This is a well-researched, easy-to-read (written for school) book detailing a few of the activities of one of the unknown heroes of the 19th Century here in Philadelphia: William Still. Son of an escaped slave, virutally uneducated, by dint of hard work and perserverance he became a prominent industrialist in 19th Century Philadelphia, and the eminence gris who converted the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society from a group of well-funded, moralistic meeting-goers into the first of the militant "vigilance committees", putting agents on the docks and train stations where Southern plnatation-owners were transitting Free territory with their "personal property", and spiriting those "properties" to safe-houses and stations throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania by means of cells of high-minded moral men who used secret signs, words and handshakes grounded upon foundations of absolute trust; they sound a lot like FreeMasons.....
The Berean Institute, the Berean Savings and Loan, and the Christian Street YMCA owe their existence today to the direct action of William Still. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the United States of America are better for his having been here.

William Still and the Quakers were a formidable combination in the development and success of the Underground Railroad. This book adds to the store of knowledge we have of this clandestine, noble group of people who risk everything to help others.