Columbia, Pennsylvania

Wright’s Ferry Mansion in Columbia, PA

In 1726, the Quakers John Wright and Robert Barber settled in the area that is now Columbia, Pennsylvania.  Sixty-one years later, Wright’s grandson, Samuel, laid out the town of Columbia, which originally was called Wright’s Ferry, as the Wrights operated a ferry that crossed the Susquehanna River at the time. With most of its settlers being Quakers, who were staunch foes of slavery, and its close proximity to Maryland and easy accessibility by way of the Susquehanna, a large number of manumitted slaves settled in Columbia. The kidnapping there of a former slave in 1804 led to the town’s active involvement in aiding runaway slaves. It is said that Wright’s ferry was used during this early period. 

View near site of original Wright's Ferry

As early as 1812 a bridge was built near the Wright mansion crossing the Susquehanna and another in 1837. William Wright, the son of Samuel, married the daughter of Chester County conductor, Daniel Gibbons, and continued the family tradition. But probably the town’s most important conductor during the time of the Underground Railroad’s greatest activity was black businessman, William Whipper, who grew up there and established an extremely successful lumber business there. His home also was near the bridge.

                    William Wright                                                          William Whipper

For William Still’s epic book, The Underground Railroad, Whipper wrote: “In a period of three years from 1847 to 1850, I passed hundreds to the land of freedom … I have fed and sheltered from one to seventeen at a time . . .  (in support of the Underground Railroad, he added) from 1847-1860, I contributed from my earnings one thousand dollars annually.”