Paris, Kentucky, and learned about the need for a minister at Concord Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Kentucky. The congregation had been involved in anti-slavery activities as far back as 1807, when they and twelve other churches formed the Kentucky Abolition Society, and Rankin's deepening anti-slavery views were nurtured there by his listeners. He remained for four years and started a school for slaves; within a year, however, they were driven first from a schoolhouse to an empty house, and then to his friend's kitchen by club-carrying mobs, and the students finally stopped coming. Spurred by a financial crisis in the area, Rankin decided to complete his family's journey to Ripley. On the night of December 31, 1821 – January 1, 1822, he rowed his family across the icy river. In Ripley he founded a Presbyterian academy for boys, which Ulysses S. Grant attended in 1838. Ripley and the Underground Railroad In 1822, Ripley was a town of frequent street fights and shootouts, where the most common type of business was a saloon. During the Rankins' first few months there, hecklers and protesters often followed the new preacher through town and gathered outside his cabin while their first permanent home was being built, just yards from the river at 220 Front Street. When the local newspaper began publishing his letters to his brother on the topic of slavery (see next section), Rankin's reputation grew among both supporters and opponents of the anti-slavery movement. Slave owners and hunters often viewed him as their prime suspect and appeared at his door at all hours demanding information about fugitives. Soon, Rankin realized that the home was too accessible a place for him to properly raise his family. In 1829, Rankin moved his wife and nine children (of an eventual total of thirteen) to a house at the top of a -high hill that provided a wide view of the village, the River and the Kentucky shoreline, as well as farmland and fruit groves that could provide sources of income. One of the sons was Adam Lowry Rankin who founded the Tulare Congregational church in California in 1874. Folklore associated with the Rankin home suggested that a lantern or candle was placed in the front window to guide runaway slaves from across the Ohio River, in Mason County, Kentucky. However, ex-slave narrative recalls a pole with a light. This is a more plausible means of