Station #9 - UR9 Traditional Cache

The first trains were built in America in the 1820s when the Underground Railroad was also forming, so it was only natural that people would use the new railroad terms to describe both new enterprises.

Learn more about railroad terms and the Underground Railroad in Calhoun County at www.CacheCalhoun.org. Each cache in Calhoun County that follows the Underground Railroad has a clue within it. Copy the clue words/numbers and solve a word puzzle to get a shiny round object!

To help keep the Underground Railroad secret, most people who helped along the route only knew their part of the operation, but they needed common terminology to pass along information. Since the railroads were being built the same time the Underground Railroad was being formed, the same terms were used.
“Agents” would help escaped slaves find the railroad and would give them a “ticket” to get on the train (they would vouch for them). “Conductors” (guides) would help transport “packages”, “passengers” or “freight” (fugitives) along the “lines” (routes) until they reached the next “station” or “depot” (resting place). “Station masters” hid fugitives in their homes and “stockholders” donated money and supplies.
Sometimes religious terminology was used as well. The northern routes of the “freedom train” had to cross the “River Jordan” (the Ohio River) and would lead the escaped slaves into Canada, which was “Heaven” or “the Promised Land”. The Ohio River marked the boundary between free and slave states, and Canada had to be reached before escaped slaves were beyond the reach of slave catchers. Southern routes of the Underground Railroad lead to Florida or Mexico. As in the gospel songs, everyone hoped that the “wheels would keep on turning”.