Born at Sandy Hill, New York, he was a humble man. His father died prematurely in Georgia, leaving Seth at fifteen as the oldest child and his mother’s sole source of support. It established a pattern of self-sacrifice that continued throughout his life.
Seth joined the army, but while in the service his mother died and he received a discharge to care for his sisters and brothers. He found a home for them at a Shaker community in Watervliet, New York, where he also lived for three years. After leaving the Shakers, Concklin drifted for a number of years and became an abolitionist around 1830.
Abolitionist
Despite his small stature and slight frame, he was fearless in defense of his moral principles. On occasions in Syracuse and Rochester, he defended black men against mobs. During the latter, he attacked a man who had put a noose around the neck of a black man, and then had to run for his life.
Concklin lived for a time in Springfield, Illinois where he aided fugitive slaves, and it is believed he sometimes ventured into the slave states to assist them. A soldier of fortune, he took part in the 1838 Patriot War on the side of Canadians who opposed the American attempt to annex Canada, fearing that an American takeover would endanger the fugitive slaves who had settled there. He was imprisoned but rescued and released by the Canadians. This experience didn’t stop him from going to Florida a few months later and fighting in the second Seminole War, though he found that by fighting against the Indians he was on the wrong side.
Rescue of Peter Still’s family
For the next decade Concklin lived in Troy, New York. In 1850, he offered to undertake a mission to rescue a slave family that he had read about in the Pennsylvania Freeman. The family of William Still’s brother, Peter, who had recently become emancipated, they were living on an Alabama plantation.
Prior to Concklin’s offer, Peter had secretly visited his family in Alabama, posing as a slave. He revealed that his brother’s was devising a rescue plan, and took a cape from his wife to give to Concklin so that she could identify him. When he returned to Philadelphia, he provided Concklin with as much information as possible and the names of people he could contact in Alabama for help.
Concklin took an exploratory trip through the Midwest and down to Alabama. He met with Levi Coffin in Cincinnati, determined the logistics of the escape, and met secretly with Peter’s family in Alabama. On his return North, he obtained the promise of help from David Stormont in Princeton, Indiana. His plan was to take them in a large rowboat, down the Tennessee River, all the way to the Ohio River. From there they would go east up the Ohio, and then north again into Indiana up the Wabash River, from where they would disembark and rendezvous with Stormont, a veteran conductor, who would forward them on the Underground Railroad to Canada.
Returning to Cincinnati, Concklin procured a six-oared barge, which was a large, flat bottomed rowboat, to accommodate Peter’s wife, two grown sons, and small daughter, and shipped it ahead to Alabama.
The escape began just before daybreak on March 16. Fortunately, Still’s sons were able oarsmen, and they arrived at the Ohio River, 250 miles downstream, in only 51 hours. They disembarked at New Harmony, Indiana on March 23, the seventh day of their journey, after traveling nearly 400 miles. They had only two threatening situations, one in Mississippi when men along the shore hailed them with gunshots, and the other near Paducah, Kentucky when a boat with armed men approached but let them go after seeing a white man.
From New Harmony, they hiked 13 miles to the home of Charles Grier, a sympathetic black, who provided them with a change of clothes. They resumed their journey north inexplicably bypassing the home of Stormont. About 50 miles north of Princeton, they were stopped by a group of whites led by a staunch abolitionist foe, John Emison.
Seth Concklin’s Tragic Death
When questioned, Concklin became flustered and this aroused Emison’s suspicions. Despite having no legal authority, he had them tied up, placed in a wagon, and brought to Vincennes. Concklin protested, and Emison realizing the illegality of his actions, released him.
In Vincennes, the Still family was lodged in jail, while telegraphic inquiries were made south about missing slaves who might fit their description. Meanwhile, Concklin hired a lawyer who attempted to get them released on a writ of habeas corpus but it was denied.
Finally, a message came that a reward of $400 was being offered for four fugitive slaves, and $600 for the capture and return of their rescuer to Alabama. Concklin was taken into custody, and when the slaves’ owner arrived, he brought charges against him. A federal marshal delivered the slaves and Concklin, who was heavily shackled, to Evansville and the boat, Paul Anderson, docked at the Ohio River. He placed them in the custody of their owner and Emison.
When the boat docked in Smithland, Kentucky, a barge passed. It was reported that Concklin tried to jump into the barge, but failed and fell into the river where he drowned. Later his body was recovered in chains with his head bashed in. He was buried still in chains in Smithland and a headboard was placed at his grave with the inscription, “Nigre thief.”
See Laura Haviland Neglected Heroine of the UGRR
References
Kate E. R. Pickard, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed (New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton and Mulligan, 1856).
William Still, The Underground Railroad (Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1872).
Tom Calarco - Tom Calarco is the author and editor of five books on the Underground Railroad, the latest, Places of the Underground Railroad, to be ...
