The Underground Railroad Museum was founded in 1993 by Dr. John Mattox and his wife, Rosalind. The museum commemorates the Underground Railroad that operated in East Central Ohio before the Civil War and contains a collection of 8,000 historical items. In 2023, the museum was added to Ohio’s Underground Railroad Historic Trail.
The museum offers an interactive map highlighting locations in the region’s Underground Railroad network that helped freed and escaped slaves make their way to Canada.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, East Central Ohio played a significant part in helping escaped slaves make their way to Canada and freedom. Many of these slaves escaped around Wheeling, which was still part of Virginia at the time and crossed the Ohio River into Belmont County.
It was there, in places like Martins Ferry, that anti-slavery Abolitionists kept safe houses (known as “stations”) for the escaped slaves (“passengers”) to take refuge in before they were led by a “conductor” to the next station in the line.