Biography
Luther Donnell was a Decatur County, Indiana abolitionist who in 1847 helped a woman named Caroline and her children — recaptured after escaping from Kentucky — obtain a writ of habeas corpus and reach freedom in Canada via the Underground Railroad. Arrested and indicted under Indiana law for "aiding Negroes to escape," he was found guilty, and a $3,000 civil judgment was entered against him. In 1852 the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the criminal verdict, holding the law unconstitutional.
