The Capital Region of New York was a significant location in the context of runaway enslaved people and abolitionism; with cities like Saratoga, Troy, and Schenectady earning shoutouts in notable texts like David Wilson’s Twelve Years a Slave and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a connection between the abolitionist movement and the people who inhabited and frequented these cities is inevitable. Upon discovering John Bigelow, apart from working for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, his relation to a much larger and more intricate Abolitionist Network was not immediately obvious. It was his frequent correspondence with fellow Union College alumni, William Seward, known abolitionist and friend to Harriet Tubman, that raised the flag of potential involvement within the movement.

The search for fellow abolitionists within John Bigelow’s correspondence database was a long and careful discovery. Many abolitionists were a quick google search away, simply needing the word “abolition” typed next to their names, like Underground Railroad station master James W Brooks. Other abolitionists required more digging that uncovered written works under hidden identities, like Charles F Briggs who wrote to the National Slavery Standard under the sobriquet Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. The amount of fascinating stories and connections within the John Bigelow Abolitionist Network seems endless, and these are only the stories available online.

John Bigelow’s relationship to these abolitionists while not having any published abolitionist documents himself seems to be too coincidental to be just that. Perhaps he too had a sobriquet he wrote abolitionist work under, like Briggs; or maybe he tagged along with his friend, William Seward, to the secret meetings and conferences held between the conductors and station masters of the Underground Railroad; or perhaps he was just a man who had friends in many places. One thing is certain: John Bigelow corresponded with a wide range of abolitionists who are connected and carefully intertwined with one another, allowing the creation of the John Bigelow Abolitionist Network.