A very smartly preserved copy of Smedley's significant early work, preserving the contributions of average Pennsylvanians to the work of the Underground Railroad.
The work stands as one of the earliest systematic attempts to document the Underground Railroad through the collection of firsthand testimonies and local records. Smedley, a Pennsylvania Quaker, gathered accounts from people who had actually participated in the network — conductors, stationmasters, and others who had sheltered and assisted freedom seekers — while many of them were still alive. This gives the work considerable value as a primary source, preserving details that might otherwise have been lost entirely.
The book is particularly valuable for its focus on a specific geographic region. By concentrating on Chester County and its neighboring areas in southeastern Pennsylvania, Smedley produced a granular, community-level account that captures the local networks, relationships, and logistics that made the Underground Railroad function in practice. This kind of regional specificity is something that broader, more general histories of the period cannot easily provide.
Smedley, R. C. History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania. Illustrated. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 1883. First Edition. 407pp.
Good + copy in original cloth, just framed at extremities as shown. Some light fraysing at extremities of hinges as shown. Textually very good, clean and bright. Two pages with small tears / folds at foredge. Else exemplary.
