William Ingersoll Bowditch House

William Bowditch described his own railroad modestly: 'We had no regular route and no regular station... I have had several fugitives in my house. Generally I passed them on to Wm. Jackson at Newton.' The conveyancer's cottage at 9 Toxteth Street in Brookline — one of the earliest planned subdivisions in America — was a documented station, and Bowditch a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee. His guests included William and Ellen Craft, fresh from the escape that made them famous — Ellen posing as a white gentleman, William as 'his' slave — and, later, the son of John Brown, sheltered after Harpers Ferry.

The Crafts' January 1849 stay is the documented centerpiece — they spoke at Brookline Town Hall, then were rotated through the town's stations, the Bowditch house among them. In 1853 Bowditch joined the boldest attempt of the committee's career: Captain Austin Bearse sailed his yacht alongside the brig Florence in Boston Harbor, boarded pretending to be a slave catcher, and demanded the captive 'quicker than lightning' — Bowditch wrote the account. When Anthony Burns was marched to the ship in 1854 under federal guard, Bowditch risked prison in the protests.

He lived until 1909 — long enough to be remembered as 'one of Boston's most illustrious workers for anti-slavery and woman suffrage.' The cottage still stands on Toxteth Street, a private house in the subdivision where the Vigilance Committee's conveyancer hid the most famous escapees in America.

The Bowditch House is the archive's conveyancer file — the Brookline cottage that sheltered the Crafts and John Brown's son, whose owner boarded the Florence with Bearse and passed his fugitives on 'to Wm. Jackson at Newton.'