Stephen heard many stories of slaves who escaped to the North. Many received help from the Underground Railroad.
When he first heard the name “Underground Railroad,” Stephen wondered what kind of train could run for so many miles below ground. He soon found out that “underground” meant “secret,” and that the “railroad” was a network of safe hiding places along the journey from South to North.
All along the way, “conductors” helped the runaways. They let the slaves sleep in their barns or attics during the day and gave them directions for traveling by night.
It is estimated that about fifty thousand slaves reached freedom by following the Underground Railroad. But 4 million men, women, and children remained enslaved. Stephen was one of them.
As time passed, Stephen, Nick, and Mat had made many amazing discoveries. By now, Mammoth Cave boasted 226 avenues, 47 domes, 23 pits, and 8 waterfalls. The Snowball Room got its name from the beautiful round formations of the mineral called gypsum found all over the ceiling there. Stephen discovered the Rocky Mountains, a huge pile of fallen rock, at the farthest end of the cave. Stephen climbed it to the top, but he could find no passageway beyond.
Stephen had become an educated man. By reading as many books as he could, and by talking to as many people as he could, Stephen learned many things about the world beyond Kentucky. Because Mammoth Cave was so famous, visitors came from France, England, and other faraway countries. Stephen listened to their talk and copied their polite manners. He learned to say “hello,” “welcome,” and other things in different languages.
People who met him were often surprised that a slave should know so much. Even scientists asked him questions about geology and cave formation. Some of Stephen’s customers were writers who published articles about their trip to the cave. Many times they mentioned Stephen. He became the cave’s most famous guide.
Many well-known visitors asked for Stephen to guide their tours. The glamorous singer Jenny Lind, who came from Sweden, visited Mammoth Cave during her concert tour of the United States. Stephen led her to a rock formation that resembled a large chair. There she sat and rested for a few minutes. The formation became known as Jenny Lind’s Arm-Chair. The violinist Ole Bull, who came from Norway, gave a concert underground while attending one of Stephen’s tours. Stephen also guided Prince Alexis of Russia and Dom Pedro, the emperor of Brazil.
But because Stephen was so famous, he was always in demand. Now he had little time to explore the cave, even though he guessed there were many more tunnels hidden away in the darkness. His tours lasted all day. Visitors could choose between two different trips. The “short” trip took nine hours, while the long one took fourteen!
Stephen made several rescues. Once while he was leading a tour deep inside the cave, a man fainted from exhaustion. Stephen carried him on his back for many miles until they reached the open air. Another time, a man was separated from a tour group and lost for many hours. Stephen found him and brought him back safely. Sometimes visitors staying at the hotel had nightmares about being trapped in the cave. They would wake up screaming for Stephen to save them.
Stephen had a good sense of humor. Slaves did not normally joke with white people, but Stephen knew how to gently poke fun without hurting anyone’s feelings. The customers loved to hear him do it!
Years later, his old master Franklin Gorin described Stephen in a letter. Gorin wrote: “Stephen was a self-educated man. He had a fine genius, a great fund of wit and humor. Some little knowledge of Latin and Greek, and much knowledge of geology, but his great talent was a knowledge of man.”
That “knowledge of man” served Stephen well. He knew how to calm down a nervous visitor. He knew which men and women could be joked with and which ones would not like it. He knew how to behave in front of royalty and how to talk to scientists. Because he knew more about Mammoth Cave than anyone else did, he was not shy about showing his knowledge. And people from around the world respected him for it.
While Stephen’s fame continued to spread, Dr. Croghan was still struggling to find a cure for consumption. The underground hospital hadn’t worked, so he tried other experiments. But in 1849 the doctor lost his longtime battle against the disease. He died of consumption himself.
Stephen, Charlotte, and the others were worried. When a slave owner died, his property was divided among different family members. That meant that slave families could be divided as well.
The worst thing that could happen to a Kentucky slave was to be “sold down the river.” Plantation owners in the Deep South were anxious to buy more slaves. They needed as many field hands as they could get, to grow cotton, hemp, and other crops. The work was backbreaking, and a slave sent to Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana could expect only hard days and a short life.
The city of Lexington was the center of the slave trade in Kentucky. Stephen had heard many sad stories of husbands and wives taken to Lexington and sold to different owners, and children separated from their parents. The newspapers Stephen read were filled with advertisements offering slaves for sale.
When Dr. Croghan’s will was made public, it gave instructions for what would happen to the cave, his home in Louisville, the farm called Locust Grove, and all his belongings.
The doctor had never married and he had no children. So he left the cave to his nine nephews and nieces. As for the slaves who lived there, his instructions were that all of them would keep working as usual for the next four years. Then, for the three years after that, all the slaves would be hired out and allowed to keep their wages. At the end of those three years, they were to be set free.
Freedom! Stephen and Charlotte celebrated. In seven years they would both be free, and their son Thomas, too!
But as the days passed, Stephen came to think that seven years was too long to wait. His life did not change much. Almost every day he led a tour through the cave, telling the same stories and answering the same questions that visitors always asked. He still loved the cave, but his work was becoming monotonous.
Some of the people who took Stephen’s tours talked with him about slavery. Visitors from Europe told him that slavery no longer existed there. England had freed its slaves in 1838. In 1848, France did the same.
Charlotte collected many newspapers during her cleaning duties. At night, Stephen read from them to the other slaves. They could not be seen gathering together for this purpose, so Stephen would visit one cabin or another to read to a small group by firelight. Quietly, they discussed what was happening in their country.
In the United States, people were afraid that the argument over slavery would lead to war. Many Southern landowners warned that they would rather separate from the Union than give up their slaves.
Runaway slaves who reached the North told anyone who would listen what life had been like for them. Frederick Douglass was one escaped slave who became famous. He spoke to audiences all over the North, and his stories of being a slave in Maryland were horrible to hear. His listeners became even more certain that slavery must be wiped out.
Some people thought that the slaves should be sent back to Africa. A group called the American Colonization Society bought some land on the west coast of Africa and began sending freed slaves there. They called the new colony Liberia. In 1847 a former slave from Virginia became the governor there.
The year 1850 was a terrible one for all slaves. That was the year the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in Washington. The Southern slave owners had demanded a new law that allowed them to track runaways even into the free states and drag them back into slavery. Now escaped slaves could not feel safe unless they ran all the way to Canada.
As he prepared for his freedom, Stephen thought about moving to Liberia. He told some of his friends that he might move there and become a lawyer. He was even studying the law. But he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been born in Africa—he had been born in Kentucky. Why should he have to move all
the way to another continent to live in freedom?
At night, he read the papers to the other slaves.
Stephen also heard reports from some of the former slaves who had moved to Liberia. Life there was very hard. The men and women who returned to Africa had to carve a home for themselves out of the jungle. Many missed the lives that they had left behind in the United States.
In the year 1856, Stephen, Charlotte, Thomas, and all the rest of Dr. Croghan’s slaves were emancipated. They were free! Stephen had saved every penny that he could. He had even bought a piece of land. Now he decided to buy another one. He would rent the land to farmers who wanted to grow crops there, and make even more money that way.
In 1857, Stephen and Charlotte sold 112 acres of land. We do not know what they were planning to do with the money, because later that year, Stephen died.
No records tell us how it happened. Stephen was only thirty-six years old. Did he become sick? Did he die in an accident? No one today knows for sure what happened. Mammoth Cave holds many secrets, and this is one of them.
The Legacy of Stephen Bishop
Today, Stephen Bishop is remembered as America’s first great cave explorer.
Others of exploration, six brave cavers discovered the underground connection. They started from a cave on Flint Ridge. For twelve exhausting hours they pushed through tight holes, crawled under low ceilings, and waded through water. Finally, they emerged in Mammoth Cave.
They found themselves standing in a passageway Stephen Bishop had discovered and drawn on his map. If Stephen had only had more time, he might have made the connection to Flint Ridge himself!
Today, Mammoth Cave has more than 400 miles of explored passageways. Scientists and cavers guess that there may be hundreds more miles of tunnel just waiting to be found.
In 1941, Mammoth Cave was named a national park, and forty years later was added to the list of World Heritage Sites, which also includes such places as the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal. Today it receives about 650,000 visitors a year. Park rangers guide the tours now, and the trails are lit by electricity. Visitors can see for themselves the stone huts where tuberculosis patients lived, the beautiful Snowball Room—where they can have lunch in an underground cafeteria!—and many other sights that Stephen Bishop showed to visitors in his own time. There are no more boat rides on the Echo River, because the park wants to protect the delicate ecology of the river and its creatures. But a video of the blind cave fish is on display in the visitor center.
If you visit Mammoth Cave, be sure to contact the visitor center in advance and make reservations for the tours you choose, because spaces can fill up early. The website is www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm and the telephone number is 270-758-2180.
One of the most popular tours is the Violet City Lantern Tour, offered during the busy season. The lantern tour does not use electrical light. Instead the guides hand out kerosene lanterns, and the three-hour trip is conducted very much as it was in Stephen’s time.
To find out how real cavers explore, take the Introduction to Caving Tour. Visitors stoop, bend, and crawl through passages away from the traditional tour routes. You must be at least ten years old to take this tour. Expect to get muddy and tired!
The Historic Tour takes visitors to many of the places Stephen Bishop showed his visitors: the Wooden Bowl Room, Bottomless Pit, the Little Bat Room, and Mammoth Dome. Steamboat Rock is now called the Giant’s Coffin.
There are many other tours to choose from. The cave is open year-round except for Christmas Day.
At the Old Guides’ Cemetery near the historic entrance to the cave, you can see Stephen Bishop’s grave. His headstone was donated by a Pittsburgh businessman named James Mellon, but it has the wrong date of death on it—1859 instead of 1857. In the visitor center, a brochure describes Stephen Bishop as the greatest explorer of Mammoth Cave. No other person, in his time or later, discovered more miles of passageways there. Without Stephen Bishop’s brave explorer’s spirit, Mammoth Cave would not have become the place of wonder it is today.
Stephen Bishop’s Life and Times
1821(?)
Stephen Bishop born in Kentucky.
1838
Brought to Mammoth Cave for guide training by his owner, Franklin Gorin
FALL 1838
Crosses Bottomless Pit, discovers River Styx
1839
John Croghan, physician from Louisville, Kentucky, purchases Mammoth Cave and becomes Stephen Bishop’s new owner
1842
Tuberculosis colony built in Mammoth Cave
WINTER 1842
Stephen creates up-to-date map of Mammoth Cave
1843
Marries Charlotte; their son, Thomas Bishop, is born
1849
Dr. Croghan dies. His will directs that all his slaves be freed seven years later
1856
Stephen, Charlotte, Thomas, and the rest of Dr. Croghan’s slaves emancipated
1857
Stephen Bishop dies under unknown circumstances
APRIL 12, 1861
First shots fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, marking the beginning of the Civil War
1862
President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which declares that all slaves living in rebel states shall be freed as of January 1, 1863
APRIL 9, 1865
Civil War ends when General Robert E. Lee surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia
ELIZABETH MITCHELL was raised in Omaha, Nebraska, but her grandparents lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and she visited them frequently on summer vacation. During one trip they took her to Mammoth Cave. Many years later, Mitchell took her son to see the cave. There she noticed the brief mention in a park service brochure of a cave guide named Stephen Bishop. Captivated by the few details it offered, she began researching his life for a book. She read newspaper articles about Bishop as well as firsthand reports written in the 1840s and 1950s. Modern-day cave guides and the official Mammoth Cave historian also contributed information.
Mitchell is an award-winning science fiction editor who has worked for publishers such as Del Rey, a division of Random House; Bantam Books; Open Road Integrated Media, and more. She and her family live in Brooklyn, New York.
KELYNN Z. ALDER is of Mexican American heritage and grew up with a family that lived in several countries and traveled extensively. At a young age, she learned to appreciate a wide range of the world’s living cultures and became fascinated by peoples’ diverse backgrounds. Portraits of everyday people from all corners of the world, but most especially Mexico remain her favorite subject matter.
This, combined with the need to draw and paint, developed into a love of portraiture. Kelynn defines herself as a “visual essayist with a wanderlust,” because she follows traditional expeditionary methods of painting in the field, combined with work in the studio. Her work has been commissioned by such notable publications as the New Yorker, Time Magazine, and Australian Geographic. She currently resides on the north shore of Long Island with her husband, two children, and two “nearly human” Australian Shepherds. Visit her website at kelynnalder.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2004 by Elizabeth Mitchell
Illustrations copyright © 2004 by Kelynn Z. Alder
Cover design by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5769-1
Distributed in 2019 by Open Road Distribution, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
ey to the Bottomless Pit
Journey to the Bottomless Pit Page 7