Underground Railroad & Education
A Place of Refuge. A Story of Courage.
The history of Kelton House is inseparable from the history of the Underground Railroad in Columbus.
Fernando Cortez Kelton and Sophia Stone Kelton were committed to the antislavery movement, and their home at 586 East Town Street became connected to the network of people and places that assisted freedom seekers traveling north.
Because assisting freedom seekers was dangerous and conducted in secrecy, much of the Underground Railroad left few written records. Stories were often preserved through family histories, oral traditions, and the experiences passed from one generation to another.
At Kelton House, those histories provide an important connection to the larger story of slavery, abolition, resistance, and the pursuit of freedom in nineteenth-century America.
The Underground Railroad in Columbus
Columbus played an important role in the Underground Railroad. Throughout Central Ohio, Black and white abolitionists, religious communities, families, and individuals participated in networks that provided food, shelter, transportation, information, and assistance to people escaping slavery. The Underground Railroad was not a literal railroad, nor was it a single organized route. Instead, it was a constantly changing network of people and places operating largely in secrecy.
For freedom seekers, reaching Ohio did not necessarily mean reaching safety. Even in a free state, people escaping slavery faced the possibility of capture and forced return. Within this environment, Fernando and Sophia Kelton became part of Columbus’s antislavery community.
Family histories associated with Kelton House recount that freedom seekers were concealed in several locations on the property, including the barn, servants’ quarters, and a large cistern near the house. Because Underground Railroad activity was deliberately hidden, the total number of people who may have received assistance at Kelton House remains unknown. However, one story would become central to the history and educational mission of Kelton House.
Martha & Pearl Hartway
In 1864, two young sisters named Martha and Pearl Hartway arrived at the Kelton property after escaping slavery in Powhatan County, Virginia.
According to the history preserved at Kelton House, the sisters fled after learning that they could be sent to work in the plantation’s “Big House.” Their journey eventually brought them to Columbus and the home of Fernando and Sophia Kelton.
Martha was approximately 10 years old.
Kelton family tradition recounts that Sophia discovered the sisters hiding near the house. Martha was ill and unable to continue traveling, so the Keltons took her into their home. Pearl continued her journey north, eventually reaching Wisconsin, while Martha remained in Columbus.
Martha would spend the next decade at Kelton House, growing up alongside the Kelton children. Her story is unusual within the history of the Underground Railroad. For many freedom seekers, a safe house was a temporary stop on a much longer journey. For Martha, Kelton House became home.
Martha & Thomas Lawrence
As Martha grew into adulthood, her life remained closely connected to the Kelton family.
Thomas Lawrence, the son of free Black parents, worked for the Keltons as a cabinetmaker. In 1874, Martha and Thomas were married in the front parlor of Kelton House. Their wedding was performed by Reverend James Preston Poindexter, one of nineteenth-century Columbus’s prominent Black civic and religious leaders and an active participant in the city’s Underground Railroad network.
Martha and Thomas continued their close relationship with the Kelton family after their marriage. Thomas remained employed by the Keltons for decades, and the couple eventually established their own home in Columbus.
Their children’s names reflected the relationship that had developed between the two families. Martha and Thomas named their son Arthur Kelton Lawrence, carrying the Kelton name into another generation. Historical accounts also note that the Lawrence family named their children for Martha’s Kelton family playmates.
The relationship between the families did not end with Martha’s generation. Descendants of the Lawrence family maintained connections to the Keltons, helping preserve Martha’s story alongside the history passed down through the Kelton family.
Reverend James Preston Poindexter
The minister who married Martha and Thomas was himself an important figure in Columbus’s Underground Railroad history.
Reverend James Preston Poindexter was a pastor, abolitionist, civic leader, and Underground Railroad conductor in Columbus. He was part of a network of Black abolitionists and community leaders who assisted freedom seekers traveling through Central Ohio.
His presence at Martha and Thomas’s wedding creates another remarkable connection within the story of Kelton House: a woman who had escaped slavery was married in the home that had provided her refuge by a Black abolitionist who had himself participated in Columbus’s Underground Railroad network.
The Next Generation | Dr. Arthur Kelton Lawrence
The story continued through Martha and Thomas’s son, Arthur Kelton Lawrence.
Arthur pursued an education at a time when significant barriers confronted Black Americans seeking professional careers. A surviving diploma documents that he earned a pharmacy degree from The Ohio State University in 1897.
Shortly after graduating, Arthur served as a hospital steward with the 9th Battalion, Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War. He later became a physician, practiced medicine in Kansas, and eventually returned to Columbus, where historical records document his medical practice.
Arthur’s life adds another generation to a remarkable family story.
In 1864, his mother arrived in Columbus as a child seeking freedom. A generation later, her son earned a university education, served his country, and built a career as a physician.
