During my flight around town, I chanced to hear this story, told by an Athenian.

“One particularly strange event stands out in my memory,” he said. “I was a little boy at the time and recall one fine autumn day-trip that ended with more adventure than we’d ever imagined.

“Like most St. Louisans, we were proud of our fellow Missourian, Mark Twain. So, one day, my family rode the 80 or so miles to Twain’s Mississippi River home in Hannibal, Mo., from ours in St. Louis. Halfway there we stopped at a small restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River. My dad engaged the owner in friendly banter. The man looked at my sisters and me saying, ‘Would you kids like to see a secret station on the Underground Railroad?’ Remember, I was quite young, maybe 7 or 8 at the most. I pictured a railroad like the one at Union Station in downtown St. Louis, complete with blasting whistles and smoking engines, only underground!

“The restaurant owner explained that, in slavery times before the Civil War, African-Americans were always trying to escape to freedom. A new law had been passed, called the Fugitive Slave Act. That made it a punishable offense to aid in the escape of any person enslaved in the South. A $500 fine, which in those days would literally break any family, was only part of the penalty. For example, three friends discovered hiding some 20 people were sentenced to 12 years each in the Missouri penitentiary.

“Our guide said in 1860 a white abolitionist family had lived here in this house, now his restaurant. The abolitionists were secretly contacted by a fellow white conspirator. The man would ask if they would be interested in buying abolitionist tracts. Of course, they responded. This was the clue needed to know this was the right house. That night, some half dozen Blacks of varied age and sex would appear, then were quickly brought in through a back door. Then, the restaurant owner moved a false ‘wall of rocks’ behind the fireplace! He showed us how the escapees were led behind the fireplace and taken down a narrow flight of stairs. All this happened while the fire still blazed. Down the narrow staircase was a hollowed-out room. There they found a dinner waiting, and mats placed around the floor for sleeping. They only stayed a day, or two at the most. The white conspirator would then go down to the river at night. A ‘fisherman’ in his boat would answer to his coded call that he had ‘passengers’ ready to cross the mighty Mississippi. That is how — with great exertion, because the powerful river is hard to cross — the escaped slaves made it to Illinois, a safer route to Canada.

“We stared in awe at the relatively tiny room, imagining what it must have been like to be crowded together, waiting for passage over the water. A palpable fear must have caused shivers just thinking about what lay ahead. Water, betrayal, guns and unknown roads were only a few of the horrors awaiting them. Packs of armed men searched all over the countryside for such escapees, for they too knew who the abolitionists were and watched them carefully. A $500 dollar reward for a returned slave attracted the avarice of many men. Such money as catching slaves brought would exceed any amount gained in years of honest work.

“Many routes led to Canada on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. Some of the ‘conductors’ who guided the escaped slaves were indeed abolitionists. Others were members of churches which did not agree with slavery. Still others broke with faiths which quoted Biblical texts supposedly in support of slavery. Some ‘conductors’ or ‘station masters’ were themselves free African-Americans who kept the stations open and the passengers well-tended. Alas, many ‘passengers’ were recaptured, the conductors sentenced, while Black men, children and women were sent back in chains down the river. Slave catchers used black slaves to decoy escapees into traps, where all would be taken and returned south. False stations were created. Suspected real stations were surveilled by slave catchers day and night, for time was on the side of the chasers.

“But not all the odds were on the side of slavery’s defenders. The slavers were often stunned to discover that good people can be clever, too. One story can stand for many. Here is an actual account from those days:

“Three female slaves had run away from St. Louis because their masters were preparing to sell them down in New Orleans. Their pursuers were hard after them. Their friends conducted them to an old hut east of my house.” A Mr. Turner said, “ I found my frightened and trembling girls. I told them to follow me. One of the neighbors was a good Presbyterian elder, but an extreme pro-slavery man. I said to myself, ‘That is it.’ The Elder and his wife are a vast deal better Christians than they pretend to be. I shall take my prize right to their door, tell them the whole truth about it and throw the whole responsibility upon them, which I did, closing with the remark, ‘Now you know, my dear Doctor, that I have done all I can do to shelter and defend these poor women whom I have brought to your door and I leave it wholly with you to shelter and provide for them at my expense, or to betray both of them to the public authorities as violators of the laws of our state.’ ‘We will not betray either you or them,’ said his wife.”

“Such stories happened in our country. I learned more about America here, at this strange ‘station,’ than even during our later visit that day to Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal. Never again would I think the same way about Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Jim after seeing this stop on the Underground Railroad. I like to imagine my family’s unexpected visit to an actual underground station might have strangely been arranged by the great writer, who doubtless sat on this very riverside, wondering how to get across with ‘Jim.’”

— John William Davis is a retired U.S. Army counterintelligence officer, civil servant and linguist. He was commissioned from Washington University in St. Louis in 1975. He entered counterintelligence and served some 37 years. A linguist, Davis learned foreign languages in each country in which he served. His published works include “Rainy Street Stories: Reflections on Secret Wars, Terrorism and Espionage” and “Around the Corner: Reflections on American Wars, Violence, Terrorism and Hope.”