The Courageous Laura Haviland

 After reading my article about the Underground Railroad published in Lifestyles 2000, my friend told me about her great aunt, Laura Haviland. In fact, she shared her first edition of Laura’s autobiography, “A Woman’s Life Work.” (You can find a full transcription of the book online.) Laura was born in Canada in 1808 to American Quaker parents, Daniel and Sene Smith. At the age of 16, she married Charles Haviland. Shortly after, they moved with other Quakers to Lenawee County, Michigan.

Quakers had always condemned slavery, but initially did not work actively for abolition. Restless, determined, and driven to action, Laura Haviland took up the more active role of Wesleyan Methodists to fight slavery. With Elizabeth Chandler, Laura formed the Logan FemaleAnti-Slavery Society, the first abolitionist organization in Michigan.  The Havilands began hiding fugitive slaves. Their home became the first Underground Railroad station in Michigan.

                       

                        Laura Haviland Statue in Adrian, Michigan                    

Laura also founded the Raisin Institute, the first racially integrated school in Michigan. The Havilands brought several teachers from Ohio’s Oberlin College who helped them make it one of the best schools in the territory.

In 1845, the family was struck by erysipelas. Laura became desperately ill. Upon her recovery she learned that her husband, sister, parents, and young baby had died. Despite these tragedies, Laura remained as determined as ever to carry on her battle against slavery.

She made trips into the Deep South to aid escaped slaves. In an effort to bring the children of a fugitive slave couple to freedom in Michigan, she traveled to the tavern of slave owner John Chester of Washington County, Tennessee. Chester held Laura, her son, and another at gunpoint, threatening to kill them. They managed to escape only to be chased by slave catchers. For the next 15 years, Chester and his son harassed Laura Haviland in court, with slave catchers, and with threats of violence. After the Fugitive Slave Act, she began escorting runaway slaves to Canada. In 1851, she helped found the Refugee Home Society in Windsor, Ontario, a settlement with a church, school, and 25 acres for each family. 

When the Civil War broke out, Haviland traveled throughout the South, distributing supplies, caring for the wounded, and working for better hospital conditions as far the Gulf of Mexico. At war’s end General O. O. Howard appointed Haviland Inspector of Hospitals for the Freedmen’s Bureau. Haviland traveled to Virginia, Tennessee, Kansas, and Washington, D.C. teaching, lecturing, and volunteering as a nurse.

The Raisin Institute went through many changes, becoming the Haviland Home, an orphanage for African American children. Eventually, the home was purchased by the state and became known as the Michigan Orphan Asylum.

Even in her later years Laura Haviland continued to work tirelessly to help freed slaves. Using her own money, Laura bought 240 acres in Kansas where African Americans escaping the violence of the KKK could farm, raise their children, and attend school. Both Haviland, Kansas and Haviland, Ohio were named in her honor. The image nearby is that of a statue of Laura Haviland in Adrian, Michigan.