Friends of the Underground Railroad Vice President Judith Wellman, Professor of History Emerita of the State University of New York and Director of the Historical Society of New York Research Associates, has recently developed a very useful scale, the first of its kind, for categorizing Underground Railroad sites according to how well a site's Underground Railroad history can be substantiated. Application of the Wellman Scale results in a picture of the Underground Railroad much resembling the Underground Railroad in its day, with some sites well known and many others shrouded in mystery, now as then.

For its entire 280-year existence, the Underground Railroad was an illegal, clandestine smuggling operation in which most involved dared not keep records. Even after the Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, those who had aided Underground Railroad freedom seekers were prosecuted because they had broken the law as it was written when they rendered aid. For this reason, many who aided freedom seekers kept their Underground Railroad roles secret to the grave. Thus, most places which sheltered freedom seekers never had any documentation of their Underground Railroad roles.

As a result, most of what is known today about Underground Railroad safe-houses, routes and freedom seeker journeys comes to us by word of mouth - oral traditions - passed down through families, property owners and others. To further complicate the identification today of Underground Railroad sites, there have been suppositions which have sprung up over the years about this or that place which supposedly was involved in the Underground Railroad but wasn't. Perhaps the most common example of this is subterranean places such as tunnels which people in the twentieth century imagined might have been Underground Railroad hiding spots though they weren't.

To sort out the likelihood of a claimed Underground Railroad safe-house or route actually having been one, Professor Wellman devised the following scale which has come to be the definitive means of rating Underground Railroad sites. Most Underground Railroad sites probably rate a Level Two on the Wellman Scale.

	LEVEL FIVE Conclusive evidence of involvement.
	LEVEL FOUR Considerable evidence of involvement. Story almost certainly true.
	LEVEL THREE Good chance the story is true. Evidence of abolitionist sympathies, abolitionism or African American background but no direct evidence of Underground Railroad activity so far.
	LEVEL TWO Story possibly true, but no evidence so far. No reason to doubt.
	LEVEL ONE Story probably not true. Reason to doubt.