DANIEL HUGHES: UNSUNG HERO OF THE MOHAWK& AND OHIO COUNTRY&UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 🔗⛓

Daniel Hughes was a man of prominence in Lycoming County during the years of operation of the Underground Railroad; he was half black and half Mohawk, which made him an incredible risk had he been caught in aiding and abetting runaway slaves, which is exactly what he did. Mr. Hughes was a MAJOR operator and conductor in the Underground Railroad ¹activities of Pennsylvania; he owned a barge on the Pennsylvania Canal, which was immensely rare for a person of ‘color’ to be associated with; he was a profitable and quite successful businessman with his trade. He hid slaves deep inside his barge and had them transported to various places all along the Ohio River and into Canada. 

As the years continued, Hughe’s home and canals harvested thousands of slaves who found their way to freedom in New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada. However, it is to be remembered that the Fugitive Slave Law Act of 1850 permitted slave hunters to enter any area in the north. Also, racial tensions in Pennsylvania at the time also made the work of the operators of the Underground Railroad dangerous and risky; like others along with him, had Mr. Hughes been caught, he could have been arrested and his business and property seized. Hiding and transporting slaves was a RISKY business but was kept in deep secrecy and financed by MANY organizations of which no monuments or plaques exist for! The work grew so meticulous and clandestine, Hughes and his sons mostly worked on moonless nights to avoid any detection of their activities. They would also stretch horsehair across the trails to have the bounty hunters thrown from their own horses by causing their hoofs to become entangled in the hair. Because of his extensive and well-known operation among his constituents, it is with deep confidence that I would suggest the possibility of Mr. Hughes taking MANY visits to Beaver County (because of his association with The Quakers who were leaders in the operation of the Underground Railroad in beaver County) and transporting slaves to his home and other various locations that are not even known today. The reason is because no person wanted to leave evidence of such an operation; everything conducted was by word-of-mouth only! No records exist of Beaver County’s involvement of the Underground Railroad, except for physical and geographic locations. 

When Mr. Hughes passed away, he donated his land to be used as a cemetery. A few black Civil War veterans from our area are buried there; Mr. Hughes, in accordance with his final wish, is buried in an unmarked grave in his own cemetery.

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1. Bob Hill. “Forests & Freedom: Forgotten Links In Pennsylvania’s Underground Railroad”. The Resource a publication of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Archived from the original on October 18, 1999. Retrieved 2007-06-27