The Washington Street Presbyterian Church was one of Reading’s Underground Railroad stops. Ex-slave William Still directed where passengers from Philadelphia would go. Some were delivered directly to Reading in boxes loaded on a P&R boxcar. Members of the Washington Street Presbyterian Church would feed, clothe, and house the runaways before sending them to their next destination (Homan 1958, 117). According to Homan, a town constable by the name of “Bully” Lyons would lock some of the runaways in the jail on Washington and Fifth until they could be moved to their next destination, thus keeping them out of the clutches of slave hunters. Reading tax dollars paid for their meals while they were locked in the jail (1958).

https://sites.psu.edu/localhistories/woven-with-words/the-underground-railroad-in-the-19th-century/