The Autobiography Of A Conductor:

4 Pages 948 Words

Stuart Seely Srague had not expected what he found at the public library in Ripley, Ohio.

Dr. Sprague was doing research on the Underground Railroad sites along the Ohio River about two years ago when a librarian handed him a copy of a personal account of a former slave who had been a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad.

"I was flabbergasted," recalls Sprague. "When I got hold of it, I knew I had to do something about it."

The discovery led to his most recent project: editing His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor of the Underground Railroad (W. W. Norton & Company).

The book, which came out last month (November 1996), is the story of a former slave who dedicated his life to the abolition movement. It is one of the few autobiographies ever found of a black conductor of the railroad. Most other personal accounts were destroyed in the interest of secrecy.

Sprague, a professor of history at Morehead State University (Morehead, Kentucky), retired in July 1996. He specialized in American history and became interested in African-American history -- specifically the Underground Railroad -- when he began studying Appalachian history in Kentucky.

Morehead gave Sprague a grant to study the Underground Railroad in Kentucky and Ohio, and that work led him to Parker and his autobiography in 1994.

Parker was born a slave in 1827, the son of a black woman and a white man. He bought his freedom at the age of 18 and spent the next 20 years helping slaves cross the Ohio River, from Kentucky to Ohio, at some of the more accessible places used by the Underground Railroad.

During the day, Parker worked as an iron molder, and eventually set up his own iron foundry and blacksmith shop. He also patented a series of inventions during his lifetime.

"This is not someone who says he's a victim of slavery. He is the master of his own destiny," Sprague says. "And he speaks for hundre...