Caroline Quarlls Watkins and Allen Watkins
By Irene Moore Davis
By nature, every successful Underground Railroad journey was extraordinary, but the stories of two freedom seekers who would travel to Canada in separate years and from disparate locations, then meet and marry in Sandwich, are of particular interest. Caroline Quarlls was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1826 and arrived in Sandwich in 1843. Allen Watkins is believed to have been born in Kentucky in 1811; he arrived in Sandwich in 1838. In their new home, they forged lives as free people and established one of Sandwich’s most iconic families.
Born in slavery, Caroline Quarlls was the child of an enslaved Black woman named Maria; her biological father was a white slave owner from a prominent family. By virtue of her mother’s status, Caroline, at birth, automatically became the property of her father’s family. As she grew up, Caroline dreamed of achieving freedom. Eventually, on July 4th, 1843, she made the courageous decision to set off for Canada on her own—a daunting proposition for a sixteen-year-old girl travelling unaccompanied. Her journey took her from Missouri to Illinois to Wisconsin, then on to Indiana and Michigan and ultimately to Sandwich, Upper Canada chased nearly the entire way by men intent on recapturing her, including a steamship captain who had unwittingly sold her a ticket and who was now liable for her market value, $800. To this day she is lauded as the first freedom seeker ever to have escaped slavery through Wisconsin’s Underground Railroad network. Along her journey, Caroline was assisted by various Underground Railroad operatives, most notably Lyman Goodnow, a Milwaukee abolitionist who accompanied her by wagon on the long trip from Wisconsin to Michigan. She crossed the Detroit River to freedom, still pursued by slave catchers, and landed at Sandwich.
In Sandwich, Caroline Quarlls lived with a family by the name of Askell (possibly Haskell), went to school, improved her literacy skills, and eventually met another formerly enslaved person, Allen Watkins, from Kentucky. When his wife had been sold away from him and their three children, the grief had driven her to commit suicide. Allen and his small children made their way to Canada from Kentucky in 1838: a trunk he used to transport the children to freedom remains part of the permanent collection at the Amherstburg Freedom Museum. Allen found work in Sandwich as a cook at the home of Colonel John Prince. Allen and Caroline were married in 1844 and were instrumental in the building of the Sandwich First Baptist Church, which they attended for many years. They built a home just a few doors down from the church; gradually their children and other Watkins family members would establish homes in close proximity. Numerous Watkins descendants remain in Sandwich, Windsor, Detroit, and nearby communities including some who continue to live in the footprint of the original family homestead on Lot Street, now officially renamed Watkins Street, Windsor’s only thoroughfare named after a family of African descent.
Many freedom seekers made their way to Sandwich, but few Underground Railroad narratives are as well documented as Caroline’s and Allen’s. Their correspondence with Lyman Goodnow in 1880, many years after their respective journeys to freedom, have safeguarded their stories for all time. These original letters can be found today at the Civil War Museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin.