Arnold Gragston
©Federal Writer's Project, United States Work Projects Administration (USWPA); Manuscript
Division, Library of Congress
For four years, Arnold Gragston took nearly three hundred slaves across the Ohio River
to Ripley, Ohio. Himself enslaved in Kentucky, Gragston decided to remain in bondage
so he could help others reach freedom. Those seeking freedom would meet Gragston on
the banks of the river and he would take them to Reverend John Rankin’s home just
across the river. Rankin would clothe and feed them and help continue their journey
north. After four years helping as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad,
Gragston and his wife Sallie took their freedom and relocated to Detroit.
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Arnold Gragston was born on December 25, 1840 on a plantation belonging to Jack
Tabb. His narrative makes no mention of his family or childhood years.
Interestingly, Gragston describes having a considerable amount of freedom, despite
being enslaved.
Mr. Tabb was a pretty good man. He used to beat us, sure; but not nearly so
much as others did, some of his own kin people, even. But he was kinda funny
sometimes; he used to have a special slave who didn't have nothin' to do but
teach the rest of us—we had about ten on the plantation, and a lot on the
other plantations near us—how to read and write and figger. Mr. Tabb liked
us to know how to figger. But sometimes when he would send for us and we
would be a long time comin', he would ask us where we had been. If we told
him we had been learnin' to read, he would near beat the daylights out of
us—after gettin' somebody to teach us; I think he did some of that so that the
other owners wouldn't say he was spoilin' his slaves. (1)
Those enslaved on Tabb’s plantation were also allowed to marry and live with their
spouses—including those who married someone on another plantation. While
visiting another plantation, an old woman asked Gragston to take a young woman
across the river to Ripley. Battling fear and a strong river current, Gragston and the
young woman made it safely across the Ohio River.Though fearful of being caught,
beaten or killed for helping runaways, he continued to make trips across the river,
eventually making three or four trips a month.
Deciding to remain enslaved to help others get their freedom, Gragston developed a
code system to communicate with those he helped. He would only make trips on the
darkest nights of the month to avoid being followed by slave owners or catchers and
because of the darkness, never saw the faces of any of the runaways. “The only way I
knew who they were was to ask them; ‘What you say?’ And they would answer,
‘Menare’” (4). Rankin had a lighthouse in his yard that signaled a safe haven for
runaway slaves.
During a run in 1863, slave catchers followed him once he returned to the Kentucky
side of the river. Though they did not apprehend him, his pursuers continued to
follow him. Eventually Gragston left the Tabb plantation to hide out in the woods.
After spending considerable time in the woods, he decided that it was time to take
his own freedom. Having married sometime during his four years as a “conductor”
on the Underground Railroad, Gragston and his wife crossed the Ohio and found
safety at Rankin’s residence. The Gragstons relocated to Detroit, Michigan where
they raised ten children and thirty-one grandchildren (Gragston).
In 1938, Gragston was interviewed for the Works Progress Administration’s Slave
Narrative Federal Writers’ Project. From 1936-1938, members of the Federal
Writers’ Project traveled throughout the country to record first-person accounts of
slavery from former slaves. The Project collected more than 2,300 first-person
accounts.
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Works Cited & Further Reading
“Arnold Gragston”. A Folk Hisotry of Slavery in the United States From Interviews wih
Former Slaves. Volume III, Florida Narratives.Federal Writers' Project, 19361938.
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