Out of the house of bondage

GREEN BAY – The First Presbyterian Church of Green Bay was organized in the old Fort Howard Hospital in January 1836 and began its legacy of social action.

The church became part of the Winnebago Association of Congregational and Presbyterian Churches.

It later changed affiliation and became the Union Congregational Church prior to 1900, and continued its legacy of community activism.

Among its social activities are the organization of the Astor Neighborhood Association, co-founding the Ecumenical Center at UW-Green Bay, bringing Habitat for Humanity to the city and introducing facilities for families in crisis.
However, a lesser-known aspect of the parish’s social action is the church’s position as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

More noted for its place in ushering the enslaved to freedom through the Canadian border is Wisconsin’s Milton House, whose underground tunnel served as a link to freedom.

“Passengers on the Badger ‘underground’ were not numerous, when compared with the traffic in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. But the Wisconsin people were so sympathetic and determined in protecting the road from pursuing ‘slave snatchers’ that the state became involved in a legal battle…,” Author Fred L. Holmes wrote in 1939.

According to Holmes, the first Wisconsin “conductor” was Deacon Samuel Brown of Milwaukee, and the first “passenger” was 18-year-old Caroline Quarles in the summer of 1842.

Holmes said that many of those running away from enslavement found their way to Waukesha — then called Prairieville — and made their way north.

“Ministers of the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian denominations in these communities often harbored fugitives,” Holmes explained.

Among them were Reverend Jeremiah Porter and his wife Eliza Chappell Porter, where refugees were harbored at the First Presbyterian Church on Crooks and Adams streets.

The church later moved to its current location at 716 S. Madison St., Green Bay.

Green Bay was the last stop in Wisconsin before crossing Lake Michigan into Canada.

Eliza’s recollections are chronicled on the pages of The First Building, a Journal of Congregationalism in Green Bay, 1835-1876 and in the 1892 book about her, Eliza Chappell Porter: A Memoir.

Eliza recounts working with the Stockbridge Reservation, east of Lake Winnebago, assisting in getting those wishing to be free to Great Lakes ports in the 1850s.

In one instance, the couple assisted four Missouri runaways being pursued by “bounty hunters,” helping them make their way to Green Bay where they obtained passage on a steamer named MICHIGAN and made their way to Canada.

Eliza recounted the moment when the family made their way from the church.
“The glad father rushed out, and took their places in a little sailboat waiting for them at the shore,” she recalled.

From there, the family was rowed out to the steamer, where the captain — an abolitionist — helped the family on board.

Once the family made it to Canada, Eliza said “the first act of the grateful father was to prostrate himself, kissing the free soil, and giving thanks to the Lord who had brought them out of the house of bondage.”