George DeBaptiste (Notable Resident / Underground Railroad)

George DeBaptiste was born around 1815 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Different sources name different parents, and they differ on whether he was born free or freed later in childhood. He learned the barbering trade in Richmond. In his mid-teens he married Marie Lucinda Lee, a slave, and purchased her freedom with his earnings.

By the mid-1830s DeBaptiste had moved to Madison, Indiana — a river town on the Ohio, halfway between Cincinnati and Louisville. Madison became a destination for slaves escaping Kentucky. DeBaptiste's barbershop became what an obituary later called the nerve center of the Madison underground railroad. He worked with a network that included a Quaker named William Beard in Salem, Indiana, and Catherine and Levi Coffin, who arranged relays north to Canada. DeBaptiste ferried Kentucky runaways across the Ohio River to Indiana, then on to Michigan and Canada. He frequently loaned his freedom papers — issued in Richmond in 1835, describing him as a mulatto about five feet seven and a half inches high — to other men of similar build. He later said he used that certificate thirty-three times to help slaves escape.

In 1840 DeBaptiste became valet to William Henry Harrison during his presidential campaign. After Harrison's election, DeBaptiste was appointed White House steward. Harrison's term was the shortest of any presidency — he died of illness after one month. An obituary said DeBaptiste was at Harrison's side and held the president in his arms at his last breath.

DeBaptiste returned to Madison. Slavery supporters in the area demanded his arrest for failing to pay a five-hundred-dollar bond required by the state from free African Americans, until a judge declared that law unconstitutional. Repeatedly attacked for his antislavery work, DeBaptiste left Madison in 1846.

He moved to Detroit and worked as a barber and a clothier. Michigan was a free state, but refugee slaves often preferred to continue to Canada to get beyond the reach of United States fugitive slave laws. DeBaptiste was considered the president of the local underground railroad group. William Lambert, who had also moved from Indiana, was the vice president. In 1859 DeBaptiste purchased a lake steamship, the T. Whitney. He could not hold a captain's license, so he hired a white captain named Atwood. The boat ran the Great Lakes route between Sandusky, Ohio and Detroit, stopping regularly at Amherstburg, Ontario — ostensibly to load lumber. Historians estimate DeBaptiste and Lambert secured passage for hundreds of fugitives, part of an estimated thirty thousand who settled in Canada.

On March 12, 1859, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, William Lambert, and DeBaptiste met at William Webb's house to discuss emancipation. DeBaptiste proposed blowing up some of the South's largest churches. Brown opposed the idea, feeling humanity precluded such bloodshed. Before emancipation, Kentucky posted a one-thousand-dollar reward to capture DeBaptiste. After Brown's insurrection and hanging, a Senate investigating committee attempted to subpoena DeBaptiste. The Detroit sheriff wrote to the committee that if the senator knew DeBaptiste's character, he would not desire the summons served — and it never was.

During the Civil War, DeBaptiste helped recruit Michigan's first Black regiment and served as a sutler. After the war he opened a catering business in Detroit. He won first prize for his wedding cakes at the 1873 Michigan State Fair. He advocated for the right of Black students to attend Detroit Public Schools and in 1870 became the first African American elected delegate to the state Republican nominating convention. DeBaptiste died February 22, 1875. He was survived by his second wife, one son, and one daughter.