One of the Underground Railroad's most remarkable conductors was William Lloyd Still. William Still was born October 7, 1821 in Burlington County, New Jersey. Although he gave his official birthdate as October 7, 1821, Still provided the date of November 1819 on the 1900 census. His father, Levin Steel, had been enslaved, purchased his own freedom in 1798. When his wife, Sidney, was unable to do the same, she fled, taking with her the couple’s four children. She joined her husband in New Jersey, but before long they were tracked down by slave hunters and dragged back to Maryland. When Sidney fled a second time, she made the heartbreaking decision to leave behind her two eldest children, Levin, Jr. and Peter, knowing that she likely would never see them again.
Although born in a free state, all of her children were technically slaves because their mother was a fugitive slave. Once the family was settled in rural South Jersey where they hoped to make a new life for themselves as free people, and where they hoped to evade the long reach of slavery. Levin changed the spelling of their last name to Still and Sidney took a new name, Charity. They never forgot the two boys that had been left behind. When William was born, it was into a family that was acutely aware of its connection to slavery, a family that felt an obligation to help others in their flight from bondage. Throughout William Still's childhood, he worked with his family on their farm and also found work as a woodcutter. Although Still received very little formal education, he did learn to read and write, teaching himself. Still's literary skills would help him become a prominent abolitionist and advocate for formerly enslaved people.
As a young boy, Still and other family members aided fugitive slaves—hiding them from slave catchers, and guiding them to freedom. In 1844, at the age of 23, William Still left his rural home behind and relocated to Philadelphia, where he worked first as a janitor. Still quickly immersed himself in the city’s vibrant free Black community. He found work at the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, an interracial organization where he was able to continue his efforts in service to fugitives from slavery. While he was in Philadelphia, Still met and married Letitia George. Following their marriage in 1847, the couple had four children. Their home became a center for the Underground Railroad and the first stop of hundreds of fugitive slaves on their way to freedom further north.
Still also became the chairman of Philadelphia’s Vigilance Committee, an organization loosely affiliated with the Anti-Slavery Society. The Philadelphia’s Vigilance Committee, maintained connections with allies in neighboring towns like Wilmington, Delaware, or Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who would meet fugitives and send them on to Still. Still’s job was to ensure that fugitives moved through Philadelphia as safely and efficiently as possible. This meant coordinating with allies outside of the city, sometimes in towns just miles outside of Philadelphia, other times in Southern port cities as far away as Norfolk, Virginia. It meant making sure that when fugitives arrived in the city, they were met at the docks or the train station and guided to a safe place to stay—often the Still family home.
The committee sometimes provided new clothes for fugitives; it paid to bathe and shave fugitives to make them less conspicuous. The group offered food and comfort to those who had known little of this on their flight from bondage. It gathered information, always seeking to stay one step ahead of the slave catchers who roamed the streets of Northern cities and towns searching for fugitive slaves. At times it mobilized the African American community of Philadelphia and beyond to protect fugitives with physical force. To make all of this possible, the committee also raised money, with public events and private solicitations. In addition to gathering information from informants across the city in order to anticipate the actions of the slave hunters who prowled the city.
Still’s organization received support from as far away as Great Britain. All of this cost money, and Still was also responsible for raising that money and making sure the money was accounted for. Each expenditure was carefully recorded in his neat hand. Still’s work sometimes brought him face to face with the enemy—an arrogant slaveholder on the Delaware docks or a villainous slave catcher in a Philadelphia back alley. Between 1844 and 1865, Still helped at least 60 enslaved African American people escape bondage. Still interviewed many of the enslaved Black people seeking freedom, men, women, and families, documenting where they came from, the difficulties they met and, their final destination, and the pseudonyms they used to relocate.
William Still was working as a clerk for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, when a former slave calling himself Peter Freedman turned up in his Philadelphia office. The older fugitive had an incredible story to tell, but the clerk was too busy to pay much attention. It was August 1850, and most anti-slavery activists were focused on the great national debate over slavery that was taking place in Congress. One excitable ex-slave from Alabama hardly compared to the importance of stopping the spread of slavery or preventing the passage of a new fugitive slave law. But as William Still fidgeted impatiently behind his desk, he suddenly realized that the man sitting across from him was actually his brother. It was August 1850, and he had come to Philadelphia looking for parents he had not seen in decades—not since he was separated from them as a child and sold south. The journey from Alabama had been long and arduous, but now that he was here, he was unsure if he should have come. Would he even recognize his parents if he saw them? It had been more than 40 years, after all.
Still looked at Freedman. “What were your parents’ names?” he asked. Freedman told him about his parents, his older brother Levin and his sisters. Still asked him to repeat the names and inquired if there was anybody else Freedman could remember, peppering him with questions as though he did not believe what Freedman said and was hoping to catch him in some inconsistency. Still sat next to Freedman and looked him directly in the face. “Suppose I should tell you that I am your brother?” he said, his voice now trembling. “My father’s name was Levin, and my mother’s name is Sidney, and they lost two boys named Levin and Peter, about the time you speak of. I have often heard my mother mourn about those two children, and I am sure you must be one of them”.
By the time Still came face to face with his long-lost brother, he had already committed himself to aiding fugitives from slavery. The unexpected reunion inspired a new commitment to keeping detailed records of his work. This was the work that Still did, day in and day out, but his position at the center of this vast abolitionist network also involved him in some of the most dramatic events of the era. When Henry Brown mailed himself in a box in order to escape slavery, Still was one of the men who was there to open that box in Philadelphia. When slave catchers threatened the safety of a group of fugitive slaves in Christiana, PA, Still received intelligence of the plans of these slave catchers and passed it along to allies who were able to successfully drive off the slave hunters.
Much of Still’s work was necessarily clandestine, but he gradually took on a more public role in the abolitionist movement, becoming one of the public faces of the Underground Railroad. Carefully chosen publicity, revealing just enough tantalizing detail, could help the Vigilance Committee raise money and rally the morale of abolitionists in the face of the many daunting setbacks of the 1850s. “The Underground Railroad cause is increasing,” boasted Still in an 1856 newspaper article, “they cannot stop the cars.” Whatever the daily challenges abolitionists faced, Still reminded his allies that their cause was righteous and that it would triumph. His work became increasingly dangerous in the 1850s, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave great powers to southern slaveholders seeking to recapture their runaway slaves. It strengthened the hand of slave catchers operating in Northern cities or in any free state and any government officials, to help capture and return freedom seekers. Many people objected to this policy and were already resisting it. Under threat of severe penalty if he were caught, Still felt that if the society could provide fugitives some possibility of “restoration of lost identities, and the reunion of severed relationships,” it would be worth it. Ultimately, he was able to preserve records about a substantial portion of the perhaps 1,000 Black men, women and children in their journey from slavery to freedom in his time at the Anti-Slavery Society.
During the 1850s, Still organized many of the Underground Railroad operations in Philadelphia. The runaways crossed into Pennsylvania not only because it was close, but also because it contained the North's largest free African-American population, more than 56,000 residents by the eve of the Civil War. They also came to Pennsylvania because the state had a reputation for being antislavery. It had been the first state to adopt a gradual emancipation law. It had also been the first northern state to protect its black residents with personal liberty laws, written to prevent slavecatchers from kidnapping free Blacks. According to his records, the city's network of abolitionists helped more than 100 slaves escape each year. This network of abolitionists included Frederick Douglass.
Since his work with the Underground Railroad had to be kept secret, Still kept a fairly low public profile until enslaved people were freed. Nonetheless, he was a fairly prominent leader of the Black community and devoted himself to the civil rights struggles of his day. In 1855, he traveled to Canada to observe enclaves of formerly enslaved people. Eventually, as the conflict over slavery erupted into the Civil War, Still stepped down from his position at the Anti-Slavery Society and the Vigilance Committee. Still established a prosperous coal business, which would make him one of the wealthiest Black men in Philadelphia. By 1859, Still began the fight to desegregate Philadelphia's public transportation system by publishing a letter in a local newspaper. His business success also allowed him to expand his philanthropy to support the poorest and neediest of the Black community in his adopted city and across the country.
Also, in 1861, he helped organize a social, civil and statistical association to collect and preserve information about Black Americans. Still also supported the push for extending to Black men the right to vote, a right that Pennsylvania had denied them since 1838. After the Civil War, Still devoted his time to combating racism and discrimination. William Still continued to be a successful businessman and a generous person who helped his community. He owned a large public hall called Liberty Hall, which was one of the biggest public spaces owned by a Black person in the U.S. He helped start and fund groups that tracked freed people. It had been his work on the Underground Railroad, however, that had brought Still to prominence. Still had always kept meticulous records of this work. Doing so was dangerous. If they had fallen into the wrong hands, countless fugitives and their supporters would have been put at risk.
William Still knew, though, that these records, and the stories behind them, had power. He had kept them in order to make sure that fugitive slaves and their families might have some means of reuniting. In 1871 Still became the first anti-slavery activist to document the experiences of fugitive slaves in his book "The Underground Railroad", a work which explained the story often in the words of the participants in the effort to escape slavery. It vividly captures the cruelty of slavery and the heroism of those who fled from it. The book provided intimate detail on the workings of conductors like himself and numerous testimonials from slaves. Still made sure that his readers understood that fugitives were the engine and heart of the Underground Railroad, not those who came to their aid.
As a result, Still became known as the "Father of the Underground Railroad." Of his book, Still said, "We very much need works on various topics from the pens of colored men to represent the race intellectually". The publication of "The Underground Rail Road" was important to the body of literature published by African Americans documenting their history as abolitionists and formerly enslaved people. Still always acknowledged the importance of White supporters, but his records and memories showed that this was not the whole story. He was determined that this whole story be told. Still's book was published in three editions and went on to become the most circulated text on the Underground Railroad. By the late 1870s, he had sold an estimated 5,000-10,000 copies. In 1883, he issued the third expanded edition that included an autobiographical sketch. The book is a fitting legacy of Still’s life work.
Later in life, William Still became active in philanthropic and business efforts and pushed for the rights of African Americans. Still was also an organizer of a YMCA for Black youngsters; an active participant in the Freedmen's Aid Commission; and a founding member of the Berean Presbyterian Church. In addition he was an officer of the Philadelphia Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored Person. He also invested in a newspaper and was part of Philadelphia's Board of Trade. He also helped establish a Mission School in North Philadelphia. William pushed for economic progress, including the right to hold the well-paying jobs that so often excluded Black Americans. He encouraged them to start businesses as the likeliest route to economic success.
William Still isn’t as well known today as Harriet Tubman, who traveled into the slave-holding south to help enslaved people escape. Still devoted himself to supporting “agents” like Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison. Still was a seemingly ordinary man who did extraordinary things. This helps explain why we know far less about him than some of his better-known contemporaries, Douglass and Tubman. Still’s actions are easier to miss in part because when he told the stories of the Underground Railroad, he removed himself from the spotlight and placed it on the actions of fugitives from slavery themselves. William Still died in Philadelphia in July of 1902 at the age of eighty-one. This once illiterate farm boy, through his innate intelligence, dedication and hard work, became one of the leading citizens of Philadelphia. William Still was the most important figure in this critical portion of the Underground Railroad, during the period when the network was more important and visible than ever before. He is considered one of the great leaders in African American history.