John Rankin

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, Theodore Weld, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement. When Henry Ward Beecher was asked after the end of the Civil War, "Who abolished slavery?," he answered, "Reverend John Rankin and his sons did." Early career Rankin was born at Dandridge, Jefferson County, Tennessee, to Richard and Jane (Steele) Rankin, and raised in a strict Calvinist home. His parents were literate, which was unusual in a remote area. They were staunch Presbyterians, and their children had a religious upbringing. Jane was an unyielding opponent of slavery.