Farmington (Farmingdale) Cemetery Abolitionist Burials

Dr. John Lyman, a New England doctor, was born on April 2, 1780, at Lebanon, New Hampshire. He married there to Martha Storrs and attended medical lectures at Dartmouth College. He practiced medicine in New Haven Township, Vermont, and during the War of 1812, was an Army surgeon. In 1824, John moved with his family to Potsdam, New York,[12] and in 1833, came to Farmington with the colony of fifty-two. John signed the call for and attended Elijah Lovejoy’s 1837 anti-slavery convention at Upper Alton. On February 26, 1839, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, an abolitionist newspaper published at Hennepin, Illinois, reported that John Lyman was one of five Sangamon County delegates to the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society annual meeting. DR. Lyman worked with Benjamin Henderson of Jacksonville.

Another abolitionist buried at Farmington was Jay Slater, a farmer, was born on February 25, 1795, in Massachusetts. He was married on March 12, 1826, in Sangamon County, to Lucretia Carman, who was born in 1806, in New York. Jay Slat¬er was a conductor on the underground railroad and his home, a small neat brick house that still stands just a short distance from Farmington, was most likely an active station on the underground railroad.

Heart, Richard, " The Underground Rail Road" Springfield, Il. Blog Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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