William Ross · The Soda Fountain

Characters / William Ross

William Ross was an enslaved young man of the 1850s, the son of Henry and Caroline, and his story survives in the tunnel beneath Whit's End, where he once hid a leather map behind a beam. He grew up in bondage on a Tennessee farm. After he knocked down Nathan, the owner's cruel son, for shoving him, he was sold away to a plantation in far-off Mississippi. His father's parting plan was for the family to reunite at Cabin Creek, a free community across the Ohio River. Emily, his enslaver's own daughter, secretly helped him escape. Travelling the Underground Railroad, he even had himself nailed inside a shipping crate and mailed north like cargo, nearly dying when the box was loaded upside down. Hunted by the slave catcher Nathan, he ultimately reached freedom in Canada with his father.

Appearances

4 episodes Art Text No.

0331 Checkmate With Whit's End shuttered and a shadowy rivalry escalating, Jason's plan to outmaneuver the Bones puts everyone he's protecting in danger.

3 of 3 0316 The Underground Railroad An enslaved family's desperate flight north along the Underground Railroad tests the limits of faith, sacrifice, and the strangers willing to risk everything to help them.

2 of 3 0315 The Underground Railroad While one fugitive risks everything by mailing himself north in a shipping crate, two others race a relentless slave catcher toward a freedom that a new law may snatch away

1 of 3 0314 The Underground Railroad Told through a curator's discovery of hidden tunnels beneath Whit's End, an enslaved Tennessee family's hope for freedom is tested when a cruel master's spite tears them apart.