Wheaton College Was Underground Railroad Stop: WHEATON, Ill. — An entry buried in a 120-year-old manuscript has confirmed what local historians long have believed: Wheaton College was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Officials said they knew the college was founded and led by abolitionists. But it was difficult to substantiate the claim that the school, called Illinois Institute at the time, was directly involved with the network of stops and routes that aided escaping slaves.
“We never had the hard evidence that strict historians want to see,” said David Malone, the college's head of archives and special collections.
That changed earlier this year when Wheaton College history professor David Maas was doing research for a book.
