p.m. at his home in Avondale, Ohio. His funeral was held at the Friends Meeting House of Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette reported that the crowd was too large to be accommodated indoors; hundreds had to remain outside. Four of Coffin's eight pallbearers were free blacks who had worked with him on the Underground Railroad. Coffin was interred in Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery in an unmarked grave. Coffin's wife, Catherine, who died four years later on May 22, 1881, is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery as well. Known for his fearlessness in assisting runaway slaves, Coffin served as a role model who encouraged his neighbors to help contribute to the effort, although many were wary of providing them with a safe haven in their homes as he and his wife did. Best known for his leadership in aiding fugitive slaves, Coffin was first referred to as the unofficial "President of the Underground Railroad" by a slavecatcher who said, "There's an underground railroad going on here, and Levi's the president of it." The informal title became commonly used among other abolitionists and some ex-slaves. Historians have estimated that the Coffins helped approximately 2,000 escaping slaves during their twenty years in Indiana and an estimated 1,300 more after their move to Cincinnati. (Coffin didn't keep records, but estimated the number to be around 3,000.) When questioned about his motives for aided fugitive slaves, Coffin once replied: "The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book." On July 11, 1902, African Americans erected a tall monument at Coffin's previously unmarked gravesite in Cincinnati. The Levi Coffin House in Fountain City, Indiana, was named a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. Indiana's state government purchased the Coffin home in 1967 and had it restored to its original condition. The home opened to the public as a historic site in 1970. See also Peter Fossett, former enslaved person at Monticello who was a conductor of Coffin's Underground Railroad Notes References Further reading External links 1798 births 1877 deaths American Quakers Religious leaders from Cincinnati People from Wayne County, Indiana People of Ohio in the American Civil War Underground Railroad people Burials at Spring Grove Cemetery Underground Railroad in Indiana People from Guilford County, North Carolina Ohio