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This cabin was along a slave trading route; its second story was used to house slaves until they were auctioned off, or transported further south.
A middle-aged man described its history to the group of school children filling the lower level. He choked up for a moment. When he continued, he explained that his ancestors were from Alabama, and they would have been slaves. "It always reminds me someone paid a price for me to be here."
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A woman who called herself Miss Sadie described the elements of her costume, and what her role in the house would have been, for a group of school children around the corner from the cabin. She sang Follow the Drinking Gourd, which gave slaves directions for escape. According to her, winter with its long nights was a good time to leave--and Friday was the best day of the week to head for freedom. (Escaping slaves had to travel during the night. Slave owners could not leave the plantation for fear the remaining slaves would escape. They had to hire men to chase the escapees. The offices of the contractors were closed over the weekend, so if slaves escaped Friday evening, it would be Monday before the hunt for them could begin.)
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A light from the Rankin house at the top of a hill in Ripley, Ohio (a free state), on the north side of the Ohio River, from the vantage point of an escaping slave on the south side of the river, in Kentucky (a slave state). The Rankins, John Parker, and their friends helped many people on their road to freedom in the north. (Many escaping slaves continued north to Canada. After the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857, they could be returned to their "owners" in the south, if captured in a free northern state.)
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About halfway through the tour, you enter a round room with a lighted pillar in the center. The walls are molded cement rock, with names carved into them--names of of slave transport ships and "castles" in Africa where the captured slaves were held. Aside from the pillar, the only light comes through the translucent blue ceiling, giving one the feeling of being under water. The pillar is covered with translucent blue and green pebbles. The pebbles represent the souls of the estimated one to two million Africans who died in the ships, during the Middle Passage, and in the "castles."
The room is silent, except for the sound of a choir humming John Newton's Amazing Grace. (John Newton was a slave trader who underwent a dramatic conversion.)
Holy ground.
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He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:3-5, King James Version
