A fervent abolitionist, Rev. “Uncle Charley” Shipman served as pastor of Girard’s Unitarian Universalist Church and as a key regional conductor of the Underground Railroad. As a circuit rider, Shipman visited congregations throughout northwest Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, a post that helped him organize the critical UGRR route linking the Ohio River to Lake Erie. With the support of his congregation and ongoing assistance from Elijah Drury and Henry and Rosalinda Parker Teller, Shipman used much of the two decades leading up to the Civil War to hide and direct fugitives passage to freedom—west toward Albion and Linesville, east toward Erie, Wesleyville and Syracuse, New York, or directly across the lake to Canada.