RIPLEY, Ohio — A stop on the Underground Railroad and home of a former slave turned Ohio abolitionist is getting national attention. It could soon be run by the federal government and volunteers hope that’s what keeps it running as a museum for years to come.
About an hour southeast of Cincinnati, in a small town called Ripley, there’s what looks like an average home across from the Ohio river. The house dates back to slavery. It was a part of the Underground Railroad, and there’s a new effort to try to save it.
There might not be any real pictures of the man who owned the house, but the paintings inside are helping long-time tour guide Dewey Scott tell the story of John Parker.
“It’s (the paintings) are showing John Parker being separated from his mother,” said Scott. “All these pictures were taken from the book ‘His Promise Land.”
The book was Parker’s autobiography, detailing his life as a slave who first bought his own freedom, then this house in Ripley, a foundry business with his own inventions, and his own boat.
“He would venture out into Kentucky and he would look for people who were out at night,” said Scott. “You were not allowed out at night if you were a slave.”
He said it’s estimated Parker helped hundreds of slaves cross the Ohio river, sometimes hiding them in the attic to help them escape.
Parker’s house became a stop on the Underground Railroad, a code name for a network of safe houses to help slaves find freedom.
When Carol Stivers, President of the John P. Parker Historical Society, first saw Parker’s house, she said something had to change.
“In the 1960s, when we saw this house, it was just being used as a warehouse,” said Stivers, “by the time we got it the roof had gone, the floors had gone, so we had a lot of work to do,” she said.
She and a group of volunteers got enough donations to turn it into a historic landmark museum.
They maintained it as the John P. Parker Historical Society but now they want it to be a part of the National Park System.
“It would mean that they would take us over, we’d have to give them all of our property, and it would be part of the park service, and we’d like that because we feel that would go on forever,” said Stivers.
President Biden recently signed off on a law that includes a feasibility study on the house. The study is expected to be done first before any change in ownership.
It’s all an effort to keep Parker’s house and story going.
“We know we tell about it here locally in Ripley, Ohio, but we’d like the whole world to know about it because we feel he’s an American hero,” said Stivers.
Organizers say so far they have not heard about a timeline on when they will get the federal designation but they’re hoping it’ll be soon.
For more information on the John P. Parker house, click here.
