Kelton House, Columbus Underground Railroad Station

This Greek Revival house on Town Street in Columbus was built in eighteen fifty-two by Fernando Cortez Kelton, a Vermont-born dry-goods merchant and committed abolitionist. Kelton and his wife Sophia used the house as a station on the Underground Railroad, sheltering freedom seekers moving north along a route that ran from the Ohio River through Columbus toward Lake Erie. One of the most memorable stories from the house involves Martha Hartway, a young runaway from Virginia whom the Keltons took in during the Civil War.

Martha was raised as part of the Kelton family until her marriage in eighteen seventy-four. Fernando Kelton was so respected for his anti-slavery work that he was chosen to serve as a pallbearer when Abraham Lincoln's funeral train passed through Columbus in April of eighteen sixty-five. The house is now a museum open for tours, and it remains one of the most documented Underground Railroad sites in central Ohio.