Theodoric H.Gregg of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, liberated his slaves in 1854 and sent them to Ohio.[22] Nearer to the Civil War, when public opinion was proscribing the uplift of Negroes in Kentucky, Noah Spears secured near Xenia, Greene County, Ohio, a small parcel of land for sixteen of his former bondsmen in 1856.[23] Other freedmen found their way to this community in later years and it became so prosperous that it was selected as the site of Wilberforce University.
This transplantation extended into Michigan.

With the help of persons philanthropically inclined there sprang up a flourishing group of Negroes in Detroit.

Early in the nineteenth century they began to acquire property and to provide for the education of their children.

Their record was such as to merit the encomiums of their fellow white citizens.

In later years this group in Detroit was increased by the operation of laws hostile to free Negroes in the South in that life for this class not only became intolerable but necessitated their expatriation.