BURIAL OF PERRY SANFORD AT OAK HILL CEMETERY, BATTLE CREEK
Historic Site — 255 South Avenue, Battle Creek, Michigan
Status: Operating · Access: Open to public
Dossier: https://haunthunt.com/place/burial-of-perry-sanford-at-oak-hill-cemetery-battle-creek-michigan/

NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.

A historic site in Battle Creek, Michigan, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, Burial of Perry Sanford at Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek is filed here for what the record attaches to it. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. The archive files it under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.

On Easter Monday night in 1847, Perry Sanford was among twelve freedom seekers who slipped out of Kenton County, Kentucky, crossed the river at Covington, and reached Michigan with two dollars and fifty cents of holiday wages between them. Months later, on the morning of August 17, a party of thirteen Kentuckians hit the Quaker farms of Cass County — a planned raid, fed by a spy, that dragged nine freedom seekers out of their fields. Sanford was one of the nine.

THE RAID THAT FAILED
What happened next reached the newspapers: Black and white farmers intercepted the Kentuckians on the road and forced the whole party into court, and while the case ground on, the prisoners in the county jail 'escaped' by slow degrees until the raiders went home with nothing. Erastus Hussey rode down from Battle Creek trying to warn the farms, an hour too late. The fury in Kentucky over the failed raid is part of the record that produced the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Most of the rescued party ran on to Canada. Sanford chose Battle Creek — work at the Nichols and Shepard factory, the Workingmen's Society, the Black Masonic lodge, organizing Emancipation Day celebrations. In 1884 he told the Sunday Morning Call the whole story for its 'Out of Bondage' series, and in 1905 he died a free man in the town he'd chosen. The grave marker in Oak Hill Cemetery is the last physical evidence of the journey — the file's entry is, literally, the stone.

HISTORY — 3 documented facts
· NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The detail is preserved in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.
· Burial of Perry Sanford at Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.
· Sanford’s work is documented. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.

SOURCES — 3 cited
· Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01 — National Park Service
  https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223
· NPS Network to Freedom listing — National Park Service
  https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm
· Underground Railroad — Wikipedia
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad

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