James Beall wrote about a Virginia house with an ingenious trapdoor
arrangement purportedly used on the underground RR.  There is a house
on Floyd Ave in Richmond, built about 1860, with a similar hidden
cellar accessed by a well-disquised trapdoor. The tiny cellar
underneath has a very low cieling and a *fireplace*! The story is
that this is also an underground RR stop, which is certainly
reasonable. All of which tells us little about "root cellars" unless
you consider the local Va. story about the Woodson Bros. who hid from
the British (Tarlteton's Raid, I believe). One of them hid in a root
cellar, known then as a "tater hole." To this day the descendants of
that fellow call themselves the "Tater Hole" Woodsons. I'd like to
find that tater hole....
 
Dan Mouer