Timeline: 1857
George L. Burroughs, a free African American from Cairo, IL, became an agent on the Underground Railroad. While employed as a porter on the Illinois Central Railroad, he helped to carry fugitives from Cairo to Chicago, coming through Champaign County. (Note: From the late 1850s through the Civil War, the three major railroads in Illinois were said to carry fugitives from slavery. Those railroads were the Illinois Central; the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy; and the Chicago and Rock Island.)
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