A hero of the Underground Railroad buried in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Known for his work on the Underground Railroad, William Goodridge is a legend in York, Pennsylvania.

But this historical figure is also important for Minnesota because he’s buried in Minneapolis.

"He knew everyone, Frederick Douglass for instance," says Kelly Summerford, the director of the William C. Goodridge Freedom Center. "He and Frederick Douglass went up to Canada to try to purchase land."

Summerford knows the Goodridge legacy of the Underground Railroad better than anyone. That includes a secret room in the Goodridge home, which you can still view at the museum in his restored home.

"It’s underneath the kitchen. It was hand dug out, and they would go down there, and they would stay for a while," says Summerford.

"He owned 13 rail cars, and one of them had a fake bottom, and one had a fake wall where he could hide a freedom seeker," added Summerford. 

In his later years, after his wife died, he moved to Minnesota where his wife and her family lived. "I would say of all the people we have here, if you’re talking about national prominence, he’s the one," says Susan Weir, the chair of the Friends of the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery.

Weir has researched Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery and the stories buried here. Those stories include several African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War. 

"This is where the early Scandinavian immigrants came, but it also has a very significant African American population, which is something we are looking into now," says Weir.

In fact, the National Parks Service may be looking closely at this cemetery. A genealogist and native Minnesotan, Elyse Hill, is applying for a grant for the cemetery under the National Parks Underground Railroad Network to Freedom sites.

"And what they recognize is any site that’s connected to an escaped slave," says Hill. "In addition to William Goodridge, there are about nine Civil War veterans in the USCT. But I only found one definitively documented as a source that yes he was an escaped slave, though I suspect there were several others too because they were born in slave states," says Hill.    

The Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery is full of hidden stories. Hidden figures and the storytellers will tell you the impact it still has today.

Summerford witnesses it every week at the Goodridge Museum when people come to view the secret room.

"It’s very emotional to many people who come. There are some people who come and fall on their knees and start singing, some people who just begin to pray, and we have people who just begin to sob because they know what it represented," he says.