In 1855 and 1856, Sydney Howard Gay, the editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard and an operative in the underground railroad in New York City, decided to meticulously record the arrival of fugitive slaves at his office. 

The resulting two volumes, which he called The Record of Fugitives, sits in the Gay Papers at the Rare Books and Manuscript Library of Columbia University, where it has remained, until recently, virtually untouched.  Gay interviewed the fugitives, who numbered well over two hundred men, women, and children and recorded their stories.  …The Record of Fugitives is a treasure trove of information about how and why slaves escaped, who assisted them, and where they were sent from New York. 

This website reproduces the Record of Fugitives, both in high resolution images of all of its pages (as well as of a few separate sheets on which Gay recorded the experiences of additional runaway slaves), and in a searchable transcript.

“Columbia University Libraries Online Exhibitions | Sydney Howard Gay’s ‘Record of Fugitives,’” accessed August 27, 2022, https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/fugitives.