Polo pushing for national Underground Railroad site designation

POLO — The Polo Historical Society is applying to become a designated Network to Freedom site with the National Park Service after uncovering local ties to the Underground Railroad.

The NPS program works in collaboration with individuals and organizations along with local, state and federal agencies to create a network of sites, facilities, and programs that have a verifiable connection to the Underground Railroad. So far, the network has over 800 listings in 39 states, including the Lucius Read House in Byron that was designated in 2002 and the Owen Lovejoy House in Princeton that was designated in 2001, according to the NPS website.

Applications are accepted twice a year – on Jan. 15 and July 15, according to the NPS website.

In Polo, Historical Society members Beth Weigmann and Betty Obendorf have been interested in researching the area’s ties to the Railroad movement since the early 2000s, Weigmann said.

“It’s been very hard to research in Polo because if you didn’t write anything down there wasn’t anything to find,” she said. “Participation in the Railroad was not revealed until after death. It was often through a simple sentence or allusion towards the effort in an obituary or through the family’s oral history.”

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century enslaved people to escape to free states and Canada. It was not an actual railway, but was used as a metaphor for the operations of abolitionists – those who opposed slavery – and allies who helped the freedom-seekers escape slavery, according to the NPS website.

After the Fugitive Slave Act was approved by Congress in 1850, the Railroad became more deliberate, organized and secretive as the act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state, according to the NPS website.

In Polo, the former slaves were traveling from Kentucky and Missouri and their freedom destination was Canada, Weigmann said.

Obendorf put together all the research found about Polo’s involvement – mostly composed of newspapers, obituaries and other historical records – which Weigmann presented on Saturday during the Historical Society’s trolley tour of Fairmount Cemetery.

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Visitors ride through Fairmount Cemetery on a trolley Saturday, June 28, 2025, during a historical tour of Polo’s part in the Underground Railroad. (Alex T. Paschal)

“We have no count of how many people passed through this area receiving help on their journey to freedom, but through multiple historical records we do know there were no freedom-seekers arrested in Ogle County. A tribute to doing the work and keeping it quiet,” Weigmann said.

Polo’s participation in the Underground Railroad

The cemetery at 1533 Route 26 in Polo is the burial site for 31 people found to have documented involvement or association with those involved in the Railroad.

One of the largest families was the Waterburys, with 15 family members buried at Fairmount.

One Waterbury couple, Samuel and Elizabeth, built a home in the 1850s on the northeast corner of Division Avenue and West Oregon Street across from Haldane Custom. As it was torn down, the house was found to have a tunnel that ran from the house to the barn, and the basement had served as a refuge for those seeking freedom.

In 1938 the Dixon Telegraph wrote that slaves found “refuge in the Waterbury home,” Weigmann said.

One of Samuel and Elizabeth’s daughters, Maria Waterbury, became a teacher with the Freedman’s Bureau after the Civil War ended and during one of her trips to teach she met former slave Elizabeth Hamlin, Weigmann said, citing the historical society’s research.

Maria brought Hamlin back to Polo with her. Hamlin worked for several families in the area and was eventually able to buy her own house, Weigmann said.

Hamlin is buried at Fairmount next to Samuel and Elizabeth. Her gravestone is inscribed with the words “Once a slave.”

Also at the cemetery are Samuel and Elizabeth’s three children – Annistine, Daniel and Maria.

Another Waterbury couple, John and Phoebe, opened their home, which stood in what’s now known as Eagle Point Township, to the Railroad as well. Across the street was the home of Solomon and Hannah Shafer, another Railroad stop. Records show Phoebe and Hannah mended socks, shirts and coats for the slaves, Weigmann said.

John and Phoebe are buried at the cemetery along with their four children – John Jr., Daniel, Ezra B. and Fordyce and one grandchild, Charles Weldon Noble.

In the Shafer house, records show that Hannah was known to tend to former slaves, who were too sick to continue traveling, until they were well enough to go on. That was the case for two former slaves, Harriet and Caroline, who the Shafers took in as their adopted children.

Harriet died in 1848 at 4 years old. Caroline died in 1849 at the age of 11. Their birthdates are unknown. They are buried with the Shafers at Fairmount. Their names are inscribed on the family tombstone and they are listed as adopted daughters.

Others buried at the cemetery with documented involvement or association with the Railroad are Ezra Cyrus Waterbury; William Wamsley; Judge Virgil Bogue; Schuylar Lunt; David Stevens Waterbury and wife Emaline Huntley Waterbury; James Bennet Gardner, wife Mary Ann Waterbury Gardner and child Charles Waterbury Gardener; Timothy Perkins and his two children, Dr. Edgar Edwin Perkins and Rufus Perkins; and Dr. Amos Maltby and wife Marietta Huntley Maltby.