John Rankin

Notable people · Abolitionist · Clergy

John Rankin

Presbyterian minister whose hilltop house above Ripley was one of the busiest Underground Railroad stations on the Ohio River.

Born February 4, 1793, Dandridge, Jefferson County, Tennessee
Died March 18, 1886, Ironton

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: February 4, 1793, Dandridge, Jefferson County, Tennessee source
Died: March 18, 1886, Ironton (Lawrence County) source
Buried: Maplewood Cemetery, 700 Catherine Street, Ripley (Brown County) source
Also known as: Rev. John Rankin
Education: Washington College Academy (under Samuel Doak), Tennessee, to 1816
Known as: Abolitionist, Clergy
Organizations: Ohio History Connection

Life story

John Rankin was born in Tennessee in 1793 to a strict Presbyterian family; his mother opposed slavery. He studied under the abolitionist minister Samuel Doak and graduated in 1816.

He co-founded the Tennessee Manumission Society, then left the South because of opposition, pastoring in Carlisle, Kentucky, where he opened a school for enslaved people.

In 1822 the family crossed the frozen Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio. In 1826 he published Letters on Slavery, which influenced William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

His hilltop house in Ripley, built in 1829, became an Underground Railroad stop, and he joined the antislavery speakers known as 'the Seventy' in 1836. He resigned from the Ripley church in 1846 and died in 1886.

Ohio ties

Ripley (1822-1870s)
minister of the Ripley Presbyterian Church (1822-1846), school founder and Underground Railroad conductor; lived in Ripley until after his wife died in 1878 Brown County · source
Rankin House, Liberty Hill, Ripley (1829 onward)
family home and Underground Railroad station Brown County · source
Ironton (after 1878-1886)
lived his last years at the Gray house with his granddaughter Elizabeth Gray, and died there Lawrence County · source

Timeline

1818 Formed an anti-slavery society in Carlisle, Kentucky, where slavery was legal. source
1822 Moved his family across the Ohio River to Ripley in the winter of 1821-22 and took up the pulpit of the Ripley Presbyterian Church. source
1826 Letters on American Slavery, written to his slaveholding brother Thomas in Virginia, was published as a book. source
1828 The brick house on the hill above Ripley was built. source
1829 The family, with nine of his children at home, moved into the hilltop house overlooking Ripley and the Kentucky shore. source
1831 Ripley College, founded in 1829, enrolled its first African American student. source
1835 Helped form the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. source
1838 A woman carrying her child crossed the Ohio River ice and was sheltered by the Rankins. Harriet Beecher Stowe later based Eliza in Uncle Tom's Cabin on her. source
1838 Young Ulysses S. Grant attended Rankin's academy in Ripley. source
1846 Resigned from the Ripley Presbyterian Church after 24 years. Over a third of the congregation left with him, helping establish the Free Presbyterian Church. source
1878 His wife Jean Lowrey Rankin died. source
1886 Died on 18 March at his home in Ironton's Rankin district. source
1892 A bronze bust of Rankin by his granddaughter Ella Rankin Copp was set on the couple's granite grave marker, inscribed 'Freedom's heroes', in Maplewood Cemetery. source
1938 The State of Ohio acquired the Rankin House. source
1997 The Rankin House was designated a National Historic Landmark on 18 February. source

What John is known for

Rankin House, National Historic Landmark 1997
Wrote 'Letters on American Slavery'
Letters on Slavery (1826)

Stories

Letters to a slaveholding brother

Rankin's brother Thomas was a slaveholder in Virginia. From Ripley, Rankin wrote him a series of letters setting out the case against slavery, and in 1826 they were published as a book, Letters on American Slavery. William Lloyd Garrison later reprinted them in his newspaper The Liberator, carrying a Brown County minister's arguments to a national abolitionist readership. The letters also seem to have reached their first reader: Thomas Rankin later moved to Ohio and freed the people he had enslaved.

Source

The split in Ripley's church

Rankin served the Ripley Presbyterian Church for 24 years before resigning in 1846. More than a third of the congregation left with him, and they helped establish what became the Free Presbyterian Church, an anti-slavery denomination that may have had as many as 72 congregations before the Civil War. Rankin also founded a Presbyterian academy for boys in Ripley, and the young Ulysses S. Grant attended it in 1838.

Source

Honors and things named for them

National Abolition Hall of Fame (2013)
'Freedom's Heroes' monument, Maplewood Cemetery, Ripley (1892)
Rankin House is a National Historic Landmark

Family

father: Richard Rankin
mother: Jane Steele Rankin

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 John Rankin House (NRHP 70000485, National Historic Landmark)
6152 Rankin Hill Road, Ripley Brown County · source
Rankin grave and 'Freedom's Heroes' bust, Maplewood Cemetery
700 Catherine Street, Ripley Brown County · source
Gray house (Lawrence County Historical Society museum), where Rankin spent his last years
Ironton Lawrence County · source

Places in Ohio to see

John Rankin House (home)
6152 Rankin Hill Rd, Ripley, Brown County ZIP 45167 · Ripley · Brown County
Maplewood Cemetery (grave)
Ripley, Brown County ZIP 45167 (approximate) · Ripley · Brown County

Ohio places

Where John Rankin was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Lived: Ripley, Brown County (John Rankin House, 6152 Rankin Hill Rd) ZIP 45167 · Ripley · Brown County
Buried: Ripley, Brown County (Maplewood Cemetery) ZIP 45167 · Ripley · Brown County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about John Rankin, and what the record shows.

Often said Rankin hung a lantern in his front window each night to tell freedom seekers in Kentucky that it was safe to cross.

The record This is folklore. A formerly enslaved person's narrative instead recalls a light on a pole, which Wikipedia calls more plausible given where the house stands. The Clio entry, drawing on Ohio History Connection material, describes a 30-foot candle-tipped pole in town that 'may have served as a beacon' on some occasions. It notes that secrecy was the norm, because a visible signal would also have drawn slave catchers. source

Often said Rankin died in 1886 from injuries suffered in a mob attack.

The record This is unproven. It is repeated on Clio and in blog posts, but the Ironton Tribune's local history of his last years says only that he died on 18 March 1886 at his Ironton home, aged 93, where he lived with his granddaughter. No source I opened gives a cause of death or describes any attack in his last years. source

Often said Rankin personally sheltered 2,000 freedom seekers.

The record 'About 2,000' is a modern estimate for all the people helped through Ripley, which Ohio History Connection and the Ripley tourism site repeat. Rankin's own documented statement was that he had sheltered as many as twelve fugitives at a time, sometimes whole families. source

Disputed: Tradition says he helped about 2,000 people escape slavery. The number is a traditional claim, not a documented count.

Pictures

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Several children and adults stand in front of a red brick home with two chimneys and a staircase in the center...
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A red brick house with gray shingle roof and green yard with sidewalk leading to the house. The John Rankin ho...
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A red brick house with gray shingle roof and green yard with sidewalk leading down to the bottom. The John Ran...
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A red brick house with gray shingle roof and green yard with sidewalk leading down to the bottom. The John Ran...
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A red brick house with gray shingle roof and green yard with sidewalk leading down to the bottom right. The Jo...
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