Just Over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad

by William C. Kashatus

Winner of 2005 Award of Merit, American Association of Local Historical Societies and Museums

  • Just Over the Line focuses on the crucial role Chester County, Pennsylvania, played in the drama of the Underground Railroad during the years before the Civil War. The “Line” refers to the Mason-Dixon Line, the boundary between the free state of Pennsylvania and slave-holding Maryland. Chester County, just over the Mason-Dixon Line, was home to both Quakers and free blacks. Their common commitment to abolitionism allowed the two communities to transcend religious and racial barriers in order to help runaway slaves in their flight to freedom.

    On the other hand, not all Quakers agreed to participate in the anti-slavery movement, let alone the Underground Railroad. There were also others who were willing assist slave-catchers or kidnap free blacks and sell them into bondage for the bounty they would receive. Thus, Chester County was not a safe Northern haven for fugitives, but rather a dangerous battleground between pro- and anti-slavery elements.

    Kashatus’ spirited narrative recounts the role of important Underground Railroad agents such as Thomas Garrett and William Still, as well as those of unsung heroes and heroines. Many of these were humble country folk such as John and Hannah Cox, whose farm near Kennett was an important station.

    Just Over the Line also emphasizes the participation of the escaped slaves and kidnapped free blacks in their own liberation. Many fugitives were young and hardy, praised at the time for their exceptional intelligence and courage, rather than submissive victims dependent on the help of sympathetic whites. This is local history that was national in its impact.

  • Penn State University Press

    2002 | Paperback

    ISBN: 978-0-929706-17-7

    Pages: 130

    Illustrations: 25 color / 75 b&w

    Maps: 3

    Price: $26.95 (soft cover)

  • “Kashatus could scarcely have done a better job of sorting out the historical wheat from the chaff of hopeful speculation and unintended trivialization that now surround the Underground Railroad. Anyone who reads Just Over the Line will come away impressed with just how serious a challenge fugitive slaves posed to northern society and how varied the responses were.” – The Journal of American History

    “Just Over the Line is a model of historical writing, which can be read to advantage by the general reader and scholar alike.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

    “In Just Over the Line William C. Kashatus relates the exciting tales of the legendary underground railroad in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This area on the front lines of the struggle over slavery and black freedom was the nineteenth-century site of daring escapes, trap doors, hidden closets, tunnels and concealed cellars. Kashatus carefully documents the clandestine activity from which the legend grew; he also goes well beyond the legend to examine the conflicts, the complex roles of the Quakers and the spectrum of their opinion, the prominence of black activists and black community supports, and the interracial cooperation essential to the escape network’s success. This is local history that was national in its impact. Just Over the Line tells an inspiring story that speaks to our hopes for the future of race relations in America.”—Lois Horton, George Mason University

    “We all believe that we personally are good people, and that somehow we automatically understand right from wrong. We all believe in heroes; those lucky few whom circumstance thrust forward to enact the good. In Just Over the Line, William Kashatus gently undermines both assumptions. He does so in part by examining the meeting minutes of the Society of Friends of eighteenth and nineteenth century Chester County, Pennsylvania, as the Quakers publicly wrestled with the ethics of slavery, and resistance to the laws under which slavery operated. Mr. Kashatus also examines the local network of illicit smugglers we now call the Underground Railroad, and concludes that the network transcended class and race and religion and politics. . . . By demonstrating the complexity of our ancestors’ decades-long struggle to understand and enact the good, and the pluralism of that effort, Kashatus refuses to give us storybook heroes. Instead we see ourselves in our own time, grappling with our ongoing freedom struggles, and are reminded that it can be done. As Kashatus points out, ‘. . . change begins with the individual and often happens when seemingly small actions and good will come together.’ In such a world, we all have an opportunity to be heroes.”—Orloff Miller, The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio