Underground Railroad poster

Photographic reproduction of an Underground Railroad poster, circulated in Detroit, requesting donations of farm equipment. Text reads: "Stockholders of the Underground R.R. Company. Hold on to your stock!! The market has an upward tendency. By the express train which arrived this morning at 3 o'clock, fifteen thousand dollars worth of human merchandise, consisting of twenty-nine able bodied men and women, fresh and sound, from the Carolina and Kentucky plantations, have arrived safe at the depot on the other side, where all our sympathizing colonization friends may have an opportunity of expressing their sympathy by bringing forward donations of ploughs, & e, farming utensils, pick axes and hoes, and not old clothes; as these emigrants all can till the soil. N.B. Stockholders don't forget the meeting to-day at 2 o'clock at the ferry on the Canada side. All persons desiring to take stock in this prosperous company, be sure to be on hand. Detroit, April 19, 1853. By order of the Board of Directors." Label on back: "Michigan State mats. Advance for PMS of Tuesday, Jan. 31, part seven of Michigan in the Civil War series. Underground poster. Detroit, a key station on the Underground Railroad in the Civil War, aided thousands of Negroes to secretly flee to Canada where they found freedom and safety. This poster, circulated in Detroit in 1853, calls for donations of farm equipment. FN 1/19/61, handout/source. DT News and Free Press have. NY has."