Friends of Big Bone Program – Big Bone Lick and the Underground Railroad

Big Bone Lick and the Underground Railroad

Bridget Striker- Director of Local History at the Boone County Library

Big Bone Lick’s location on the Ohio River placed it at the center of conflict between slaveholders and abolitionists in the years leading up to the Civil War. Intrigue and controversy surrounded the 1853 accusations of slave abscondment by local doctor Thomas J. Trundle. Court documents shine light on the dissension within the Union-Big Bone neighborhood and provide evidence as to the route to freedom across the Ohio River to nearby Patriot, Indiana.