Sentiments of this kind were cherished in almost every Northern community by a few persons at least. There were some New England colonies in the West where anti-slavery sentiments predominated. These, like some of the religious communities, as those of the Quakers and Covenanters, became well-known centres of underground activity. In general it is safe to say that the majority of helpers in the North were of Anglo-American stock, descendants of the Puritan and Quaker settlers of the Eastern states, or of Southerners that had moved to the Northern states to be rid of slavery. The many stations in the eastern and northern parts of Ohio and the northern part of Illinois may be safely attributed to the large proportion of New England settlers in those districts. Localities where the work of befriending slaves was largely in the hands of Quakers will be mentioned in another connection. Southern settlers in Brown County and adjoining districts in Ohio are said to have been regularly forwarding escaped slaves to Canada before 1817.[263] The emigration of a number of these settlers to Bond County, Illinois, about 1820, and the removal of a few families from that region to Putnam County in the same state about a decade later, helps to explain the early development of secret routes in the southern and north central parts of Illinois.[264] [263] William Birney, _James G. Birney and His Times_, p. 435. [264] Letter of H. B. Leeper, Princeton, Ill., Dec. 19, 1895. In the South much secret aid was rendered fugitives, no doubt, by persons of their own race. Two colored market-women in Baltimore were efficient agents for the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia.[265] Frederick Douglass's connection with the Underground Railroad began long before he left the South.[266] In the North, people of the African race were to be found in most communities, and in many places they became energetic workers. Negro settlements in the interior of the free states, as well as along their southern frontier, soon came to form important links in the chain of stations leading from the Southern states to Canada. [265] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, p. 355. [266] Letter of Frederick Douglass, Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C., March 27, 1893. Mr. Douglass escaped from slavery in 1839.