Springboro: Twenty-Seven Safe Houses

Jonathan Wright, a Quaker farmer, founded this village in eighteen fifteen along a creek fed by underground springs, naming it Springborough for the water beneath the ground. Quakers held deep convictions against slavery, and Wright himself became a conductor on the Underground Railroad. For fifty years, from the town's founding until the end of the Civil War, freedom-seekers who had crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky typically traveled about two days north to reach Springboro.

The town became one of the most heavily used stops in the state. Today Springboro is known for its many documented safe houses scattered through the old Quaker neighborhood. The springs that gave the town its name fed people on their way to freedom.