Walking through the doors of the Cozad-Bates House, visitors embark on a journey into the past, a step closer to understanding the struggles that paved the way for freedom and equality.
Constructed in 1853, it's the only pre-Civil War structure in Cleveland's University Circle. Today, it serves as a crucial link to the Underground Railroad and a symbol of Black history and resilience.
“It's one thing to … teach people about this kind of history from a book. It's entirely another thing to have them tour a building, have them see an edifice in person and be able to touch it,” said Judson Jeffries, a professor in the department of African American and African studies at the Ohio State University. “It's almost like a rich spiritual exercise that you can't get from just reading books.”
A journey through time
The Cozad-Bates House served as a waystation for enslaved people who were fleeing towards freedom in Canada. It was a place of refuge on the journey, part of the underground railroad.
The small house is now a two-room museum, packed with history.
The walls are adorned with stories of notable people who lived and worked in Cleveland and were part of the abolitionist movement.
“[It was] driven by people that had fervent belief in the idea that slavery was wrong for America and that they deserved an opportunity to be free,” said Kevin Cronin, a volunteer who takes visitors on tours of the space.
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The first room presents the Cozad-Bates family and the history of the house itself, grounding visitors in its significance.
The next room explores the courageous efforts of Cleveland abolitionists, detailing the city’s pivotal role as a central hub on the Underground Railroad.
The final room connects the struggles of the past with the social justice movements of today by showcasing the constitutional amendments that granted freedom to Black people.
A network of resistance
The Cozad-Bates House was one of many safe houses in this critical network — of safe houses, secret routes and dedicated individuals committed to helping enslaved people reach freedom — that made up the Underground Railroad.
Since slavery was the law of the land, the whole Underground Railroad was nothing but a resistance movement, said Woody Keown, president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.
“Not only the enslaved people who were trying to escape were at risk, but the people who were helping them,” Keown said. “If you got caught helping an enslaved person trying to find freedom, you would put your family yourself and others at great risk.”
Cleveland, with its proximity to the Canadian border, played a critical role in the journey of enslaved people seeking freedom.
“You can't talk about the abolitionist movement and the United States of America without featuring the city of Cleveland, and the state of Ohio,” Jeffries said.
Abolitionists would come to Ohio to be trained in how to safely harbor enslaved people who had escaped and help them on their journey north, he said. They’d go to Oberlin, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, to places like the Cozad-Bates House.
Abolitionists in the area included Quakers, members of the Black church and others from the free Black community in Ohio.
They were breaking the law, so they had to be inconspicuous. To maintain secrecy and ensure safety, locations on the route were given code names: Cleveland was known as “Hope,” and Canada was referred to as “Praise the Lord.”
“Hope to Praise the Lord may be a short distance, but it was also a dangerous trip because there were slave catchers everywhere,” Cronin said.
Among the many courageous individuals who made the Underground Railroad successful were John Brown, a wealthy African-American who would hide fugitives and help them travel to Canada; Edward Wade, a white Congressman who operated a hiding place for fugitives and advocated for women’s rights; and John Parker, an African-American man who bought his freedom, then risked his life helping others cross the Ohio River.
Another significant figure was Charles Langston, a former slave who was tried for aiding a fugitive and whose grandson would go on to become the renowned writer Langston Hughes.
The importance of physical space
Preserving sites like the Cozad-Bates House isn't just about the past:
“When you erase narrative, you erase a part of people’s culture: it’s as if they don’t exist,” Jeffries said.
Keown, the president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, says visiting places like the Cozad-Bates House provides an emotional and tangible connection to history that cannot be replicated by reading books or viewing photographs.
“When you put yourself in an immersive kind of experience ... it evokes the emotional trauma and stigma associated with slavery,” Keown said. “Immersing oneself in these physical sites allows us to grasp the depth of the struggles faced by those who lived through this tumultuous period in ways that text alone cannot capture. Standing in the same rooms where key events took place helps us form a deeper bond with history, offering a more authentic experience of the past.”
But preserving these sites also requires strong community action.
“It’s through collective efforts that landmarks like the Cozad-Bates House are saved from neglect and destruction,” Keown said.
The Cozad-Bates House almost met a tragic fate when it was slated to become a parking lot for a nearby hospital. But the nonprofit organization Restore Cleveland Hope stepped in to preserve this crucial landmark.
Through community support and donations, the house was fully renovated, and ongoing fundraising efforts aim to ensure that the stories of strength, resilience, and resistance during a time of subjugation are not forgotten.
“If they were able to take on those challenges in the 1850s and ‘60s, we can take on those challenges today,” Cronin said.
