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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region's history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.
Below is an excerpt from the 2023 Ghost Walk script. This year, Ghost Walk focused on the Underground Railroad and the significant contributions of men and women from Warren and Trumbull County who helped freedom seekers escape slavery.
This scene, acted by Don Novorksy, Karen Proutman and Georgia Smith, tells the story of Levi Sutliff, a local stationmaster and co-founder of the Ohio Antislavery Society. Please note that the intent of Ghost Walk is to dramatize real-life events for the education and enjoyment of the public. We hope that this project will serve as a gateway, introducing participants to inspiring figures throughout our history.
Levi Sutliff: All right, friends, gather round now so that we can begin our meeting. The October meeting of Warren's Anti-Slavery Society is being called to order. We must settle ourselves now as we have many things to discuss this evening. Let me introduce myself to those who may not know me. My name is Levi Sutliff. I live over on High Street, and I am a lawyer. My brother, Judge Milton Sutliff, usually co-chairs these meetings, but he has some business to attend to this evening, about which I shall not describe in detail. You must appreciate the extreme danger of giving away too much information. We must double our efforts to cloak ourselves in secrecy in order to help these poor people find their way to freedom.
Rabble Rouser: Aw, friend, I think you are making too much of the danger. After all, this is the North. We do not allow slavery here, it is well known. Those Southerners have no jurisdiction here.
Sutliff: Friend, do you not understand that the Fugitive Slave Law just passed last month?
Rabble Rouser: Oh, lawyers and their laws! Who can understand the nonsense they spout?
Sutliff: Understand this: this new law gives slave catchers much more power, more than they have ever had before. It means that now they can come, with their bloodhounds, their whips, their guns, their leg irons right into your home. They may now arrest you for aiding a runaway slave, with no proof, just on the word of anyone who may feel like accusing you. Our Northern courts are now forced to defend these men and allow the horrible methods they use to capture any black man or woman they see, born free or not, and drag them into slavery. We must be careful in order to perform our sacred purpose.
Rabble Rouser: Now, I am not in favor of slavery, Levi. I do not relish the idea of holding another man hostage against his will. But if the danger of what you are saying is true, then why get involved?
Sutliff: Shall I tell you the story of the first time I traveled South, staying at an inn where slaves tended the guests and saw, with my own eyes, the punishment one very small girl incurred for the smallest of infractions? This child had boiling water poured over her arm to remind her to do her job in a more careful manner. The slave owner felt he was well within his rights to do so, as the girl was his own property to do with as he saw fit. Property, sir, property! Or shall I tell you of the runaway slave I met in Cincinnati who escaped with a 25-pound leg iron dangling from his ankle, a reminder of his previous failed attempt to find freedom? That man would not accept defeat. He stole his mistress' clothesline to attach to the leg iron so he could drag it and himself off the plantation and make his way north. I personally took that man to the blacksmith to extricate him from that leg iron. And I kept it, Sir, to remind me that, just like that slave, I can never give up. I will continue to fight against slavery, no matter the cost.
(The leg iron described is on view at the Sutliff Museum, located inside the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library.)
For more information on the Underground Railroad in Trumbull County, visit TCHS's "Abolitionist & Me" project at www.trumbullcountyhistory.org/abolitionist/ or visit the Sutliff Museum at www.sutliffmuseum.org.