l improvements came along, and with the limited number of slaves left in the states, the value of the slaves went up very quickly. Abolition Societies began to form, and along with religious groups became active in helpin gslaves to freedom. The "Railroad" beggan to take shape. A shape that is to this day very hard to describe. Traks were laid to aide the slaves to freedom. People talked in secrecy to make safe paths for the slaves to run on. These were the tracks. Letters were sent that had terminology or code for the balcks. A lot of the terms come from things found along railroads. This is because real railroads at this time were the newest thing and happened to be the topic of choice for conversation. This made it all the easier for the helpers of the railroad to communicate going unoticed.Along the tracks, there were depots, safe houses to stay. These were houses of free whites or blacks where they could hide when they weren’t running. The people who owned the houses were often called conductors. The conductors often left a number of signs for the slaves to follow so they didn’t go to houses that belonged to allies of the slave owners. A quilt on the clothes line depicting a house with smoke coming out of the chimney was a sign of a safe station. A white ring of bricks around the the top of a house’s chimney was another sign of a good hiding spot. Shoppes that were safe often had a silohette of a fleeing man or woman on in sign. Other siggns were used to guide the slaves. There were knocks that slaves used when approaching a house,animal calls, and lights hung in windows. When a slave was moving to the next house along the railroad, this was called "catching the next train." There were also songgs that ave directions to slaves that were taught to everyone so that they might memorize the way. One such, was "Follow the Drinking Gourd" The drinking gourd was the slaves’ terminology for the big dipper. The Big D...
