The Jacksonville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau has produced an excellent brochure (below) featuring the city’s important connection to the Underground Railroad.
Abolitionists Jonathan Turner and Edward Beecher (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, pub. 1852) were active here. As the first president (1830-1844) of Illinois College, Edward Beecher made the school a cauldron of abolitionist ideas. Former slave Benjamin Henderson arrived in Jacksonville in 1841 and also began working with the Underground Railroad.

There are at least 9 documented sites in Jacksonville that are associated with the
Underground Railroad.