“I am myself called a slave but will wear no fetters.”

Coordinated help in Syracuse NY

Early on, Loguen knew the horrors of slavery. His mother was kidnapped as a little girl from Ohio and taken south where she was enslaved. Later, as a grown woman, she and her children – including Jermain – were sold without notice and taken in a coffle (a forced march in which slaves were chained together) to Alabama.

In 1835 he escaped and went to St. Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada. Moving back to the U.S., he attended the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, NY. He taught for a while and then became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 raised his fears about capture, he moved to Syracuse to be closer to Canada.

In Syracuse he sheltered and helped runaways escaping from slavery. He was indicted (but not convicted) for his part in rescuing Jerry Henry, a runaway slave working as a barrel maker in Syracuse. Members of the Anti-Slavery Convention meeting at the time rushed to the scene. A large crowd used a battering ram to break down the door of the cell where Jerry was held. The deputies released the prisoner, who was hidden for several days in the city before being taken in a wagon to Oswego and then across Lake Ontario to freedom in Canada.

Rev. Loguen certainly didn’t operate in secret. His appeals to citizens for money to help runaways were published in the local newspapers. He also detailed how the money was spent. He wrote an autobiography, “The Rev. J.W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman.”

The Loguens’ daughter Amelia married Lewis Henry Douglass, the son of Frederick Douglass. Another daughter was one of the first women to graduate from medical school in Syracuse. He and his wife named a son after NY abolitionist Gerrit Smith.

Rev. Loguen became a bishop of the AME Zion Church