Speed Log Cabin

The Montgomery County Historical Society is committed to preserving and researching African-American history. One project that came out of the program centered around the 1990 restoration of the Speed Log Cabin at the Lane Place grounds. The cabin was originally built in the northwest corner of Crawfordsville, circa 1845. It was the residence of a dedicated abolitionist, John Allen Speed, who provided sanctuary and transportation to hundreds of fugitive slaves. Now that data for the workings of that mid-19th century humanitarian project are now available, we have located 15 “depots” scattered throughout Montgomery County. John Speed, native of Perth, Scotland, was just one man involved in the crusade with his wife, Margaret, his daughter, and two young sons who fed, clothed and encouraged their African-American visitors to find freedom from bondage.

The Speeds influenced members of the African Methodist Episcopal church to join them in aiding the ex-slaves. The A.M.E. members secured Lot 20 on Spring Street, where they built their small church. Speed’s cabin was only a few yards away on Lot 19. The African-American church members lived in shacks in the area of west North and Spring Streets.

There was additional fervor for their underground assistance, even though the penalties for involvement were stiff and included lynching. Many professors and administrative members at Wabash College hailed from New England with its religious and political sympathies intact, and they were very supportive of the Underground Railroad. Other sources in favor of the Underground Railroad came from various corners of the county; among those were Quaker families who held strong beliefs about freeing the slaves.

Fisher Doherty, an abolitionist and spiritualist, owned and operated a wagon factory. One of his employees, Jesse Cumberland, married the older Speed daughter and became actively involved. Their brick house, a block from the Speeds’ cabin site, became another “station” on the Underground.

Several physicians in the community assisted in moving the slaves. Their enclosed buggies and night journeys kept them free of suspicion. Dr. Joseph Emmons, resident of the Quaker community at Binford, Dr. Iral Brown of Alamo and Yountsville, and Dr. Ryland T. Brown of Crawfordsville were among those who helped.

The above portrays only briefly the sites and people who built the Underground and then kept it running. John T. Hanover (who used an alias John Hanson while working in Indiana) — employed by the Freedmen’s Bureau in the nation’s capitol and formerly Indiana’s head of the Anti-Slavery League — stated in 1865 that about 4,000 Negroes for each of the 7 years after the Fugitive Slave Law was repealed were given aid. The largest number traveled the Whitewater route along the eastern border of Indiana, but that still leaves an awesome number who traveled along the central route and/or through the villages and farms on the western route.

—Martha Cantrell, August 2000

NOTE: The Speed Cabin was moved from its original site to Milligan Park in the 1960s. It was relocated to the grounds of Lane Place 1989-1990 and restored.