William Bush Gravesite

Sometime in the 1840s, William Bush, a freedom seeker from Person County, NC, arrived in Newport (now Fountain City). Oral history states, Bush escaped from bondage by having himself shipped in a wooden crate to Newport in the care of Levi Coffin. Bush decided to remain in Newport. He was a successful blacksmith, and he became a conductor on the Underground Railroad and helped other runaway slaves on their trek to freedom. He won the town’s gratitude when, during an epidemic, he dared to bury the dead. Bush died in 1898 and is buried at Fountain City’s Willow Grove Cemetery. His grave reads: William Bush “slave” – Assisted Levi Coffin with the slaves flight from bondage to freedom. Five generations of his direct descendants lived in Fountain City. The wooden shoes he once wore are on display at Levi & Catharine Coffin State Historic Site.