Empowered all the way along

Amy Webb is the chief executive officer of Future Today Strategy Group. She and her colleagues work with companies and governments to help them anticipate future trends. The future is her business; however, on November 13, 2022, while appearing as a guest on "This Week in Tech" she made this interesting comment, "I am a futurist, but we look backwards twice as much as we look forward."[1]

The task of any institution’s archives is to preserve the past, but hopefully it does so in a way that illuminates the present and provides direction for the future. This is our goal for Wesleyan Archives.

I remember walking through The Wesleyan Church (TWC) archives’ storage area in 2019 for the first time. There I found old handwritten conference (district) journals from 1843-1900. Some of the writing contained on the pages was fading to the point of almost being unreadable. I was certain in a few years we would lose them. These precious journals contain history about The Wesleyan Church’s first 60 years and her holy witness through those years. Much of this history is unknown to us because — for all practical purposes — these resources have been inaccessible. Reflecting on what was before me, I turned to a colleague and said, “These journals need to be transcribed so that we don’t lose the information, and hopefully the day will come that they will be made available to researchers.”

Even as I said it, I thought the likelihood of it happening anytime soon was small. Who could we find that would do the transcription? We didn’t have the money to pay for it. It would be a labor of love from a volunteer. For over two years, I shared this need but to no avail.

Then on January 14, 2022, my wife Sherri and I had a conversation with Jan Schmidt. I can’t remember all that was said that night, but somewhere during our conversation, Jan mentioned that she had been reading old family documents and had been transcribing them. Immediately, I bookmarked that comment in my brain. As we were leaving, I asked Jan if she would make time for a conversation about a special archives project. As they say, the rest is history. She embraced the idea.

For the last four years Jan Schmidt has faithfully chipped away at this transcription task. As of the writing of this article, she has completed 128 journals from six conferences (Michigan, Miami, Rochester, St. Lawrence, Syracuse, Zanesville)!

Little by little, Jan is recovering historical tidbits that have faded due to time and lack of access. One such story resurrected through Jan’s transcription work is that of Hall DeLand. On July 27, 2025, Jan emailed me the written transcription of the 1867 Michigan Conference Journal. Her email began with these words: “With this collection, there is a bunch of interesting stuff re: Hall DeLand …”

Hall DeLand … who was Hall DeLand? The conference journal listed him as a lay member of the Committee on Pastoral Relations. While this finding in and of itself was not noteworthy, Jan’s further research on DeLand revealed that he was also known by another name: “The Nighthawk.” Her efforts eventually led to a 2020 newspaper article listing DeLand as one of the many Wesleyan Methodist lay people working on the Underground Railroad. Along the Railroad, there were “stations” or safe houses whose operators were known as the “stationmaster.” There were also “conductors,” whose primary task was directing and transporting runaway slaves. Hall DeLand served both as stationmaster and conductor on the Underground Railroad in Monroe, Michigan![2]

Why was DeLand known as the Nighthawk? In “The History of the Harroun Family in America,” Ernest Comstock shares, “There was a station in Maumee, operated by A.C. Winslow, who operated a foundry. From there, if there was no close pursuit, fugitives were brought either to Toledo or taken via Detroit Ave. to Monroe, Michigan, and then across to Canada. If the pursuers were close, the runaway slaves were taken to this Sylvania station, kept by David Harroun, Jr. and from there, Hall DeLand, the ‘Night Hawk,’ took them to the French settlers along the Detroit River, who ferried them across that stream to Canada.”[3] DeLand’s nightly escapades of transporting slaves — fueled by holy conviction — earned him his aptly suited pseudonym of Nighthawk.

Without question, DeLand put himself in harm’s way to free runaway slaves even while pursuers were close. David Eby of the Monroe County Historical Society states, “He (DeLand) had a wagon built with a false bottom where he would place the slaves, then have bags of grain or hay lay on top of the false floor to hide them during trips … He and what he did for many runaway slaves needs to be permanently remembered …”[4]

Hall DeLand represents much of what we celebrate about our founding. He bears witness to the essential role of laity in the church’s ministry and to the empowering, set apart work of the Spirit in and through God’s people. DeLand stands as another example of many in the Wesleyan Methodist Connection who had as their North Star the justice they saw emanating from the Bible and did not waiver amid a politically and religiously charged time in our country’s history.

Hall DeLand (8/9/1796 – 8/31/1878)

[1] “This Week in Tech: TWiT.Tv," accessed December 30, 2025, https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/901.

[2] David L. Eby, “The Story of Monroe’s Underground Railroad,” Monroe News, accessed January 22, 2026, https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/2020/10/19/story-of-monroes-underground-railroad/42859325.

[3] Ernest B. Comstock, History of the Harroun Family in America, Seven Generations: Descendants of Alexander Harroun of Colrain, MA, 1691-1784 (n.d.), 58.

[4] Eby, “The Story of Monroe’s.”