The Coffin home became known as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad because of its location where three of the escape routes to the North converged and the number of fleeing slaves who passed through it.

[3] During the twenty years (1826 to 1847) that The Coffins lived in Indiana it is believed that they helped as many as 2,000 slaves escape to freedom in the Northern United States and in Canada.

[4] (The Coffins continued their role as local leaders in the Underground Railroad after their move to Ohio in 1847 and provided aid to approximately 1,300 more slaves to assist in their escape to the North.)

The Levi Coffin House Association operates the property under an agreement with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the historic home's present-day owner.

Their home became one of several Underground Railroad stops in a larger network of sites that provided aid to runaway slaves as they traveled north to freedom in Canada.

[14][15][16] Although the Coffins did not keep records of their activities because it was illegal to assist runaway slaves, it is believed that they helped as many as 2,000 of them to freedom in the North and in Canada during the twenty years (1826 to 1847) that they lived in Indiana.

Stowe was living in Cincinnati at the time she wrote the novel and became acquainted with the Coffins, who may have been the inspiration for the fictional Quaker couple named Simeon and Rachael Halliday in her story.

Stowe's book relates the tale of Eliza Harris, a slave girl from the South who escaped by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her baby on a winter night.

[18][19] At the urging of friends in the anti-slavery movement, the Coffins left Newport and moved to the Cincinnati, Ohio, area in 1847 to take over management of a store and wholesale warehouse that supplied free-labor goods produced without slave labor.

Coffin later became an agent for the Western Freedman's Aid Society, petitioned the U.S. government to create the Freedmen's Bureau, and in 1867 served as a delegate to the International Anti-Slavery Conference in Paris before retiring from public life.

Its location at the point where three of the escape routes to the North converged, along with the number of fugitive slaves who passed through the home, caused it to become known as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad.

By the time the slave-catchers returned from the county seat of Centerville (a round trip of 26 miles (42 km) to acquire the documents), the fugitive slaves would have been transported to other locations.

A secret door installed in the maids' quarters in the rear addition on the second floor provided access for as many as fourteen fugitive slaves to hide in a narrow crawlspace between the walls.