Richard Dillingham

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cuppysfriend (talk | contribs) at 00:55, 28 April 2005 (Added exact date of Dillignham's death as confirmed by Tennessee State Library and Archives.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Richard Dillingham, (June 18, 1823 - June 30, 1850), was a Quaker school teacher from Morrow County, Ohio, who was arrested in Tennessee on December 5, 1848, while aiding the attempted escape of three slaves. Tried April 12, 1849, he was sentenced to three years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville, where he died of cholera. He was celebrated as a martyr to the abolitionist cause by novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe, fellow Quaker Levi Coffin and the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who wrote the poem The Cross in Dillingham's honor.