Published in Ladies’ Home Journal (September 1902), this image of the Rankin House helped popularize the story of Rev. John Rankin and Ripley’s role in the Underground Railroad at the turn of the twentieth century. Source: University of Michigan.
Liberty Hill and the Road to Freedom
Built in 1828, the Rankin House, home of Rev. John and Jean Lowry Rankin and their thirteen children, became one of the most active Underground Railroad stations in the nation. Originally from Jefferson County, Tennessee, the Rankins moved to Ripley, Ohio, to live in a free state and openly oppose slavery. Perched atop Liberty Hill overlooking the Ohio River, the home’s commanding view allowed the Rankins and their allies to assist freedom seekers crossing from slaveholding Kentucky into the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, where inland routes carried them toward Red Oak and other stations throughout Brown and Adams Counties.
Faith, Abolition, and Moral Conviction
Calvin Rankin (1821–1872). Son of Rev. John and Jean Rankin, Calvin assisted his parents in aiding freedom seekers crossing the Ohio River at Ripley. In an interview with historian Wilbur H. Siebert, he later described the “North Star Line” and its “Eastern Route,” which split at Red Oak and extended through the hills of southern Ohio. Source: Ohio History Connection.
For Rev. Rankin, opposition to slavery was rooted deeply in Christian belief. In his writings, he condemned slavery as “a never-failing fountain of the grossest immorality” that cast a shadow over the nation’s promise:
“I consider involuntary slavery a never-failing fountain of the grossest immorality, and one of the deepest sources of human misery; it hangs like the mantle of night over our republic and shrouds its rising glories.”
Rankin argued that slavery violated the Christian law of love, insisting that no person could hold another in bondage without betraying the moral teachings of the Gospel:
“Every man who is acquainted with the attendant & consequent evils of slavery would, if a slave, desire to be liberated… Hence, no man can hold an innocent person to involuntary servitude, without violating the Savior’s law of love.”
These convictions shaped the Rankin household and placed the family at the forefront of the growing national antislavery movement.
Rankin’s Letters on American Slavery (1826), originally written to persuade his brother in Virginia to free those he enslaved, circulated widely and helped shape national debate. At a time when many reformers supported colonization or gradual emancipation, Rankin argued for immediate abolition, influencing figures such as William Lloyd Garrison and helping shift the movement toward a more uncompromising stance.
From their hilltop home overlooking the Ohio River, members of the Rankin family worked together to aid freedom seekers crossing from Kentucky into Ohio, forming part of a larger Underground Railroad network across southern Ohio. Source: Ohio History Connection.
A Family’s Work on the Underground Railroad
Despite threats of violence and a reported $3,000 bounty placed on Rev. Rankin’s head, the Rankins aided more than 2,000 freedom seekers. Jean Rankin and the family prepared food, offered shelter, and guided travelers along routes that connected Ripley’s river crossings to inland communities across the Appalachian foothills.
Interracial Cooperation on the Ohio River
The Rankin family did not work alone. Across the riverfront in Ripley, African American abolitionist and ironworker John P. Parker risked capture and re-enslavement by repeatedly crossing the Ohio River into Kentucky to assist freedom seekers. Parker’s repeated crossings and rescues brought many travelers to the base of Liberty Hill, where the Rankin family and their allies helped guide them inland toward Red Oak. There the Rev. James Gilliland of Red Oak Presbyterian Church and other local conductors directed travelers either north through Brown County or east into Adams County, linking the Rankin House to a broader network of Underground Railroad routes across the Appalachian foothills of Ohio.
Although Parker and Rankin came from different backgrounds – one a formerly enslaved Black entrepreneur, the other a Presbyterian minister – their work reflected a shared moral purpose. Together with free Black residents and white abolitionists in Ripley and beyond, they helped create an interracial network that made this portion of the Ohio River Valley one of the most active corridors of the Underground Railroad.
Stories that Inspired a Nation
Eliza Harris Crossing the Ohio River, sheet music lithograph (1852). Published the same year as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, this early illustration shows Eliza fleeing across the ice with her son as pursuers gather on the Kentucky shore. Beneath the image appear her words: “God helping me, I crossed the river on the ice; for they were behind me—right behind—and there was no other way.” The scene became one of the most enduring visual symbols of resistance to slavery in nineteenth-century America. Source: M. A. Collier (poet) and E. J. Loder (music), Eliza’s Flight: A Scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1852).
One of the most enduring stories associated with the Rankin House involves a woman fleeing across the frozen Ohio River with her child—an account Rev. Rankin shared with writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. The episode later inspired the character Eliza in Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). In A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1854), Stowe recalled Rankin assuring her of the story’s authenticity:
“Last spring… [John Rankin] a Presbyterian clergyman of Ohio came to her, and said, ‘I understand they dispute that fact about the woman’s crossing the river… I know it is true, for she is now living in Canada.’” Through Rankin’s testimony, local acts of courage along the Ohio River became part of a national narrative that shaped public opinion about slavery.
Organizing the Antislavery Movement
Rev. Rankin’s influence extended far beyond the hilltop home overlooking Ripley. As an early leader in Ohio’s abolition movement, he helped organize local societies in Ripley and Red Oak and supported the broader Ohio Anti-Slavery Society during the 1830s. Rankin collaborated with national abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Theodore Weld, spreading immediatism arguments through lectures, correspondence, and print culture.
Rankin’s antislavery work was inseparable from his religious leadership. Within the Chillicothe Presbytery, he pressed fellow ministers to denounce slaveholding and exclude slaveowners from Christian fellowship, arguing that slavery violated the core teachings of the Gospel. These efforts proved controversial and ultimately unsuccessful, revealing deep divisions within American Presbyterianism.
Rather than abandon his convictions, Rankin joined a growing “come-outer” movement that urged believers to separate from denominations that tolerated slavery. In 1847 he helped found the Free Presbyterian Church, a small but influential antislavery denomination that barred slaveholders from membership and reflected the radical theological vision that guided his ministry. Rankin warned that a nation that refused justice would face divine consequences:
“If we refuse to do the Africans justice, we may expect the supreme Governor of the world to avenge their wrongs…”
Legacy and the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour
Today, the Rankin House is preserved as a National Historic Landmark through the efforts of the Ohio History Connection and Ripley Heritage, Inc. Visitors standing on Liberty Hill can still look across the Ohio River toward Kentucky and imagine the journeys of those who crossed under cover of darkness seeking freedom.
As part of the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour, the Rankin House serves as a river gateway to inland routes that carried freedom seekers through the Appalachian foothills of Ohio and into a wider network of communities committed to liberty across the tristate region of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
This site is part of the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour, funded by an ARC POWER Grant and developed by the Lawrence Economic Development Corp. and the Center for Public History at Shawnee State University.
