Kelton House, Columbus, Underground Railroad Safe House
Near Columbus, Ohio
Fernando and Sophia Kelton built this Greek Revival home on East Town Street in Columbus in eighteen fifty-two, two years after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act made sheltering freedom seekers a federal crime. Both Keltons were New England abolitionists, and their home became a stop on Ohio's Underground Railroad network. In eighteen sixty-four, Sophia took in a young runaway from Virginia named Martha Hartway and raised her as part of the family.
The house stayed in the family until nineteen seventy-five, when it passed to the Columbus Foundation, which leases it to the Junior League of Columbus. It is now a museum where visitors can see the rooms where the Keltons quietly broke federal law in defense of human freedom.
