und were not the abolitionists or sympathizers, but those runaway slaves who were willing to risk their lives and leave those they loved to gain freedom. Levi Coffin was born on October 28, 1798 on a farm in New Garden, North Carolina, the only son of seven children born to Quaker parents, Levi and Prudence (Williams) Coffin. Because his father needed him to work on the farm, young Levi received the bulk of his education at home. His home schooling proved to be a good education. As a young boy growing up in North Carolina in the early 1800's, Levi saw firsthand the reality of slavery. One day while he was out with his father helping to chop wood by the roadside, a group of slaves, handcuffed and chained together, passed by on their way to be sold in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. When Levi’s father asked them why they were chained, one of the men sadly replied: "They have taken us away from our wives and children, and they chain us lest we should make our escape and go back to them."1 After the group of slaves had gone, young Levi wondered to himself how he would feel if his father were taken away from him. The incident by the side of a Guilford County road marked the first stirring of Levi Coffin's sympathy for the oppressed. Together with a strong hatred of oppression and injustice in any form, Coffin later said these "were the motives that influenced my whole after-life."2. He shared with his relatives an abhorrence for slavery. Both Coffin’s parents and grandparents were opposed to slavery, and actively aided those that came to them for help. While he was still a teenager, Coffin had his first opportunity to offer assistance to a slave. Attending a corn husking, the fifteen-year-old Coffin noticed a group of slaves brought to the husking by a local slave dealer named Stephen Holland. While the other in his party ate, Coffin remained behind to talk with the slaves and to "see if I could render them any servi...
