New Richmond
New Richmond, Clermont County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
Prior to the Civil War, New Richmond citizens participated actively in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. In 1836, James G. Birney published The Philanthropist, an abolitionist newspaper, in New Richmond before moving publication to C… transcription continues on the marker
Erected by Ohio History Connection
This transcription may be incomplete
Our source stores marker text in a field capped at 255 characters, and this inscription appears to have been cut off. We won’t guess at the missing words — the inscription is the primary source, and inventing it would be worse than leaving it short.
Have you stood in front of this marker? Send us the full text or a photo of the sign and we’ll complete the record.
The Story
In the decades before the Civil War, the Ohio River town of New Richmond became a hotbed of antislavery conviction, its citizens sheltering freedom-seekers along the Underground Railroad just across the water from slaveholding Kentucky. In 1836 the abolitionist James G. Birney chose the town as the launching point for The Philanthropist, one of the era's boldest antislavery newspapers, before moving its publication to Cincinnati. That such radical work could take root here reflects how small river communities, emboldened by Quaker and evangelical reformers, turned the borderland into a front line of the fight against slavery.
Why it matters
New Richmond shows how ordinary river towns—not just big cities—formed the moral and logistical backbone of the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad, helping push a divided nation toward emancipation.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James G. Birney
Related events
- · Publication of The Philanthropist (1836)
- · Underground Railroad
- · Abolitionist movement
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Manse Hotel and Annex
Cincinnati, OH
In the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, the Manse Hotel opened in 1931 to welcome Black travelers who were turned away from white-only establishments across a segregated America. Its founder, Horace Sudduth, had risen from Pullman porter to become one of the city's leading Black entrepreneurs, and his hotel became a hub of social life, gatherings, and dignity at a time when a night's lodging could not be taken for granted. Listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book, the Manse was part of the nationwide network that made safe travel possible for African Americans during the Jim Crow era.
Quaker Meeting House
Chesterhill, OH
In the decades before the Civil War, the Quaker community that settled around Chesterfield—now Chesterhill—turned its faith into action. Guided by their belief in the equal worth of every soul, Friends like Elias Bundy sheltered freedom seekers who had escaped slavery, feeding and hiding them as they moved north along a secret route through Morgan County toward Canada. They did this in open defiance of the federal fugitive slave laws, which made helping the escaped a crime. The Monthly Meeting formally organized here in 1839, anchoring a settlement whose conscience outweighed its fear of the law.
Ephraim Cutler
Dunham Township, OH
When Ephraim Cutler reached Marietta in 1795, the Ohio Country was a raw frontier at the edge of the young United States, freshly organized under the Northwest Ordinance. As a delegate to Ohio's 1802 constitutional convention at Chillicothe, Cutler championed the clause in Article VIII that barred slavery from the new state — language that reportedly carried by a single vote. Nearby Veto Lake keeps his name on the southeast Ohio landscape he helped shape.
Fee Villa
Moscow, OH
In the decades before the Civil War, the Ohio River was one of the most consequential borders in America — free soil on the Ohio bank, slavery on the Kentucky shore opposite. Moscow, a small river town in Clermont County, sat squarely on that dividing line, making it one of many crossing points where freedom seekers slipped north. According to local oral tradition, the home of Thomas Fee Jr. (1801–1862) served as one such refuge, a stop where people escaping bondage could find shelter on their way to safety. Like much of the Underground Railroad's history, the account survives through community memory rather than written ledgers, which by necessity were rarely kept.