 The Seminary staff and students became deeply involved with the abolitionist movement and operated as a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1840s, while Oren B. Cheney was principal.Students and supporters aided fugitive slaves from the South in reaching freedom in Canada.From 1840 to 1842, the Free Baptist Biblical School, the first Free Baptist graduate school for training ministers, was located at the seminary (it was later renamed Cobb Divinity School and became part of Bates College).