William Gildersleeve — Underground Railroad, Wilkes-Barre
Near Scranton, Pennsylvania
East Ross Street was once the address of one of the most committed abolitionists in northeastern Pennsylvania. William Camp Gildersleeve, a prominent Wilkes-Barre merchant born in seventeen ninety-five, used his home and business near here as a station on the Underground Railroad, providing shelter and safe passage to freedom seekers making their way north.
In eighteen fifty-three, Gildersleeve's commitment put him on the witness stand at the trial of the federal marshals who had tried to seize a fugitive. The case, which some accounts call Maxwell versus Righter, arose after a fugitive named William Thomas was shot and wounded by federal marshals in this area. Gildersleeve's testimony on Thomas's behalf drew coverage in African American newspapers across the country, making him a recognized figure in the national abolition movement at a time when aiding freedom seekers carried serious legal and personal risk. He died in eighteen seventy-one, having lived to see the institution he fought against abolished.
