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Jermain Wesley Loguen

Name: Jermain Wesley Loguen

Birthplace: TN

Status: Fugitive slave

Occupation/Training: Clergyman, Educator, Politician, Writer, Speaker

Residence: TN, Canada, NY

Abolitionist Involvement: Loguen became pastor of a church in Syracuse and was active in the American Missionary Society. Several times after 1840, he visited England, where he was greeted with acceptance by English abolitionists and often met with leading African Americans involved in the movement.

About 1850, he began assisting fugitives from his church and from his home, where he had an apartment specially fitted out to hide them. On 1 Oct 1851, Loguen himself had to briefly escape again to Canada to avoid prosecution for having actively participated in the removal of a jailed runaway named Jerry. After corresponding with the governor of New York, Loguen returned to Syracuse, where he was tried and found not guilty. The following year, members of abolitionist groups commemorated 1 Oct as "Jerry Rescue Day," and over 2,500 of them met to celebrate.

He was an active member of the Liberal political party. In 1853, he spoke at a statewide women's rights convention in Rochester, and then presided at the Liberal party's political convention in Canastota. He participated in their convention again in Syracuse in 1856, after the Liberal party changed its name to the Radical Abolition party.

In 1855 he learned that he had been named in the Will of Homer Treat of Litchfield County CN as executor of funds to assist needy colored students or to form a colored school. By 1857, he had devoted himself to the cause of the Fugitive Aid Society full-time. He wrote letters to local newspapers urging readers to hire fugitives in their shops and on their farms, and found jobs for many who passed through his station. He also wrote a letter to his former owner, and upon receiving a reply, allowed both to be published in an abolition sheet to help further the cause.

Loguen's work in assisting over 1,500 fugitive slaves earned the nickname 'Canada of the United States' for the city of Syracuse.

Family: Wife - Caroline Their daughter (name unknown) married the son of Frederick Douglass

Place of Death: Syracuse NY; Buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Section 6

References: Black Abolitionists, by Benjamin Quarles; Holy Warriors, by James Stewart; There is a River, by Vincent Harding; Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad, by Charles Blockson

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