Ohio may lay claim to eight terminal stations, all comparatively important. The best-known of these appear to have been Ashtabula Harbor, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo, although the other three, Huron, Lorain and Conneaut, may be supposed, from their locations, to have done a thriving business. It is impossible to get now a measure of the efficiency of these various ports, for the period during which they were resorted to was a long one, and operators were obliged to work more or less independently, and obtained no adequate idea of the number emigrating from any one point. Custom-house methods were not followed in keeping account of the negroes exported across the Canada frontier. All that can be said in comparing these various ports is that Ashtabula Harbor, Cleveland and Sandusky, each seems to have been the terminus for four or five lines of Road, while perhaps only two or three lines ended at Toledo and Painesville, and one each at Huron, Lorain and Conneaut. Concerning the port at Huron we have a few observations, made by Mr. L. S. Stow, who lived a few miles from Lake Erie on the course of the Milan canal, and near one of the managers of the terminal, on whose premises fugitives often awaited the appearance of a Canada-bound boat. He says: "We used to see, occasionally, the fugitives, who ventured out for exercise while waiting for an opportunity to get on one of the vessels frequently passing down the canal and river from Milan, during the season of navigation. Many of these vessels passed through the Welland Canal on their way to the lower Lakes, and after leaving the harbor at Huron the fugitives were safe from the pursuit of their masters unless the vessels were compelled by stress of weather to return to harbor."[461] [461] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, pp. 80, 81. [Illustration: THE DETROIT RIVER, AT DETROIT, MICHIGAN, IN 1850, THE FAVORITE PLACE FOR FUGITIVES TO CROSS INTO CANADA. (From an engraving in possession of C. M. Burton, Esq., of Detroit.)] [Illustration: HARBOR, ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO, IN 1860, A PLACE OF DEPORTATION FOR FUGITIVES ON LAKE ERIE. (From a photograph in possession of J. D. Hulbert, Esq., of Harbor, Ohio.)]