed every new truth, every discovery in science, every practical invention . . . His apt sayings would pass from mouth to mouth and be quoted in sermons and public addresses (U. S. Biographical Dictionary, Wisconsin Volume, 1877)." "He was endowed with a remarkable vein of humor, and his narratives of personal adventures, his ready and witty repartee and his own hearty laughter made his company the most genial and entertaining; to this he added a warm and generous heart, which attracted to him hosts of friends. He executed all his plans with great promptness and uncommon energy, and hence he seldom failed in his enterprises; he was positive and fixed in his views; he was a decided anti-slavery man and his home was a safe refuge for the fugitive slave . . .(History of Rock County Wisconsin, 1878, 1879)."  Prior
to the Civil War, runaway slaves were given safe haven in the basement of
the Milton House. Runaways entered through the cabin to the rear of the
inn and then through a trap door in the cabin's floor to the dirt tunnel
that led to the basement of the inn. In 1864, Mary Schackelmann Meyer was
worked in the dining room of the Milton House and took runaways in through
the cabin, through the trap door and the tunnel to their hiding place in
the basement (L. Lukas, unpublished term paper, 1981).  Milton's underground tunnel
which is also unique in the nation for being the only segment of the
Underground Railroad that was actually underground and has retained its
identity and is open to the public. There are rumors of others but none of
them are available for inspections (Dr. Rachel Salisbury, unpublished
notes, 1972)." . . . Mr. Goodrich who was operating an inn a few miles away [from Janesville] had no such security. He had no idea whether the people who came and signed their names in his register were Abolitionists or non-Abolitionists, whether he could trust them or whether he could not trust them. And so he had to devise an entirely different method of helping the slaves to escape. . . . He cared for them quietly in the basement [of the inn] where they could eat and rest and get ready for the next stage of their journey. But if the alarm were sounded here, his method of helping the slaves to escape was to have them crawl through his tunnel which came up under the log cabin at the back of the house through the trap door in the floor and then they could get away down to Storrs Lake and go on up through bowers lake to the Otter Creek area and get out to Lake Koshkonong and keep on their northward journey to Fort Atkinson or where they were going next. He could not, under any circumstances, bring them through the inn because he did not know whether he could trust his patrons or not (Dr. Rachel Salisbury, unpublished notes, 1972)." "About 1890, I visited Uncle Ezra and Aunt Libby--they managed the Milton House and he showed me the narrow tunnel which was 5 feet high and told me it was used to help slaves escape from the southern plantations north to Canada (Mabel Davis Van De Mark, personal communication, 1955)." Will Davis (brother-in-law of Jane Goodrich Davis) was sent with a wagon load of hay to the tavern [Milton House] and told not to look back. [He] Went into the tavern and had his dinner and when he came out he knew no one was in the wagon and returned home (Goodrich family oral history, Milton Historical Society)." "In the stirring days during which the fugitive slave law was the most important matter of public interest the good people around Milton and Albion did not generally advertise their participation in resistance to it in the face of imprisonment in a federal prison and a $1,000 fine. However, it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the territorial road and the stations along its route in the basement of the Milton House and the Albion church constituted part of the extensive system provided for the escape of the fugitive slaves (Old Albion Academy . . ., August 4, 1949)." The territorial road led out from the Chicago lake port, ran almost directly northwest to Walworth up through Johnstown on to Milton, down Madison Avenue through Milton Junction or West Milton as it was then called, passing to the west side of Clear lake to the Rock River at Newville. Crossing Rock River at the foot of Lake Koshkonong . . . directly up the hill from Newville where about a half mile northerly from the junction to the present highways 51 and 73, it made a right angle turn directly west about a quarter of a mile to come out at the present location of U. S. Highway 51 whose course it followed through Albion on the way to Madison and the four lakes regions (Old Albion Academy . . ., August 4, 1949)." The Milton Historical Society collections contain a small brown piece of paper from the Lois Goodrich estate on which is written "Andrew Pratt came to J (paper torn off) in 1861 was cared for and . . . the underground passage, him a job with David Plotts . . . village where he worked . . . afterwards emigrated to where he proved up on Gov . . ." Later accounts report that Ezra Goodrich found Andrew Pratt a job and he remained in the area. REFERENCE Clark, James I., Wisconsin Defies the Fugitive Slave Law. (1955) Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin History of Rock County Wisconsin 1878, (1879) Chicago: Western Historical Company. Biographical Dictionary, Wisconsin Volume, (1877) Chicago: American Biographical Company. Old Albion Academy Hotbed of Anti-Slavery Activity, Research Shows, (1949, August 4). The Janesville Daily Gazette (Janesville, WI.) Updated February 8, 1997 |
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The Milton House National Historic Landmark
is on the National Register
of Historic Places, National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom |
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Milton House Museum