William Still (October 7, 1821 – July 14, 1902) was an African-American abolitionist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, conductor on the Underground Railroad, writer, historian and civil rights activist. He was chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. He directly aided fugitive slaves and kept records of their lives, to help families reunite after slavery was abolished. After the American Civil War, he wrote an account of the underground system and the experiences of many refugee slaves, entitled The Underground Railroad Records, published in 1872.
He was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, to Charity and Levin Still. His parents had come to New Jersey from the eastern shore of Maryland as freed-slaves. He was the youngest of eighteen siblings. His father was the first of the family to move to New Jersey when he purchased his own freedom. He settled in Springtown near Medford and later Charity joined the family with their four children, when she escaped. Charity was recaptured and returned to slavery, but she escaped a second time and, with her two daughters, found her way to Burlington County, to join her husband. The two sons she left behind were sold to slave-owners in Mississippi, in the Deep South.
In 1844, William Still moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he began working as a clerk for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In 1847 he married Letitia George and had four children who survived infancy. When Philadelphia abolitionists organized a committee to aid runaway slaves reaching Philadelphia, Still became its chairman. By the 1850s, he was a leader of Philadelphia's Black community. In 1859 he attempted to desegregate the city's public transit system. He opened a stove store during the American Civil War, and later started a coal delivery business. Often called "The Father of the Underground Railroad," Still helped as many as 60 enslaved people a month to escape to freedom, interviewing each person and keeping careful records, including a brief biography and the destination of each person, along with any alias that they adopted, though he kept his records carefully hidden.
After the Civil War, Still published the secret notes he’d kept in diaries during those years, and his book is a source of many historical details of the workings of the Underground Railroad. His book "The Underground Railroad Records" brought to life the stories of, Ellen and William Craft, Jane Johnson, Samuel D. Burris, Frances E. W. Harper, Henry Box Brown and many more.
William Still died on July 14, 1902. To this day, their descendants have an annual family reunion every August.
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