Ceremony honors Dutch families who worked the Underground Railroad along the Little Calumet River

Birgitta Tazelaar, right, the Netherlands ambassador to the United States, walks the Ton Farm Underground Railroad site March 21, 2024 with Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project lead historian Larry McClellan. Jan Ton and Cornelis Kuyper, leaders of Dutch communities from present day South Holland to Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, encouraged residents to help enslaved people in the 1850s along the Underground Railroad.

Ton and Kuyper were among the founding trustees of the First Reformed Church of South Holland in 1855, the sign states, and they encouraged other Dutch families to help enslaved people travel along the Underground Railroad., said one night in 1857 men came to Kuyper for help locating three refugee slaves in the Chicago area. Under the law, Kuyper had to help look for refugee slaves when asked, McClennan said.

Jeff Ton, a descendant of the Ton family, honors the freedom seekers who sought shelter at the Ton Farm Underground Railroad site during a sign dedication ceremony March 21, 2024. “They knew that providing a place to stay or a ride across the river was the right thing to do despite the risk. They were breaking the law, but they held the higher moral high ground to do so,” she said.

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