the first fugitive slave conducted through Wisconsin's underground railroad network to freedom. With a gift of $100 from her grandmother, a free woman, Quarlls left her master's home in St. Louis on July 4, 1842, travelled by steamboat to Alton, Ill., and then by stage to Milwaukee, where she arrived in early August, 1842. Pursued by agents of her owner, she was hidden by a series of sympathetic abolitionists in Milwaukee, Pewaukee, Waukesha, and Spring Prairie. In early Sept. Lyman Goodnow of Waukesha agreed to escort her around Chicago and across Indiana and Michigan to Detroit, where she crossed safely to freedom in Canada. She learned to read, married a man named Watkins, and lived near Sandwich (modern Windsor), across from Detroit, until about 1892. View more information elswhere at wisconsinhistory.org

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Lyman Goodnow Recollection for details.

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.

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[Source: Davidson, J. N. Negro slavery in Wisconsin and the underground railroad. (Milwaukee, 1897); Goodnow, Lyman. "Recollections of Lyman Goodnow." Manuscript in the Milwaukee Area Research Center (Milwaukee SC 19).]