Archer Alexander and the Underground Railroad, presented by Dorris Keeven-Franke, author, speaker
Wednesday, August 12th - 6:00PM Social hour/ 7:00PM Presentation at Bike Stop Cafe

In 1863, he overheard St. Charles County Confederates plotting to destroy a local railroad bridge that was a vital link for the Union Army. He risked his life to inform the soldiers and saved hundreds of lives. He fled to St. Louis by the Underground Railroad with sixteen other freedom seekers at the Howell's Ferry Crossing and was later taken in by abolitionist Rev. William G. Eliot. He was given his freedom for his important services to the military on September 24,1863. When President Lincoln was assassinated, in 1865, a drive for a memorial to Lincoln was begun by the formerly enslaved, called the Emancipation Memorial. That monument was dedicated on April 14, 1876, in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. Archer Alexander became a nationally recognized icon as the freedom seeker with Lincoln. When Alexander died, he was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Peter’s U.C.C. Cemetery in St. Louis, and his burial site is listed on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. He is the great-great-great grandfather of Muhammad Ali. On June 28, 2018, Tributary B in Cottleville and O'Fallon was named Archer Alexander Creek, which runs under Highway 364 and into Dardenne Creek. (Greenway Network has water quality monitoring weekends of the Dardenne every spring and fall.)

Dorris Keeven-Franke is an award-winning author and International speaker. She is a speaker for the Missouri Speakers Bureau, sponsored by the Missouri Humanities, and the State Historical Society of Missouri. Her Program is listed on the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. As a public historian, professional genealogist, and lifelong resident of Missouri, she loves to share the history of her state’s earliest residents. She has authored numerous books, articles, blogs, videos, and her forthcoming book is the biography of Archer Alexander