Editing Tabor, Iowa (section)

== History ==
[[File:Tabor College in Iowa.JPG|thumb|left|upright=1.2|[[Tabor College (Iowa)|Tabor College]], ca. 1893]]
In 1852 the city of Tabor was founded by "a few families from [[Oberlin, Ohio]], almost all of them [[Congregationalists]],"<ref name=Richman>{{cite book
|pages=11–59, at pp. 14–16
|title=John Brown among the Quakers, and other sketches
|first=Irving B.
|last=Richman
|chapter=John Brown among the Quakers
|location=[[Des Moines, Iowa]]
|publisher=[[State Historical Society of Iowa|Historical Department of Iowa]]
|year=1894
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t4dn4gp3w&view=1up&seq=15}}</ref> "generous people, early settlers from New England and Ohio who had brought with them Puritan ideas of religion, and [[Charles Sumner|Sumner]]'s and [[Wendell Phillips|Phillips]]' and [[William Lloyd Garrison|Garrison]]'s ideas of freedom."<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown and his followers in Iowa
|first=Ransom Langdon
|last=Harris
|journal=[[Midland Monthly Magazine]]
|date=Oct 1894
|volume=2
|issue=4
|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_midland-monthly-magazine_1894-10_2_4/page/262/mode/1up
|pages=262–268
}}</ref> Among them were the Christian clergymen George Gaston, Samuel A. Adams, and Rev. [[John Todd (abolitionist)|John Todd]], and their families. They chose to settle in what is now Tabor in order to found a Christian college, which eventually became [[Tabor College (Iowa)|Tabor College]]. The founders were impressed with this high location and mutually selected the name "Tabor" after the Biblical name of [[Mount Tabor]], a mountain near [[Nazareth]], the town of [[Jesus]]' childhood.<ref>{{cite web
|title=Tabor College
|date=2011
|author=Tabor Historical Society
|url=http://taboriowahistoricalsociety.com
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190726224915/https://taboriowahistoricalsociety.com/
|archive-date=July 26, 2019
|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The town was the home of many abolitionists; Rev. Todd, co-founder of Tabor College, was a "conductor" on the [[Underground Railroad]]. The residents of Tabor held monthly [[abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] prayer meetings,<ref name=Iowa>{{cite book
|title=Necessary Courage: Iowa's Underground Railroad in the Struggle against Slavery
|publisher=[[University of Iowa Press]]
|location=[[Iowa City, Iowa]]
|year=2013
|first=Lowell J.
|last=Soike
|isbn=978-1-60938-193-6
|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/26675
|via=[[Project MUSE]]}}</ref>{{rp|90}} and helped [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|runaway slaves]] whenever they could.<ref name=Iowa/>{{rp|111}}

During the [[Bleeding Kansas]] period (1854–1860), Tabor was on a route established to enable anti-slavery partisans to reach Kansas without needing to go through the [[free states and slave states|slave state]] of Missouri.<ref name=Richman/> A shipment of 200 [[Sharps rifles]], sent from Boston for use in Kansas by free-state partisans, were stored there (in John Todd's barn).<ref name=Richman/> In 1857–1858 [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]] spent the winter in Tabor, assembling and training men for his [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|raid on Harpers Ferry]].<ref name=Richman/>

Tabor College was located in the city from 1853 until 1927, when it closed for financial reasons. The college's buildings housed German [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] during [[World War II]].{{citation needed|date=August 2024}}

The Tabor & Northern Railway, a 9-mile line connecting with the [[Wabash Railroad]] at [[Malvern, Iowa|Malvern]], operated from 1889 to 1934.<ref>{{cite book
|page=247
|title=Iowa Railroads: The Essays of Frank P. Donovan, Jr.
|first=H. Roger
|last=Grant
|year=2000
|publisher=[[University of Iowa Press]]
|location=[[Iowa City, Iowa]]
|isbn=0877457158
|via=[[Project MUSE]]
|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/8820}}</ref> It was operated by the college.<ref>{{cite news
|title='Flivver Engines' Are Motive Power for Iowa Railroad Owned in Tabor
|newspaper=[[Des Moines Register]] ([[Des Moines, Iowa]])
|date=June 24, 1928
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75137377/tabor-northern-railroad/}}</ref>