- A marble bench on display at the Belpre Historical Society that was created in 1941 in remembrance of William and Amanda Hale and their work in Little Hocking on the Underground Railroad. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)
- Christopher Lohr, collection manager for the Belpre Historical Society, talks about photos from the Sumner School Collection obtained from curator Charlise Robinson, a member of the Belpre Historical Society, and the Wood County Landmarks Commission, on Saturday during the society’s Juneteenth open house. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)
- Displays and stories from the Emancipation Proclamation Celebrations of the Ohio River Valley were available Saturday at the Belpre Historical Society’s Juneteenth open house. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

A marble bench on display at the Belpre Historical Society that was created in 1941 in remembrance of William and Amanda Hale and their work in Little Hocking on the Underground Railroad. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)
BELPRE — The Mid-Ohio Valley was a “hotbed of abolitionism” and the local history of the Underground Railroad has become more clear over the years thanks to the work of local researchers, an historian with the Belpre Historical Society said.
Christopher Lohr, collection manager for the Belpre Historical Society, cited the work of the late Henry Robert Burke, co-creator of the Southeastern Ohio Underground Railroad Exhibit gallery at the Belpre Historical Society.
“We’ve been keeping his legacy and hope to perpetuate it,” Lohr said during the Juneteenth open house Saturday at the historical society. “We want to make sure that every citizen has an opportunity to have a greater understanding of the workings of the network to freedom in southeastern Ohio.”
Along with the Southeastern Ohio Underground Railroad Exhibit gallery collected by Burke in the late 90s and early 2000s, a temporary exhibit during the open house was available with photos from the Sumner School Collection obtained from curator Charlise Robinson, a Belpre Historical Society member, and the Wood County Landmarks Commission.
Lohr said crossings from the Virginia side of the Ohio River, present-day West Virginia, had been going on for decades, but it might have been the efforts of some local residents who got things going.

Christopher Lohr, collection manager for the Belpre Historical Society, talks about photos from the Sumner School Collection obtained from curator Charlise Robinson, a member of the Belpre Historical Society, and the Wood County Landmarks Commission, on Saturday during the society’s Juneteenth open house. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)
“There’s a growing consensus that Ephriam Cutler and his connections really were the start of the organized Underground Railroad,” Lohr said.
Cutler played a big role in keeping Ohio a free state, Lohr said.
In 1803 delegates from the Northwest Territory gathered in Chillicothe for the Ohio Statehood Convention where they would vote on how they wanted the state to move forward. Among the issues on the ballot was slavery.
Cutler was ill on the day of the vote. His fellow representatives from Washington County, Rufas Putnam and Paul Fearing, carried him in on his bed to cast his vote.
Cutler voted no and Ohio stayed a free state by that one vote. Veto Lake, created in the 1950s along the old route from Cutler (Constitution) to Barlow, was named for this action.

Displays and stories from the Emancipation Proclamation Celebrations of the Ohio River Valley were available Saturday at the Belpre Historical Society’s Juneteenth open house. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)
Another local figure instrumental in the Underground Railroad was Micah “Cajoe” Phillips, Lohr said. Phillips was sold to Harman Blennerhassett, a wealthy Irish immigrant who had purchased the island in the Ohio River at Parkersburg, around 1795. His main job was pulling the ferry boat back and forth between the mainland and the island.
It is not clear whether Blennerhassett freed Phillips or he left on his own, but he started a farm in Waterford Township around 1812 and became a conductor for the Underground Railroad network, Lohr said.
“One of the first people to free himself, didn’t keep going to Canada, he plunked down, got a farm in Waterford and started to help other people come out,” Lohr said.
The area is filled with stories such as this, including Col. John Stone of Belpre and Aunt Jenny from Parkersburg who worked together to free slaves who could have been on the auction block at the courthouse in Parkersburg, Lohr said. These stories are still being discovered, he said.
“We’re only touching the surface,” Lohr said.
For more information on the Emancipation Proclamation Celebrations of the Ohio River Valley, or any history from the area, go to the Belpre Historical Society at 509 Ridge St in Belpre or visit their facebook page at www.facebook.com/belprehistoricalsociety.
Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com