Man Finds Hidden Room In Basement | Played A Huge Role In History

 Man Finds Hidden Room In Basement | Played A Huge Role In History

A Reddit user with the less-than-amusing handle of “IvebeentoYungay” was the person who shared this discovery with the world. He claims that this basement is in his family home and that the photographs document the secret room’s discovery accurately. He tells us, “The room was found in the basement of the house I grew up in, which was completed in 1849. It is 25 miles south of the Canadian border.” The home’s location near a national border is significant to the tale he then goes on to tell about the room’s importance to American history.

It looks pretty ordinary, doesn’t it? In fact, there’s nothing at all that suggests this isn’t the typical basement of any American family home. Obviously, a bunch of water softeners have no historical significance at all. It’s what lies behind them that is truly amazing. They mask a secret which is very much connected to the darkest side of America’s history in the 19th century. It was a different time when many Americans had very different values from the ones that we hold so dear today. It seems that places like this basement played a part in creating our modern values.

The Reddit user says that his family had always had a story about a secret hiding place within their home. Yet, they’d never been able to find any evidence of this being true. They knew it was supposed to be under the fireplace, but nobody wanted to tear up their living room floor to see if this was the case. So, they had contented themselves with trying to find evidence of the room from the basement, but still they had no success. This, it would transpire, is because the room needed to be well disguised to prevent discovery by the law and by bounty hunters.

Our intrepid Reddit user discovered the room one day after a careful survey of the basement. It lay behind a wall. Not just any wall mind you, but a more recently constructed stone wall compared to the rest of the home which is 32 inches thick! He found that with the assistance of a step ladder that it was possible to find an opening at the top of the wall and to be able to peer into the room. What he saw confirmed the family rumor – the house had indeed been used as part of a smuggling network in the 19th century.

The room’s main users were African-Americans. The secret hiding place was part of the Underground Railroad of the 19th century. This was a network designed to facilitate the freedom of black slaves from parts of America in which slavery was legal to free states and indeed, across the border into Canada which is why the home’s position near a border is so important. Why was it called the “Underground Railroad?” It was because the whole endeavor had to be kept a secret, so the activists would refer to their activities using railroad terminology. This kept their communication safe from prying ears

An escaped slave who entered the underground railroad looking for their passage to freedom would be called a “passenger” in the coded language of the underground. Those who helped “passengers” escape by taking direct action would be known as “agents.” A room such as the one the Reddit user found in his home would be called a “station” as it was a place to wait for the next “agent” to take action. The person whose home the “station” was in would be called a “station master.” Those who guided the “passengers” across the country would be known as a “conductor

It is hard to picture a land where men, women, and children were bought and sold, isn’t it? America today is so far removed from those times that it just doesn’t seem real. Yet, it was all too real and more than 100,000 men and women escaped slavery thanks to the underground railway. It is thought that approximately 1 in 3 escaped slaves fled north and into “British North America.” Today, that territory is known as Canada, but on the Underground Railway, it was often called “Heaven,” “The Promised Land” or it was simply theinal stop on the “Gospel Train