EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

Trumbull County was heavily involved in the Underground Railroad, with more than 150 miles of trails within its borders.

One of the stops on the Underground Railroad was that of abolitionist George Hezlep’s home in Gustavus. Built around 1832, the home, which doubled as the first store in Gustavus, contained a closet that was used to hide freedom seekers traveling on the Underground Railroad.

George Gray was one of these freedom seekers. Gray was enslaved on a plantation in Virginia. After escaping, he followed the trails of the Underground Railroad from Virginia to Ohio, where he arrived in Hartford, stopping at Azel Tracy’s wagon shop and following the trail to Hezlep’s home in Gustavus shortly afterward.

Once Gray arrived at the Hezlep home, he was hidden in a hogshead barrel. Later, two slave catchers stopped by a tavern across from the Hezlep home and store. In the darkness of the night, Gray was guided by the Hezlep’s out of their house and into the woods where he was hidden in a nearby hay barn.

Shortly after, the slave catchers searched the Hezlep home and found nothing but food scraps and the barrel Gray was hiding in, which they stated was still warm. However, a local person convinced the slave catchers that the fugitive slave was heading to Ashtabula and that they could cut them off enroute. The slave catchers believed them and left the property, heading towards Ashtabula. Gray was then stashed onto a wagon and taken North by other conductors on the Underground Railroad. Gray made it to Canada and later returned to the United States after emancipation.

In 2002, Kadie and Paul Kimpel were the owners of the Hezlep home and upon preparing to do some renovations, they discovered a hidden recess in a wall that contained pages of Hezlep’s diary from 1845. These faded and fragile pages contained the details of his travels, accounts and names of other abolitionists in Trumbull County, which provides a clue into the paths traveled by freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad.

The pages referenced other abolitionists in the area such as Ephraim Brown of Bloomfield, the Andrews’ of Youngstown, the Hubbards of Ashtabula, and Reverend Knox of New Castle, Pa. Later in 2002, the Kimpel’s sold the Hezlep home and relocated their family. The location of the pages of George Hezlep’s diary that the Kimpel’s once held is unknown. The only proof that these pages existed and what they contained are preserved in the lines of a Tribune Chronicle article written in 2002 by David Kerester.

As with any Underground Railroad site, finding definitive proof of its involvement on the Underground Railroad is extremely difficult. These diary pages provide evidence that Hezlep’s home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The Hezlep home was one of the first hundred houses in Ohio to be recognized as an official Historic Underground Railroad site by the Ohio History Connection.