Isaac Mendenhall (September 26, 1806 – December 23, 1882) was an American farmer, abolitionist, and station master on the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...

Chester County Chester County may refer to: * Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States ** Chester County Council, boy scout council in Pennsylvania. * Chester County, South Carolina, United States * Chester County, Tennessee, United States * Cheshire ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall (his wife) aided several hundred fugitives to escape to freedom. Prosperous farmers, they lived at the estate of Oakdale, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

since 1972. A Pennsylvania state historical marker was dedicated in their honor on November 10, 2018.

Biography

Isaac's ancestor, Benjamin Mendenhall, purchased the Oakdale estate from

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...

with a deed dated June 15, 1703, and Oakdale had remained in the family ever since. Isaac's eldest son, Aaron, inherited the property from his father. The property, its centerpiece a large stone farmhouse, is located on Hillendale Road in the present-day Pennsbury Township. Dinah Hannum Mendenhall (October 15, 1807 – November 22, 1889) was the daughter of Obed Hannum and was born in Kennett Township. She served for many years as a vice president of the

Universal Peace Union The Universal Peace Union was a pacifist organization founded by former members of the American Peace Society in Providence, Rhode Island with the adoption of its constitution on 16 May 1866; it was chartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 9 Apri ...

, a pacifist organization. Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall were committed abolitionists and champions of the temperance,

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ...

, and "free expression of thought upon religion." For more than thirty-five years, they served as station masters and conductors on the

, part of a network that included many Quaker farmers in the

Kennett Square Kennett Square is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Kennett Square had a population of 5,943. Kennett Square is located in the Delaware Valley and considered a suburb of both Philadelphia, t ...

area. Many freedom seekers came from

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...

, only ten miles away, where

Thomas Garrett Thomas Garrett (August 21, 1789 – January 25, 1871) was an American abolitionist and assisted in the Underground Railroad movement before the American Civil War. He helped more than 2,500 African Americans escape slavery. For his effort ...

and his wife Rachel Mendenhall Garrett (Isaac's cousin) ran a safehouse. Oakdale was the first stop north of Delaware for many freedom seekers. Garrett would tell them to "go on and on until they came to a stone-gate post, and then turn in." To forestall imposters, he would write a note for freedom seekers to hand to the Mendenhalls stating that Garrett had sent a specified number of "bales of black wool." A distinct feature of Oakdale is a concealed square chamber, built between a walk-in fireplace and the west wall of the carriage house and entered through a loft, which Isaac designed to conceal freedom seekers. For large groups, the Mendenhalls would hide the men in their barn and women and children in their springhouse. Conductors then smuggled or guided enslaved persons to the Underground Railroad's next station stops in towns such as Darby, Pocopsin,

East Bradford East Bradford Township is a township in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 10,335 at the 2020 census. History The Cope's Bridge, Gibson's Covered Bridge, Worth-Jefferis Rural Historic District, Carter-Worth Ho ...

, Newlin, Lionville, or

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. If caught violating the

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. The Act was one ...

, the Mendenhalls faced arrest, imprisonment, and fines. No count was kept of those they aided, but they are believed to have participated in the escape to freedom of "several hundred" people. In the aftermath of the Christiana Riot of 1851, in which a white slave hunter was killed, the Mendenhalls sheltered William Parker, Alexander Pinckney, Abraham Johnson, and a fourth fugitive whose name was not recorded. All four men were wanted on charges of treason. The fugitives sheltered in the Mendenhalls' barn and husked corn in the fields, passing themselves off as regular field hands and hiding in the woods when strangers feared to be bounty hunters were reported nearby. After several days, a neighbor of the Mendenhalls guided the fugitives to the home of Graceanne Lewis. From thence, the men journeyed to freedom in Canada. Due to his outspoken abolitionism and other progressive views on women's rights and temperance, Isaac was expelled ("disowned") from the Kennett Friends Meeting in 1852 along with Eusebius Barnard, William Barnard, Isaac Meredith, and other reform-minded members of the congregation. Joining with other Quaker dissidents, Isaac became a founding member of the Longwood Meeting of

Progressive Friends The Progressive Friends, also known as the Congregational Friends and the Friends of Human Progress, was a loose-knit group of dissidents who left the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in the mid-nineteenth century. The separation ...

in May 1853. Isaac served as the second treasurer of the Longwood Meeting, in which post his son, Aaron, succeeded him. Notably, the Kennett Friends never disowned Dinah Mendenhall, there being a "division of sentiment" in her case. Isaac served as treasurer of the Chester County Anti-Slavery Society from May 1838 through the end of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

in 1865. A prominent social activist in her own right, Dinah was a member of an abolitionist committee that met with President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

in 1862 to urge him to enact the

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...

. In 1851, the poet

John Greenleaf Whittier John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet ...

wrote to the Mendenhalls: "Whenever and wherever the cause of freedom needed aid and coutenance, you were sure to be found with the noble band of Chester County men and women to whose mental culture, moral stamina, and generous self-sacrifice I can bear empathetic testimony." Isaac and Dinah's fiftieth wedding anniversary in May 1881 was marked by a celebration attended by 225 guests. Isaac died at home in Hamorton, Pennsylvania, on December 23, 1882. Dinah died on November 22, 1889. They were interred in Longwood Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mendenhall, Isaac 1806 births 1882 deaths People from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania People from Chester County, Pennsylvania Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania Abolitionists from Pennsylvania Underground Railroad people Farmers from Pennsylvania American Quakers Quakers from Pennsylvania 19th-century Quakers Quaker abolitionists People disowned by the Quakers

Biography

See also

References