After earning enough to purchase his freedom (ransoming the life that should have always been his own), Hayden organized a fund-raiser to pay a $650 fine securing the release from jail of the white abolitionist who had aided his escape (a Methodist minister from the Midwest, Calvin Fairbank). Hayden chose the activist life, fighting for the dignity of others as part of what the historian Manisha Sinha called the “shock troops” of “fugitive slave rescues,” in her book “The Slave’s Cause.” The home that the Haydens made, the one I would soon be visiting, became a refuge for the hunted.

On the day of my visit, the homeowners, Mary and John Gier, ushered me in with warm smiles and graciously served tea and cookies. The couple, who are proud of their heritage (English, Dutch, Irish and German) but resist hyphenated labels like “Euro-American” or “African-American,” told me they bought the house in the 1970s. They cherish their historic home and have preserved or replicated most of the original features: cabinetry, doors, windows, flooring, fireplaces, and exterior brown brick. Even the 19th-century tunnel is visible in the subbasement. Lovingly restored and furnished with period antiques, the house looks much the same as it might have during Hayden’s residence. “Harriet Beecher Stowe probably sat there having tea just like you are,” they noted. “This is the same room where Hayden met with his band of resisters.”

Mrs. Gier confirmed that the sticker was a relatively recent addition to the facade, but it was clear she and her husband saw the N.R.A. emblem as simpatico with the home’s spirit. To them, Lewis Hayden is a “model for America.” Mrs. Gier thinks if he were alive today, he would be a member of the N.R.A. or the National African-American Gun Association. “Can you imagine what would have happened had he not had his guns?” she said. “I believe that Hayden would have left no stone unturned to maintain his defense. In that sense, he is not unlike our law-abiding citizens today who are protecting their constitutional rights.”

I am anti-gun and support strict gun control laws. But sipping tea with the homeowners, walking the floors where the Haydens and their compatriots had plotted what turned out to be the roots of a political revolution to overturn slavery, pried ajar a little door in my mind.