The Liberty Party in Erie County

According to the Firelands Pioneer, attorney F.D. Parish was the unsuccessful candidate for the Liberty Party in the 1844 Election. He had hoped to be elected to the 28^th U.S. Congress. Hewson L. Peeke wrote in his book Standard History of Erie County, I (Lewis Pub. Co., 1916) that Parish helped to organize the Liberty Party in Erie County. This announcement appeared in the Sandusky Clarion on September 26, 1845. “Liberty men” were instructed to assemble at Berlin Center on October 10, 1845, for the purpose of renewing and increasing the efforts to redeem the country from “the disgrace of the system of American slavery, and to extend the blessings of liberty to all the people of the land.”

The names of the members of the Liberty Party in Erie County were listed in the May 28, 1849 issue of the Sandusky Clarion. They were:

M.  Farwell                 F.D. Parish

W.S. Mills                  G,.Osborne

Charles Cochrane       H. Curtis

L.S. Beecher               John Hughes

P.M. Ring                    H.J. Childs

F.T. Barney                  John Everitt

O. McKnight               Wm. Dildine

H.P. Radcliffe              G. Hughes

Wm.A. Bill                  Thomas Porter

S.E. Hitchcock             J. Neal

Wm. P. Chapman         J.B. Hughes

Wm. St. John               Samuel Hughes

Thos. Hughes              Thomas McFall

Edwin Forman             Jacob M. Colver

W.A. Simpson             S. DeWitt

John Wheeler              J.N. Davidson

C. Hadley                    John Irvine

S.M. Barber                Alexander Boyd

H. Johnson                  John Barr

A.H. Barber                Henry B. Green

Jas. D. Whitney          John Carson

Horatio Osborn           J.M. Goodman

D.C. Henderson          W.H. Clark

E.G. Ross                    John McEldowney

L.P. Clark                    H.H. Jennings

S. Ross                        W.C. Pettibone

Samuel Cochrane        Johan D. Whitney

J.H. Graham                P.B. Berry

E.P. Jones                    J.C. Mitchell

George Morris             G.W. Prichard

H.F. Merry                  Josiah Fowler

Several of the individuals whose names were listed as members of the Liberty Party in Erie County were also active participants in the Underground Railroad, the loosely knit network of people who assisted fugitive slaves to reach freedom in Canada