The Underground Railroad

A museum curator named Carl visits Whit's End and asks Jack Allen about its basement tunnels. Carl has an old handwritten account whose landmarks suggest that the building may once have been a station on the Underground Railroad. As they search for evidence, he tells Jack about the Ross family: Henry, Caroline, and their seventeen-year-old son William, who had been enslaved on a Tennessee farm all their lives.

During the winter of 1849, the family works late to finish picking cotton after their owner promises a two-day pass. Caroline hopes to visit her sister Mary, whom she has not seen for years. But the owner's son Nathan cancels the pass merely because he wants the Rosses to repair a barn. He reminds them that he considers them property and can do as he pleases.

Benjamin, another enslaved young man who shares their cabin, urges the family to flee north. He has heard of Cabin Creek, an antislavery community near the Ohio River where slave catchers supposedly fear to go. Henry refuses. He knows they might be whipped, killed, or separated if caught, and he does not know how free people without money or skills could feed themselves. Benjamin decides to escape alone that night.

When Nathan discovers Benjamin missing, he interrogates the Rosses. William loses his temper when Nathan shoves him and knocks the young master down. Nathan vows that William will suffer, but his punishment is worse than a whipping: William is sold to a plantation in Mississippi. Henry privately tells his son to run from wherever he is and make for Cabin Creek. He and Caroline will meet him there.

For two months, Henry quietly gathers directions to the Ohio River. Then he and Caroline leave in the night, following the North Star. Nathan forms a posse and sets out to capture them before they cross the river.

Nearly frozen after their first night, Henry and Caroline risk approaching a strange house. A woman quickly welcomes them, warms them, and hides them in a secret room. She gives them directions and sends them onward after dark. They have entered the hidden network of people willing to shelter those fleeing slavery.

Far away in Mississippi, William endures harsher work than before. One day his enslaver's daughter, Emily, summons him to fan flies away while she reads. She speaks of a proposed law that will punish people in the North who help runaways, then asks whether William hates her and misses his family. William answers cautiously, unsure whether she is testing him.

Emily finally gives him a package to deliver to George at a courier's office. She says that if William wants freedom, he should tell George that she sent him. She secretly helps those strong enough to survive the journey because she hates what people like her family are doing. William accepts the chance. Emily sends him away with one command: "Don't stop until you're free."