John Thomas Rankin (1793 - 1886)

Born 5 Feb 1793 in Dandridge, Jefferson, Tennessee, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Jean Gillfillen (Lowry) Rankin — married 2 Jan 1816 in Jonesborough, Tennessee

Descendants

Died 18 Mar 1886 at age 93 in Ironton, Upper Township, Lawrence, Ohio, United States

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Biography

John Rankin is Notable.

John Rankin (February 5, 1793 – March 18, 1886) was an American Presbyterian minister, educator and abolitionist. Upon moving to Ripley, Ohio in 1822, he became known as one of Ohio's first and most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. Prominent pre-Civil War abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement.

He married Jean "Jane" Lowry on 02 Jan 1816 at Washington county, Tennessee.^[1] Among their children are:

• Adam
• Isabella Jane
• David
• Richard Calvin
• Samuel
• Julia Doak
• John Thomson
• Andrew Campbell
• Mary Eliza
• William Alexander
• Lucinda
• Arthur Tappan
• Thomas Lovejoy

In 1829, John moved his wife and his 9 children to Ripley, Ohio (the couple eventually had 13 children). His farm house sat at the top of a 540-foot-high hill that provided a wide view of the village, the Ohio River and the Kentucky shoreline. This provided the perfect environment for helping runaway slaves escape into the north. For over forty years leading up to the Civil War, many of the slaves who escaped to freedom through Ripley, Ohio stayed at the Rankin home. It is now a U.S. National historic landmark.

While living in Ripley, John learned that his brother Thomas, a merchant in Augusta County, Virginia, had been buying slaves. This prompted John to write a series of anti-slavery letters to his brother that were published by the editor of the local Ripley newspaper The Castigator. In 1826, the letters were published in a book titled Letters on Slavery. They provided one of the first clear anti-slavery opinion printed west of the Appalachians. Thomas Rankin, convinced by his brother's words, moved to Ohio in 1827 and freed his slaves. By the 1830s, Letters on Slavery had become standard reading for abolitionists all over the United States. In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison printed them in his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator.

Sources

1. ↑ Tennessee State Marriage Index, 1780-2002

• [1]
• United States Census, 1830
• United States Census, 1840
• United States Census, 1850
• United States Census, 1860
• Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Name: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.; Repository: #R1 NOTEThis information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Brent Biggs for creating WikiTree profile Rankin-929 through the import of Biggs Family Tree - DNA Link_2013-08-17.ged on Aug 17, 2013. Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Brent and others.

Wikidata: Item Q6254230, en:Wikipedia