The St. Charles History Museum has announced that the Joseph P. Bartlett Farm in Campton Township has been officially accepted as the first verified Underground Railroad safehouse in Kane County.
This designation is part of a broader effort to identify and nominate additional historic Underground Railroad sites across Northern Illinois.
The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom is a program administered by the National Park Service that recognizes and verifies sites connected to Freedom Seekers across the United States.
Inclusion in the Network requires a detailed application and a rigorous peer-review process, along with the consent of property owners.
The St. Charles History Museum extends its sincere thanks to the Bartlett Farm’s property owners for their generosity and cooperation in preserving this important history.
Located in western Kane County near the communities of Campton Hills and Maple Park, the Bartlett Farm becomes the first verified safehouse and only the second Kane County site recognized by the Network to Freedom. The county’s other designated site, Newsome Park in Elgin, was added in 2016 and commemorates the story of the “1862 Contraband Train” and the early history of Black settlement in Elgin.
Joseph Bartlett originally came from New Hampshire, where he was a well-educated teacher and hard-working farmer. After moving to Kane County in 1843, he purchased farmland, married, and raised a family. The Bartlett family were well respected in the community, and Joseph held several positions in local government. After Illinois reorganized into townships, in 1850, Joseph even selected the new name of “Campton Township.” This is a name which has stuck, ever since.
It was around this same time, when the Bartlett family began to operate their farm as a safehouse on the UGRR. It is believed that they opened their home to dozens of Freedom Seekers, bringing them onto the many safehouses along the “junction” in St. Charles. In fact, the Bartlett Farm was discovered to be one of the missing links in the dramatic escape of two Freedom Seekers known as “Eliza” and Celia Grayson.
A regional effort is now underway–spearheaded by Eric Krupa of the St. Charles History Museum and many others–to nominate additional Underground Railroad sites for America 250.
This work, in itself, is part of an even larger effort to document and share the history of Freedom Seeking in Illinois.
For more information on those efforts, contact: Eric Krupa at ILNTFC@gmail.com, or visit https://ilntfc.my.canva.site. For information on the St. Charles History Museum, contact: collections@stcmuseum.org, or visit, stcmuseum.org.
— St. Charles History Museum