LEOMINSTER -- In the decades before the Civil War, the nation was torn by the question of slavery. Even in New England, some did not support its abolition.
The abolitionists were further divided. The most radical, the Garrisonian abolitionists, believed in racial and gender equality. They also believed that their organizations should be formed without regard to religion, a radical idea for New England in the mid-19th century.
Frances Drake, a small woman with vision problems, was a Leominster Garrisonian with the courage to act on her beliefs.
She and her husband, Jonathan, opened their modest home to prominent abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and escaped slave Frederick Douglass. Fellow townspeople were not universally welcoming to the activists, at one point pelting black abolitionist Charles Redmond and his hostess with sticks, stones and kitchen waste at town hall.
The Drakes were not wealthy, but Frances supported the fundraising efforts despite the lack of cash and the disinterest of those around her. In a letter dated Nov. 17, 1848, she wrote:
"This year I cannot give a cent, honestly. For myself I can bear poverty, for the sake of others I wish I had an abundance. For reasons which I cannot fathom, the ladies in town do not choose to do anything for the fair. Two or three will send a trifle of knitting or some such matter."
She promised to send greenery to the depot to send to the event and to cook if food was available.
The Drakes also broke the law to help escaped slaves. Their home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. One refugee was Shadrach Minkins in 1851. After making it to Massachusetts from Virginia, the black man worked in Boston for a year. Then, United States marshals, acting on the recently passed Fugitive Slave Law allowing them to capture escaped slaves in free states, seized him.
Prominent Boston abolitionists fought through legal avenues to free Minkins, but it took the force of a crowd of black men to wrest him from a courtroom and send him to safety along the secret network that was neither underground nor always a railroad.
Given the Drakes' known political affiliations, the townspeople might have suspected the couple of harboring fugitives, but Minkins and other escaped slaves made it through their home and were sent to the next stop, perhaps in West Fitchburg.
The Drake home, at 21 Franklin St., was purchased by the city and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The city and the Leominster Historical Society plan on rehabbing the historic site. A $30,000 planning grant from The Massachusetts Historical Society was announced in July.