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Caroline Storum Loguen

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Caroline Storum Loguen
1854 portrait of Loguen by William R. Simpson
Born1817 (1817)
DiedAugust 17, 1867(1867-08-17) (aged 49–50)
Resting placeOakwood Cemetery
SpouseJermain Wesley Loguen
Children6, including Sarah Loguen Fraser

Caroline Storum Loguen (1817 – August 17, 1867) was an American abolitionist who helped to run a major depot on the Underground Railroad.[1] Loguen helped an estimated 1,500 formerly enslaved persons reach freedom.[2][3]

Early life and education

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Caroline Storum was born in 1817 to William H. Storum and Sarah Gomar.[4] She was biracial, from a free and educated abolitionist family.[2]

Activism

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Beginning in the 1850s, Loguen and her husband Jermain Wesley Loguen ran a major depot (stop) on the Underground Railroad out of the cellar of their Syracuse home on 293 East Genesee Street.[2] They published an invitation to escaped enslaved persons, with their address, in the local newspaper.[5]: 13  Loguen and her husband would provide visiting individuals with meals, a bath, and a sense of security. If any of the slaves decided to settle in the area, they would help them find employment. Loguen and her husband were referred to by some in New York as the “‘King and Queen" of the Underground Railroad.[6]

Personal life

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In 1840, she was married to Jermain Wesley Loguen, abolitionist and bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.[2] They had at least six children.[7] Their daughter Amelia married Lewis Henry Douglass, a son of Frederick Douglass, in 1869.[8] Another daughter, Sarah Loguen Fraser, became one of the first African-American women to become a licensed medical practitioner, and later became the first female doctor in the Dominican Republic.[9]

Death

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Loguen died of tuberculosis in 1867 in Syracuse, New York.[10] She is interred at Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse.[7]

Legacy

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After her death, Reverend Samuel Joseph May wrote, "could the labors of those who conducted [America's] Underground Railroad be adequately described, the name of Mrs. Loguen [would] stand conspicuously among the friends of the oppressed." A New York Preservation Society historical marker regarding Loguen and her husband was erected at the former site of their Syracuse home.[11]

Loguen's portrait is on display at the Howard University Gallery of Art.[12]

References

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  1. ^ Bailey, William S. (1935). "The Underground Railroad in Southern Chautauqua County". New York History. 16 (1): 53–63. ISSN 0146-437X. JSTOR 23137324.
  2. ^ a b c d "Jermain and Caroline Loguen". Preservation Association of Central New York. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  3. ^ Hudson, J. Blaine (2015-01-09). Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-0230-1.
  4. ^ "New York State Census, 1855," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K6QK-D29  : 7 September 2016), Caroline Logan in household of Permaine Logan, Ward 8, Syracuse City, Onondaga, New York, United States; citing p. , line #2, family #285, county clerk offices, New York; FHL microfilm 870,758.
  5. ^ Hunter, Carol (1993). To Set the Captives Free: Reverend Jermain Wesley Loguen and the Struggle for Freedom in Central New York, 1835-1872. Garland. pp. 212–213. ISBN 978-0-8153-1014-3.
  6. ^ Murphy, Angela F. (2016). The Jerry rescue : the Fugitive Slave Law, Northern rights, and the American sectional crisis. Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-991360-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ a b "The Loguen Family". Negro History Bulletin. 10 (8): 171–191. 1947. ISSN 0028-2529. JSTOR 44174692.
  8. ^ "Jermain Wesley Loguen". University of Buffalo. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  9. ^ v. d. Luft, E. (2000). "Sarah Loguen Fraser, MD (1850 to 1933): the fourth African-American woman physician". Journal of the National Medical Association. 92 (3): 149–153. ISSN 0027-9684. PMC 2640561. PMID 10745647.
  10. ^ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2015-03-26). The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-45416-8.
  11. ^ "Rev. Jermain and Mrs. Caroline Loguen Historical Marker". www.hmdb.org. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  12. ^ "Caroline E. Storum Loguen". howard.emuseum.com. Retrieved 2023-10-26.