NATIONAL REGISTER
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Morristown Walking Tour

Grant Will Help Add Black Horse Inn and Captina to National Underground Railroad Network

The historic Black Horse Inn in Morristown will become home for the Underground Railroad Museum in September.

MORRISTOWN – Kristina Estle, volunteer manager of the Underground Railroad Museum that will move from Flushing to Morristown this fall, announces a successful grant application to research and submit Morristown’s Black Horse and the site of the free Captina African American Community to the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom sites.

The Black Horse Inn is the future home of the Underground Railroad Museum while Captina is one of the earliest free African American farming communities in the state of Ohio dating to the early 1820s when the AME Church was established.

The Black Horse Inn has deep ties to the underground railroad as its owner, William Swayne, in 1838, was an active conductor/agent. There was a tunnel that ran from the Black Horse Inn to the house across the street, and another tunnel that ran in the direction of I-70 to another home. The Black Horse Inn, which sat on the original National Road, was once a thriving Inn and tavern.

Underground Railroad Conductor for the Captina Community of Somerset Township Alexander L. “Sandy” Harper is buried in the Captina AME Cemetery. (Ohio History Connection photo]

The leader of the Captina community, Alexander L “Sandy” Harper, was an incredibly active freed Black man and agent of the Underground Railroad in Belmont County.

The only tangible evidence of the once active farming community in Somerset Township, south of Barnesville, is the cemetery. The population of the community in 1850 was 125, peaking at over 200 in 1880. An official Ohio Historical Marker at the cemetery was dedicated in 2002 as part of the Ohio Bicentennial observance.

The grant will cover Estle’s time and expenses to conduct the necessary research and to dedicate her time to this project to ensure that the two sites are added to the national network.