I know you're wondering, what railroad? Well the simple fact is that everybody has heard of the , but not everyone knows just what it was. Firstly, it wasn't underground, and it wasn't even a railroad. The term "" actually comes from a runaway slave, who while being chased swam across a creek and was out of the owner's sight. The owner said "...must have gone off on an underground railroad." That man was Tice Davids, a Kentucky slave who decided to live in freedom in 1831. The primary importance of the Underground Railroad was the on ....