Caroline's Escape

Caroline Quarlls (circa 1826 - 1886), is one of the most celebrated travelers of the Underground Railroad. She is the first known fugitive slave conducted through the Wisconsin network to freedom. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Quarlls was forced to do house work for her owner who was also her paternal grandfather, Charles R. Hall, who would at times beat her. Even though she looked like her white half-siblings, Quarlls was not allowed the same freedoms. On July 4, 1842, at the age of sixteen, she was able to escape by passing as a white girl, taking a steamboat to Alton, Illinois, where she began a five-week journey to freedom. Her owner paid lawyers to bring her back, and bounty hunters pursued Quarlls through Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan, but abolitionists of all colors gave her food, clothing, shelter, and transportation until she crossed into the safety of Canada. She met and married another freed slave, Allen Watkins, and together they raised six children in Sandwich (now Windsor), Ontario, Canada.

Sources: Wisconsin Historical Society; womeninwisconsin.org; Encyclopedia of Milwaukee by Ellen Engseth; Kenosha Civil War Museum