George DeBaptiste (c 1815-February 22, 1875) was a prominent conductor on the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Detroit, Michigan. In 1840, he served as valet and then White House steward for US President William Henry Harrison. In the 1830s and 1840s he was an active conductor in Madison, Indiana, on the Ohio River border with Kentucky, a slave state. He moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1846 where he was considered the president of the local underground railroad group. During this period, he purchased a steamboat for carrying fugitives to Canada. It is estimated that DeBaptiste and close collaborator William Lambert secured passage of 30,000 slaves to Canada. In the late 1850s, DeBaptiste worked with Frederick Douglass and John Brown. During the American Civil War, DeBaptiste helped recrui