Nothing from history quite sparks the imagination like the Underground Railroad. Brave people hiding fugitives, doing the heroic thing regardless of the danger. People love stories about the Underground Railroad.

I just wish they’d named it something else.

The Underground Railroad was not literally an underground railroad, though many people seem to have that impression. The “Underground” part of the name refers to the fact that it was secret. Most of it did, in fact, take place above ground level, though people get funny ideas about that. Because of all this, I have this exchange a couple of times a month:

“Oh, my house was on the Underground Railroad!”

“Not too likely, pal. It was built in 1920.”

There really were not a whole lot of secret tunnels and trap doors on the Underground Railroad, though people always seem to picture it that way. In truth, it was mostly just people hiding in barns and back rooms. Sometimes, historic museums don’t help — I’ve seen some of them claim that their building was on the Underground Railroad, showing tourists the shackles that have been carefully placed on the floor. Because, of course, escaped slaves would have gone halfway across Pennsylvania before thinking to drop their shackles.

What tends to happen is that people watch too many movies. Then they find a trap door or hidden room or something, and immediately jump to the conclusion that it was the Underground Railroad, regardless of any logic or historical fact. Many of these places, by the way, tend to be tight spaces that require a contortionist to get into, which means they would not have likely been used to hide people in a big hurry.

There was one documented spot in Lock Haven that was on the Underground Railroad. That was Maria Molson’s house at 19 East Water Street. Maria was an African-American woman who owned property in Lock Haven, and sheltered slaves. She’s buried in Highland Cemetery.

Her home contains, for the record, exactly zero hidden spaces. I’ve counted them. But Maria’s obituary talks about her hiding slaves. Seventeen at a time seems to have been her all-time record, hiding out in her living room.

Her house is the only place we can prove was on the UGRR. I can make a persuasive case that Reverend Joseph Nesbitt, who ran Great Island Presbyterian, was helping to hide slaves, but I can’t quite prove it. If Nesbitt was on the UGRR, he covered his tracks pretty well.

Escaped slaves tended to stick near the water as they progressed north. In this area, they moved up along the Susquehanna River toward Renovo. From there, they would travel to Keating Mountain, which even today is one of the most remote areas in the state. Theoretically, they were then traveling to Olean, New York and maybe into Canada, but a lot of them just decided to settle on Keating Mountain instead, figuring it was far enough.

Many of them settled down on that remote mountain, married, and had families of their own. Jeremiah Gaines and George Schmoke came north on the Underground Railroad and settled up there, and populated the township. Maybe a little too much; Rachel Schmoke was the wife of George, and she had 28 children. It was listed as her occupation on one census. (No joke.)

Cemeteries exist, to this day, filled with these people and their descendants. In West Keating Township are the Gaines Cemetery and the Schmoke Cemetery, both of which were established by these families.

So, in truth, where do all these secret passages and such come from? One possibility is Prohibition; bootleggers hid their whiskey often in places like that. Sometimes they were created by work on a home — when an addition was built, for instance, it might have required the builders to close off a space for structural or aesthetic purposes. (I’m pretty sure something like this happened in my own house.) And sometimes, of course, wealthy homeowners were just eccentric enough to want secret spaces in their homes.

Don’t get me wrong, these little secret spots are cool, and I’m fascinated with them. I’ll be the first one to go crawling in to explore. But let’s keep it in perspective. Fascinating bits of architecture? Absolutely. Underground Railroad? Probably not.

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Lou Bernard is a Lock Haven resident with a keen interest in the history of this area. He is adult services coordinator at Ross Library and may be reached at ross13@rosslibrary.org or 570-748-3321.