The Forgotten Father of Abolitionism: John Rankin’s Underground Railroad

Who was the man Harriet Beecher Stowe and
William Lloyd Garrison credited as a driving force behind the
abolitionist movement?

Host Dennis McCuistion is joined by author and researcher
Caleb Franz to discuss his book The Conductor, a biography
of John Rankin—the Presbyterian minister whose hilltop home in
Ripley, Ohio, became one of the most active stations on the Underground Railroad.

Franz traces Rankin’s journey from a slaveholding community in Tennessee to a life
devoted to abolition. Despite constant threats, mob violence, and bounty hunters
operating across the Ohio River, Rankin helped guide more than 2,000 enslaved people
toward freedom.

The conversation explores Rankin’s influence on figures such as Harriet Beecher Stowe,
his unwavering demand for full emancipation during the Civil War, and why his story
has remained largely unknown despite its lasting impact.

Through Rankin’s remarkable life, this episode offers a compelling look at an important
chapter of American history that is too often missing from the textbooks.