Lewis Brooks and Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church
This historic illustration by R.C. Hall depicts Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, founded in 1866 by members of the Red Hill Settlement. Organized under the leadership of Rev. Thomas Walker Fry, a Black Baptist minister and Underground Railroad conductor, the church emerged from a community shaped by freedom seeking and became a lasting center of worship and community life.
Credit: Huntington Herald-Advertiser (2 September 1934).
In the 1850s, Lewis Brooks, a free Black farmer living near Quaker Bottom (modern Proctorville, Ohio), operated one of the most important Underground Railroad stations in southern Lawrence County. Located in the hills above the Ohio River, his home formed a critical link between crossings near Guyandotte, Virginia (now Huntington, West Virginia), and inland routes leading deeper into Appalachian Ohio. Local historian R.C. Hall later preserved this history in his July 1929 Huntington Herald-Advertiser article, “Underground Railway in Quaker Bottom Was Active in Slavery Era.” Hall explained that freedom seekers were concealed near the river and then sent on “to some ‘station’ in the hills,” where pursuit became more difficult. “The chief one of these ‘stations,’” wrote Hall, “was about two miles back in the hilly country and was operated by a colored man named Brooks.” Hall further described Brooks as “intelligent, honorable and brave to the point of daring.” In this rugged landscape, the Brooks family home was both a waypoint and, at times, a true place of refuge.
Rev. Thomas Walker Fry, with Charlotte Fry, his wife, and Susan Gordon, their granddaughter. Walker and Charlotte were both manumitted in 1849 as part of the original Burlington 37. In 1866, Fry became the founding pastor of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in the Red Hill Settlement near Proctorville. Image Credit: Original image has been corrected with the assistance of AI by the SSU Center for Public History.
A Mother, a Child, and a Nighttime Confrontation
One of the most vivid accounts of Lewis Brooks’s work comes from an escape story set in the 1850s. A young mother carrying her infant child crossed the Ohio River and was directed by abolitionists at Quaker Bottom to Brooks’s home, located “about two miles back in the hilly country.” Anticipating danger, Brooks placed them in a second cabin “up the ravine,” where he could keep watch below. That night, a group of slave catchers tracked them to the property. Hearing the sounds of the child and mother inside, the men approached the cabin, knocked, and demanded entry. It was refused. As R.C. Hall recounted, “the baby set a wail, its mother adding to the confusion by her terrified cries for help.” The men threatened to break down the door. Then, from the darkness behind them, a voice called out: “What in hell are you doing here?” Brooks had circled behind the pursuers, catching them completely off guard. Realizing their mistake, the men fired blindly and fled. Brooks returned “one parting shot,” which was followed by “a wild cry of terror and pain.”By morning, one of the men lay dead near the cabin, having “bled his life away in the darkness,” abandoned by his companions. Brooks was never charged, and according to Hall, those who came in search of freedom seekers under his protection “gave him no more trouble.”
Red Hill and the “Geography of Resistance”
Brooks’s station operated within the Red Hill Settlement, a free Black community that developed in the hills behind Quaker Bottom during the 1850s. Its location was no accident. The wooded ravines, steep ridgelines, and narrow interior paths of this Appalachian landscape offered concealment and distance from the Ohio River, but it was the people who made this terrain meaningful within the Underground Railroad.Historian Cheryl LaRoche has described this dynamic as a “geography of resistance,” arguing that free Black communities transformed landscapes like those of Appalachian Ohio into networks of refuge, movement, and protection. At Red Hill, families like the Brookses actively hid, defended, and guided freedom seekers northward. R.C. Hall emphasized that in Brooks’s time, the area was “surrounded by virgin forest,” and that the roads leading into the hills were little more than rough trails. From this elevated ground, Brooks could monitor approaches to his home, while those seeking freedom could remain concealed within the folds of the landscape.The Red Hill Settlement formed part of a broader Appalachian network linking river crossings to inland Black communities and churches. Freedom seekers who crossed at Quaker Bottom were moved quickly into the hills, where trusted residents like Brooks provided shelter and protection. From there, routes extended deeper into Lawrence County, connecting with Black Baptist congregations at Macedonia Hill and Poke Patch—communities whose members sustained this system through shared faith, family ties, and mutual aid.From this elevated ground at Red Hill, where freedom seekers found refuge within a “geography of resistance,” the foundations of a lasting community took shape in the years after emancipation, culminating in the establishment of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in 1866.
Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church: From Refuge to Institution
Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church emerged directly from the Red Hill Settlement and the networks that had sustained freedom seeking in the years before the Civil War. Founded by Lewis Brooks and his family, along with Rev. Thomas Walker Fry of Macedonia Baptist Church, the congregation brought together men and women who had participated in the Underground Railroad as both conductors and freedom seekers.As R.C. Hall later recalled, members of the Red Hill community had long traveled considerable distances to attend services at Macedonia, the nearest Black Baptist church in the region. Determined to establish a congregation of their own, they organized Mt. Pisgah under Fry’s leadership in the months following the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.The church quickly became the institutional center of a growing free Black community in the Appalachian hills, where a shared faith reinforced the same networks of mutual aid and cooperation that had defined the Underground Railroad. In 1871, the congregation secured land from Francis Marion Reckard, the son of Underground Railroad ally Judge Salmon Reckard, and constructed the church building that still stands today near the crest of Red Hill.Its name—Mt. Pisgah—evoked the biblical mountain from which Moses viewed the Promised Land. For those who gathered there, many of whom had crossed the Ohio River in search of freedom, the name carried a powerful and deeply personal meaning.Leadership within the church further reflected its origins in freedom seeking. Addison Haley, who had arrived at Red Hill as a freedom seeker in the early 1860s, married Eliza Brooks (daughter of Lewis and Nancy Brooks) and later succeeded Fry in the pulpit. His ministry linked the church’s future to the lived experience of emancipation and community building in southern Ohio.
From Enslavement to Community Leadership
Published in July 1929, R.C. Hall’s article, “Underground Railway in Quaker Bottom Was Active in Slavery Era,” documented local accounts of Lewis Brooks and his work as an Underground Railroad conductor. Drawing on community memory, Hall preserved one of the most detailed narratives of freedom seeking and resistance at Red Hill.
Credit: Huntington Herald-Advertiser (7 July 1934).
The life of Lewis Brooks reflects the broader transformation from enslavement to leadership that shaped Black communities in Appalachian Ohio during and after the Civil War. Born into slavery in Virginia, Brooks secured his freedom through a contested will before relocating with his wife Nancy and their children to Lawrence County in 1852. Their path to freedom was neither simple nor secure. While seeking to formalize their emancipation, the family was confined in Richmond’s notorious Lumpkin’s Jail—known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”—before ultimately obtaining their legal status and leaving Virginia. On November 9, 1852, the Brooks family crossed the Ohio River into Lawrence County, entering a region where an Underground Railroad network was already active. The family established themselves at Red Hill, where Lewis Brooks emerged as a central figure within the local community. His work as a conductor, though often carried out in secrecy, became widely known through local memory and later historical accounts. Following the Civil War, Brooks continued to assert his leadership in new ways. After the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, he successfully ran for election to the local school board overseeing the “colored school” at Red Hill. The campaign was contentious, but Brooks prevailed, earning the respect of both Black and white residents in the district. R.C. Hall later recalled Brooks’s candidacy and his plainspoken determination: “I’m going to run for school board! If a man insults me, I’ll resent it! If a man hits me, I’ll hit him!… but by — I’m going to fight him!” This same resolve had defined Brooks’s earlier defense of freedom seekers and now shaped his role in building institutions that would serve the next generation.
A Legacy of Courage and Community
Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, located near the crest of Red Hill, remains the primary surviving site associated with Lewis Brooks and the Red Hill Settlement. Founded by conductors, freedom seekers, and their descendants, the church stands as a lasting testament to faith, community, and the legacy of the Underground Railroad in Appalachian Ohio.
Credit: Photograph by Andrew Feight, Ph.D., for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative (AFHTI).
The story of Lewis Brooks and Mt. Pisgah reflects a faith put into action—first in the hidden work of protecting freedom seekers, and later in the building of community in the sunlight of slavery’s final abolition. For Lewis Brooks and others, the same convictions that sustained the Underground Railroad in the 1850s found lasting expression in the founding of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church and the institutions that anchored Black life in Appalachian Ohio. At Red Hill, those networks took on enduring form. Those who had sheltered, guided, and defended freedom seekers before the Civil War helped establish churches, schools, and communities in the decades that followed emancipation. Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church stands as the clearest surviving expression of that transformation. The courage of Lewis Brooks—his defense of a mother and child, his defiance of slave catchers, and his leadership within the Red Hill community—embodies the moral force at the heart of the Underground Railroad. His story is part of a broader history shaped by familial connections and religious associations that were at the heart of Ohio’s black communities. Together they transformed this Appalachian landscape into a “geography of resistance” and, ultimately, into a foundation for Black self-determination. Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church stands today as a lasting testament to the courage, faith, and community that sustained freedom seeking in Appalachian Ohio.
This site is part of the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour, funded by an ARC POWER Grant and developed by the Lawrence Economic Development Corp.
