The Jackson Purchase Historical Society will meet on November 14 via Zoom at 10:30 a.m. To register for the meeting, please send an email to bruce.dobyns@gmail.com. Our speaker will be Richard Parker, a local historian, who will speak on the steamboat’s role as a means of escape in the Underground Railroad. The program is entitled “Escape to Freedom: The Role of the Steamboat in the Underground Railroad.” Parker said, “The Jackson Purchase is surrounded by the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers,” Parker continued, “which acted as an interstate for slaves moving North seeking their freedom.” “Thousands of slaves worked on steamboats on waterways throughout the South, and these rivers provided slaves a quicker and easier escape than venturing overland.” Parker is the author of The Wild World of the Jackson Purchase and several articles that have been published in the Jackson Purchase Historical Journal. His most recent contribution to the Society’s Journal won the 2019 Dr. Lonnie E. Maness Award for the most outstanding article. Parker is a graduate of Murray State University and is finishing his master’s degree from Western Kentucky University this fall.
Jackson Purchase Historical Society
