09/01/2026
The Reitz Home Museum is pleased to welcome historian Randy Mills as our next featured presenter. Randy will present "A Christian Duty: A Tragic Tale of the Southwest Indiana Underground Railroad," sharing a powerful and compelling story from our region’s past.
After the Fugitive Slave Law Act of 1850, southern Indiana was full of slave catchers. The law forced citizens, even those in free states, to help capture and return runaway slaves to their owners. As a result of these occurrences, underground railroad activity exploded.
This particular southwest Indiana underground railroad story has an amazing cast of characters who play out their often-dangerous roles on both a national and a local stage. The players include prominent black newspaper owner, William Still, of Philadelphia, and his courageous brother, Peter; the famous Hoosier anti-slave leader, Levi Coffin; derring-do abolitionist Seth Conklin from New York; and an Alabama slave owner named Bernard McKiernan. Locally, another derring-do character, Evansville’s Marshall and later county Sheriff, John Smith Gavitt, takes a more sinister role in the story. Finally, there was the very low-keyed Princeton, Indiana farmer, David Stormont, a strict Presbyterian covenanter who was a fearless stationmaster on the Underground Railroad.
Fate brings these people together in a thrilling and sad story that will be shared by historian Randy Mills in a fascinating evening at the Reitz House on September 16, at 6 p. m
Save the Date:
📅 September 16
🕕 6:00 PM
📍 Reitz Home Museum
