John Rankin (February 5, 1793 – March 18, 1886) was an American Presbyterian minister, educator and abolitionist. Upon moving to Ripley, Ohio, in 1822, he became known as one of Ohio's first and most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. Prominent pre-Civil War abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement. When Henry Ward Beecher was asked after the end of the Civil War, "Who abolished slavery?," he answered, "Reverend John Rankin and his sons did." Early career Rankin was born at Dandridge, Jefferson County, Tennessee, to Richard and Jane (Steele) Rankin, and raised in a strict Calvinist home. His parents were literate, which was unusual in a remote area. They were staunch Presbyterians, and their children had a religious upbringing. Jane was an unyielding opponent of slavery. Beginning at the age of eight, John's view of the world and his religious faith were deeply affected by two things — the revivals of the Second Great Awakening that were sweeping through the Appalachian region, and the incipient slave rebellion led by Gabriel Prosser in 1800. John's school had log walls and an earthen floor. He was able to enroll in Washington College Academy, under the direction of Rev. Samuel Doak, an avowed abolitionist; he graduated in 1816. After graduation he was minister of the Abingdon Presbytery, but because his anti-slavery views were not welcome he left Tennessee in 1817, never to return. Not a natural public speaker, Rankin worked hard while at Jefferson County Presbyterian Church simply to deliver an effective sermon. Within a few months, however, despite Tennessee's status as a slave state, he summoned the courage to speak against "all forms of oppression" and then, specifically, slavery. He was one of the founders of the Tennessee Manumission Society, in 1815. He was shocked when his elders responded by telling him that he should consider leaving Tennessee if he intended ever to oppose slavery from the pulpit again. He knew that his faith would not allow him to keep his views to himself, so he decided in 1817 to move his family to the town of Ripley, across the Ohio River in the free state of Ohio, where he had heard from family members that a number of anti-slavery Virginians had settled. On the way north, Rankin stopped to preach at Lexington and