Church with Underground Railroad ties named to historic marker

LAWRENCE COUNTY, Ohio (WOWK) – Every Sunday, a congregation gathers for worship at the Union Baptist Church in Blackfork, Ohio.

For more than 200 years, people have gone through its doors. But its history spans far beyond Sunday service. Founded in 1819, it is the longest continuously operating African American church in Ohio.

Union Baptist was recently named to the National Park Service‘s Network to Freedom Marker Program in March.

“This is in some ways where the Underground Railroad began once people successfully got across the Ohio River,” Dr. Andrew Feight said. “This network was interracial. Whites and Blacks working together at times, sometimes by themselves. It was a clandestine secret network because it was illegal to assist freedom seekers.”

Feight is a professor of history and director of the Center for Public History at Shawnee State University. He is also the director of research and outreach for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative. Their goal is to highlight 27 sites along the........

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