Freedom Park
StreetAddress
750 South Biscoe Street
Freedom Park is near the site of a Contraband camp where freedom seekers found refuge. It is also near the site where the Second Arkansas Infantry of African descent helped defend the city in July 1863 when the Confederates tried unsuccessfully to recapture the city. Helena was a destination for freedom seekers; it was a secure area where formerly enslaved people could find work and refuge from their former masters.

Battle of Pine Bluff Audio
StreetAddress
200 East 8th Avenue
The Battle of Pine Bluff phone audio tour highlights the role of former enslaved African Americans with Union defenses during the battle on October 25, 1863. Union soldiers began occupying Pine Bluff in September 1863, by the time of the battle a large number of African-American men, women, and children were associated with the contraband or freedmen's camp(s) in Pine Bluff. One personal account related to this situation was that of Boston Blackwell. Blackwell's slave narrative reveals that he and another young man "ran for two days" to make it to the "Yankee camp in Pine Bluff." Blackwell also proudly recounted his role in the Battle of Pine Bluff as one of 300 men who served in the skirmish. The battle was proclaimed a Union victory, and Pine Bluff continued as Union-occupied territory—serving as a place of freedom for an estimated 2,000 (Twentieth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry) freedmen by January 1864.
The approximately twelve-minute tour is available by mobile phone (501.203.3015; Stop # 16) and internet (www.arkansascivilwar150.com). On-site signage for the program is located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas near the site of the actual battle in downtown Pine Bluff, at the intersection of Barraque & Pine Streets.
The phone audio tour is part of an overall, statewide interpretive program that highlights other Civil War battles fought in Arkansas.

Civil War Helena Tour
StreetAddress
502 Cherry Street
The Civil War Helena Tour, is a walking/driving self-guided tour that features 25 interpretive sites that collectively tell the story of Helena during the Civil War– including the experiences of Freedom Seekers. Some three thousand freedom seekers followed the Union army into Helena in July 1862, and others found their way there throughout the remainder of the war. Helena was ground zero for emancipation in Arkansas. Especially relevant are Stop 1, which discusses the Union army marching into Helena followed by thousands of Freedom Seekers; Stop 2, Freedom Park (a Network to Freedom site); Stop 5, where Freedom Seekers sought refuge with the Sisters of Mercy; Stop 7, New Fort Curtis, a recreation of the town's major fortification built largely with African American labor; Stop 12, discussing Freedmen's schools; Stop 13, discussing Freedom Seekers who joined the Union army; Stop 22, an African American cemetery; and Stops 24 and 25, discussing the plantation lease system and its effects on Freedom Seekers.
Developed in 2009, the Civil War Helena Tour, is a walking/driving self-guided tour uses various interpretive elements, including wayside exhibits, kiosks, sculptures and a reconstructed fortification.

Poison Springs State Park
Postal
Arkansas Highway 76
The battle at Poison Springs on April 18, 1864 was a fight for food. Union forces traveled over twenty miles to find corn, but were attacked by Confederate forces and had to retreat. Today, this site is preserved as a state park with outdoor interpretive exhibitions.

Passage on the Underground Railroad: A Photographic Journey
Address
521 E. Minton Drive
As a documentary photographer/digital artist, there are two components to the program that I provide: lecture and exhibition. The exhibition is comprised of two types of images, composited views of UGRR sites, and montages that address the broader landscape of slavery through a constructed narrative form. Each UGRR work visually describes an individual location inside and out, including significant architectural features, historical materials, and other details that reveal the story about that site. In order to provide a view into the greater context of slavery and the struggle for freedom, the companion montages blend together images of pertinent locations with historical documents, illustrations, and other artifacts, along with contemporary cultural references. In exhibition, descriptive text accompanies the work.
In addition to exhibitions, I often make lecture presentations with projected visual images of my research. I share the histories of the UGRR sites, and describe the elements incorporated into the montages. I emphasize the importance of understanding our history, and that African American history is American history. Depending on the audience, I also discuss the value of visual documentation and other interpretative strategies for preservation, and for making this history come to life for others, especially younger audiences.

Mary A. Brown Burial Site
14766 Oak Street
Mary Ann (Day) Brown (1816 – 1884)was more than a 19th century farmer's wife; she was freedom fighter John Brown's partner and confidant in direct action toward the abolition of slavery. Although her gravestone reads "wife of John Brown of Harpers Ferry", Mary A. Brown should be remembered for her personal sacrifices and contributions to the Underground Railroad movement and the abolition of slavery in the United States. The Brown family homes in Springfield, Massachusetts and North Elba, New York were used to shelter freedom seekers. Those who heard of John Brown' support found direct, practical and sympathetic assistance, whether he was at home or away. Mary was active in assisting freedom seekers who were directed to her home, sharing limited family resources, and the risk of possible persecution and prosecution for involvement with her husband's illegal activities. Mary and her family suffered poverty and hardship as a result of John Brown's frequent absences from home. Food and money were in short supply and sickness and death were a part of her life. In 1963, researcher Dr. Clarence Gee of Lockport, NY told wrote the following to Kansas City Times writer Velma West Sykes, "It is all true, the hardships she endured, that you have found in your research. But in nothing she ever said or in any of her actions is there any criticism expressed about her husband for the privations suffered by her and her family."
In 1839, Mary and the older Brown children took an oath of secrecy and commitment to fight against slavery. As she told abolitionist friends in November, 1859, while making her way to Virginia to see her husband before his hanging on December 2: "He had been waiting twenty years for some opportunity to free the slaves; we had all been waiting with him the proper time when he should put his resolve into action." Mary's sons, Oliver and Watson, were killed during this raid. Mary Brown was associated with notable figures of the Underground Railroad movement, including Geritt Smith, Frederick Douglass, J. Miller McKim, William Still, David Ruggles, Wendell Phillips, Frank Sanborn and Thomas W. Higginson. Before his execution, Brown appealed to his abolitionist friends to look after his family. Following the execution of her husband in 1859, Mary and her family frequently endured social ostracism, threats and physical danger from those seeking retribution for the actions of John Brown. The surviving family members became de facto freedom seekers who made a perilous 3,000 mile journey from New York to California to secure their safety and freedom of opportunity. In California after 1864, Mary first settled in Red Bluff. Daughter Annie was employed as a teacher in the colored school. Mary Brown's last home, purchased with community assistance led by the San Jose Mercury was in Saratoga, California. Mary died in 1884 and was buried in Saratoga, California.

Meet Mary Pleasant/Oh Freedom (chautauqua)
477 Arlington St, San Francisco, CA, 94131
477 Arlington Street
Mary Ellen Pleasant, the 19th-century activist and Civil Rights heroine now called "The Mother of Civil Rights in California" was born enslaved and rose to become an operative on the Underground Railroad. Her daring story is enacted in a three-part historical program (Chautauqua) by scholar/performer Susheel Bibbs all over the United States.

Footsteps to Freedom Study Tour
3585 Main Street, Suite 201B
The Footsteps to Freedom program study tour is designed to preserve, document, and teach participants about the secret movement known as the Underground Railroad. This program began in response to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act and is designed to commemorate and interpret the Underground Railroad (UGRR). This program believes that a more accurate study of the UGRR would focus on the desperate struggle for human freedom made by a large, multi-racial, tightly organized group of freedom seekers, abolitionists, and men and women in North America who saw liberty as a value worth risking everything to achieve. Participants travel a probable route from Kentucky to Canada and visit sites and hear stories of the UGRR movement.

Straight From Tha Underground
3585 Main Street, Suite 201B
Straight from Tha Underground is a dramatic performance written by playwright/professor Rickerby Hinds in 1997 as a community production. The performance, designed to teach audiences about the history of the Underground Railroad, focuses on the psychology of probable freedom seekers and how they saw liberty as a value worth risking everything to achieve.

California State Library
914 Capitol Mall
The library at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) hosts a digital archive of disparate primary source materials about slavery and the Underground Railroad in California.

Mary Ellen Pleasant Burial Site
411 Coombsville Road
Born a slave, Mary Ellen Pleasant, called the "Mother of Civil Rights in California," was known for her support of the 1863 California Right of Testimony Bill, which gave blacks the right to testify in court. In her last illness in San Francisco, she was befriended by Olive Sherwood and buried at this site in the Sherwood/Higbie plot at Tulocay Cemetery.

Old Tuolumne County Courthouse
Address
41 Yaney Avenue
In August 1854, African American rancher and miner Stephen Spencer Hill was a victim of two discriminatory laws passed by the legislature of the new, "free" state of California. Hill's unique story involves deception, imprisonment, conspiracy, rescue and escape and comes to us through oral history, newspaper accounts, and proceedings preserved in the annals of the Tuolumne County Courthouse in Sonora, California.

Reclaiming the Past Juneteenth Celebration
808 Dunbarton Cir, Sacramento, CA, 95825
808 Dunbarton Circle
The annual Juneteenth Celebration commemorates the history of the black pioneers of the Gold Rush era in California and the rich contributions that people of African ancestry have made to the country’s most populous state. The purpose of this program is to educate the public through presentations and exhibits about the history of African Americans who lived, worked, and engaged in community building in the American River region. The program includes exhibits, music, poetry, and speakers who emphasize the pivotal role that African Americans played in the state’s antislavery and abolitionist movements. It illuminates the often-overlooked link between the Underground Railroad and the history of African Americans in the Sacramento region.

Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land Jazz
48 Sycamore St, San Francisco, CA, 94110
Address
48 Sycamore Street #3
Through the powerful medium of jazz, and honoring the profound importance of music in Harriet's Tubman's life, Shelby's oratorio tells the remarkable story of Harriet Tubman, a woman who rose out of humble beginnings, escaped slavery, and dedicated her life to challenging the grace injustices in her day. Working through the Underground Railroad, Tubman personally led 70 slaves, mostly family and friends, out of bondage at great risk to her own life, and inspired dozens more to grasp freedom on their own. During the Civil War, she led raids for the Union and served as a nurse, scout, and spy. After Emancipation, Tubman turned her great energy toward the woman's suffrage movemnt, again hoping to push our nation to live up to its responsibility to stand for true civil rights for all. Thrfoughout her life, this courageous woman worked to unite American women and men of all colors and classes in a common struggle for liberty.
"Harriet Tubman Bound for the Promised Land" is an original secular oratorio for jazz orchestra and chorus composed and written by Marcus Shelby, based on the critically acclaimed biography, Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson (Ballantine/One World, 2004). The oratorio and supporting outreach and education materials tell, through music, the compelling story of Harriet Tubman, a genuine American hero.
Marcus Shelby has received generous support from several San Francisco area arts, cultural, and educational organizations and institutions, including the Creative Work Fun, the LEF Foundation, and the Committee for Black Performing Arts at Stanford University to compose a new work on the life of Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center
77 Forest Street
This center preserves and interprets Stowe's Hartford home. Its historic collections, promotes vibrant discussion of her life and work, and inspires commitment to social justice and positive change.

New London Custom House
150 Bank Street
Federal officials at the New London Custom House collected tariffs and enforced laws, including the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. It was the site of two Underground Railroad events. In August 1839, the Cuban cargo schooner Amistad was seized in Long Island Sound while carrying illegally enslaved West Africans. Federal officials towed the Amistad to the Custom House wharf to investigate and interview those onboard. There, a local abolitionist discovered the Africans were free-born, not legal slaves; his outcry led to the famous Supreme Court trial. The schooner remained in New London until 1840 when it was sold and its cargo auctioned-off at the Customs House. In September 1858, freedom-seeker Benjamin Jones reached New London after stowing away on a lumber schooner. He was brought to the Custom House and arrested by the federal agent. Local activists went there to protest. When asked, "Do you want to be slave or free?" Jones replied "Free" and was released. The Custom House is now a museum that promotes and interprets the maritime history of the port of New London and the surrounding region. The Amistad and Benjamin Jones stories are publicly told through the museum's exhibits, and programs.

African American Civil War Memorial (NPS, National Mall and Memorial Park)
1000 U Street NW
During the Civil War, African Americans represented 10 % of the entire Union army. Dedicated in 1999, this is the first memorial to the United States Colored Troops. There are 209,145 names engraved on the Wall of Honor, drawn from official records of the Bureau of US Colored Troops (USCT) at the National Archives.

John Dean and Hannibal Hamlin Burial Sites at Congressional Cemetery
1801 E Street SE
John Dean, an attorney, took his first case representing a fugitive slave in order to test the applicability of the Fugitive Slave Law to the District. He put himself at risk representing slaves claimed as fugitives. In 1862 he sponsored a contraband who he sent to his family in New York where he could find work and be educated.
Hannibal Hamlin, cousin of Lincoln's first vice president, was a founder and first president of the National Freedman's Relief Association of DC. The Association raised money and managed the distribution of goods and services to destitute contrabands arriving in the city.

From Slavery to Freedom
1816 12th Street NW
The interpretive program, "From Slavery to Freedom," has been presented at the African American Civil War Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, for the last two years. This program commemorates those African American freedom fighters that escaped from slavery and eventually enlisted in the Union Army. Soldiers who used the UGRR like Joshua Dunbar and Garland White, to escape to freedom are memorialized in the presentations. Others soldiers and sailors who escaped from slavery to join the fight for freedom such as William Gould and William Henry Singleton are also memorialized. Visitors are informed of the extraordinary efforts these men went through to achieve their freedom and American citizenship.

Pearl Affair Site
Postal
7th and Water Streets SW
In 1848, seventy enslaved men, women and children attempted to escape to freedom on a ship called the Pearl. Due to bad weather they were captured, but the incident focused widespread attention on slavery in the nation's capital.

Blanche K. Bruce House
909 M Street NW
This is the home of Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841-1898), who was the first African American man to serve a full term as U.S. Senator (1875-1898), representing Mississippi.

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University
StreetName
500 Howard Place NW
This center is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. This site is recognized on Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Camp Greene (NPS, George Washington Memorial Parkway)
Postal
Theodore Roosevelt Island
Known today as Theodore Roosevelt Island, this site was originally called Analostan Island. During the Civil War, it was known as Camp Greene, a training camp for the United States Colored Troops.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary House
1421 W Street NW
This house was the residence of Mary Ann Shadd Cary after the Civil War. She is nationally significant for the 12 years she spent in Canada where she edited the best newspaper for freedom seekers, The Provincial Freeman, and where she worked with Samuel Ringgold Ward and other well-known black activists favoring emigration to Canada as a solution for US African Americans. While editor of the Provincial Freeman, she championed Canada West as a permanent refuge for freedom seekers and free blacks. She publicly solicited aid for runaway bondspeople, at risk to herself.

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (NPS)
1411 W Street SE
Cedar Hill was built between 1855 and 1859. It was the home of Frederick Douglass from 1877-1895. This site is dedicated to the legacy of Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave, abolitionist, civil rights advocate, author and statesmen.

Slavery and the UGRR with a Focus on the Nation’s Capital (NPS, President’s Park)
1450 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20004
1450 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Slavery and the Underground Railroad with a Focus on the Nation's Capital, is a traveling trunk and associated curriculum available to teachers in DC, MD, and VA. Beginning in 2001, staff from Decatur House, the Octagon, the National Park Service, and the White House Historical Association sought grants and developed teacher workshops to plan a traveling trunk and associated curriculum which would deal with enslavement and the Underground Railroad in the Nation's Capital. The free program is aimed at fourth to eighth graders. In addition to loans to schools, the trunk and curriculum is used at the White House Visitor Center.

William Boyd and David A. Hall Burial Sites at Historic Congressional Cemetery
1801 E Street SE
Founded in 1807, Congressional Cemetery is the final resting place of two individuals directly associated with the Underground Railroad (URR) – William Boyd and David A. Hall. William Boyd was caught "stealing" slaves, convicted and later pardoned by President Lincoln. David A. Hall, an attorney, worked as an assistant to Horace Mann in representing the defendants in the Pearl affair. He provided bail for William Chaplin and represented enslaved men and other operatives in the courts of DC and MD.

Leonard Grimes Property Site
22nd St NW & H St NW, Washington, DC, 20037
Intersection
22nd and H Street NW
Leonard Grimes, a free African American man, operated a successful hackney carriage business in Washington, D.C., during the 1830s. His property was located at 22nd and H Streets, N.W.

John Little Farm Site
19th St NW & Kalorama Rd NW, Washington, DC, 20009
Intersection
19th Street NW and Kalorama Road NW
At the start of the Civil War, 20-year-old Hortense Prout made a daring bid for freedom from this site in Washington, DC, where she worked as an enslaved servant in the manor house of John Little. Hortense fled during a time of great excitement in DC, as thousands of newly organized Union troops poured into the city.

Blanche K. Bruce Burial Site
4611 Benning Rd SE, Washington, DC, 20019
4611 Benning Road SE Washington, DC 20019
Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington, D.C., is the final resting place of Blanche K. Bruce, an escaped bondsman who served a term as Senator from the state of Mississippi in the 1870s.

Pencil or Pen™ Writing A New History
PEN OR PENCIL™Writing A New History uses mentor recruitment strategies developed by the National CARES MentoringMovement (NCMM) to apply and expand the classroom and experiential curriculum approach developed by the National Alliance of Faith and Justice (NAFJ) called PEN OR PENCIL™. Lessons from the Underground Railroad are translated into positive youth developmental constructs which form the basis for transformational behavior and resistance to today’s enslaving variables. The founding core (national partners, individuals, organizations, agencies, etc.) comprise a well- organized but growing contemporary abolitionist movement who share the commitment to ensure youth necessary assistance to thrive, to embrace civic and other responsibilities, and apply goal-setting and resilience examples of those determined to be free. The interpretive history of mass engagement and youth leadership during the Civil Rights Movement is also used to mobilize, reach, teach, and inspire youngsters who struggle with the intense social, environmental, family, and school risks of today.
Consistent with the NPS Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Initiative, the program aims to write a new history of ingenuity and build new appreciation for history through a network of assistance to resist or escape from enslavement (i.e. drugs, crime, violence, delinquency, truancy, etc.).

Asbury United Methodist Church
926 11th Street NW
Asbury Chapel, now Asbury United Methodist Church, is the oldest black church in the city still remaining on its original site. It was organized in 1836 by members of the Foundry Methodist Episcopal Church, who desired to worship free of racism and segregation.

Old City Hall, DC Courthouse
451 Indiana Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20001
451 Indiana Avenue NW
The Washington, D.C. [DC], building at Judiciary Square is associated with the Underground Railroad as the site of the trials of Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres, captains of the ship The Pearl, in which over 70 freedom seekers attempted to escape from enslavement in the DC area in 1848.

Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library
901 G Street NW
This library collects materials related to the history and current affairs of the District of Columbia. This division is the largest single and most comprehensive collection of materials on the District of Columbia, current and historical. This division also sponsors public programming, workshops, and exhibits to educate and promote understanding of the history of the District of Columbia.

Tilly Escape Site: Gateway To Freedom
Gateway Park and Riverwalk
Seaford’s Gateway Park in this case was Harriet Tubman’s “Gateway to Freedom” in
October of 1856. In Baltimore, Harriet was able to find the slave, Tilly, the fiancée of an already escaped slave in Canada, and brought her across the Chesapeake, to Seaford, Delaware by steamboat. The steamboat probably landed at the present site of the City of Seaford’s Riverwalk, like most steamers with passengers. This area was the center of town in the time.
Harriet and Tilly spent the night at the hotel at the top of the hill, where Gateway Park is today. They were nearly arrested by slave traders the next morning, but safely continued on their
way by train to Camden, Delaware and then by carriage to Thomas Garrett in Wilmington.
Tubman expert, Dr. Kate Larson, referred to the Tilly story in her book, Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero, as “one of her most complicated and clever escape attempts”. The Tilly Story is especially unique in that Thomas Garret immediately documented the story in detail, as he wrote the letter of Oct 24,1856 to Eliza Wigham in Scotland, immediately after hearing it, while the story was fresh in his mind and in Harriet Tubman's.

Thomas Garrett House Site
227 Shipley Street
This marker is near the site of the home of Thomas Garrett, one of the most prominent figures in the story of the Underground Railroad. From this site, he operated a network of free African Americans, Quakers, and others who helped conduct slaves to freedom. He provided a safe haven for conductors, such as Harriet Tubman and provided links to important sites to the north, including the one operated by William Still in Philadelphia.

Historical Society of Delaware
505 Market Street
The Historical Society of Delaware (HSD), founded in 1864, is a private, non-profit, educational organization that provides and encourages a greater appreciation of the history of the state of Delaware and Delawareans through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs. Through the Society’s historic buildings, interpretive programs, as well as museum and library collections in Wilmington, Delaware, HSD has helped document and interpret Delaware’s crucial role in the Underground Railroad for over 100 years.

Fort Christina State Park
StreetName
E. 7th Street
The element is a natural rock outcropping along the Christina River in Wilmington. It had served as a landing place for the first Swedish settlers in 1638. It later served as a dock and is mentioned by Thomas Garrett in a letter to William Still as a place where Captain Alfred Fountain landed fugitive slaves. The site is now operated as a state park.

Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park and Market Street Bridge
Christina River between Market Street and Poplar Street
This park has been developed as a major focal point for the interpretation of the Underground Railroad in the history of the city. The park was named in honor of Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett, prominent abolitionists.

John Dickinson Plantation
340 Kitts Hummock Road
This property was the home of John Dickinson, one of the founding fathers of the United States and "Penman of the Revolution." This plantation is an example of a slave-holding property with a history of documented slave escapes.

New Castle Court House Museum
211 Delaware Street
This building is one of the oldest surviving courthouses in the United States. It was the site of the Hunn-Garrett Trials of 1848 where two prominent Delaware abolitionists of the Quaker faith were sued by the owners of fugitive slaves from Maryland. Today, it serves as a museum where visitors can learn about Delaware's colonial and state history and early system of law and government.

Appoquinimink Friends Meeting House and Cemetery
SR 299 West of US 13
The small building is set at the back of a deep lot at the edge of farm fields and is surrounded by a cemetery with many unmarked burials and some with simple headstones. Tradition has passed down in Odessa that the meeting house was used as a station on the Underground Railroad. Whether freedom seekers were hidden here or not, the property is associated with the UGRR through the attending members that were ardently anti-slavery and acted on those beliefs.

Long Road to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in Delaware (Program)
505 N Market Street
Because Delaware was a slave state that bordered the free state of Pennsylvania, Delaware played an important role in the Underground Railroad. In The Long Road to Freedom, students hear stories of the brave men and women, both enslaved and free, who made this region one of the most successful Underground Railroad routes to freedom. Students learn about Thomas Garrett, Harriet Tubman and William Still. This interactive educational program covers the following themes: what is slavery, was Delaware a slave state or free state, who helped slaves escape, and what was the Underground Railroad. These themes are introduced through the use of illustrated storytelling, group discussion, hands-on activities involving authentic and reproduction artifacts, tours in a historically important building, and a take-home craft.

Star Hill Historical Society Museum
357 Voshells Mill Star Hill Rd, Dover, DE, 19901
357 Voshells Mill Star Hill Road
Established in 1987 and located in the Star Hill AME Church, the Star Hill Museum displays and interprets the history of this antebellum free African American community in Kent County as a vehicle for teaching the lessons of slavery and African-American history to the youth of today. Star Hill was a noted stop on the Underground Railroad, according to the family traditions in the community and in the nearby Camden Quaker community. Museum displays focus on teaching about slavery and the role this community and others nearby played in the Underground Railroad. Exhibits, featuring images of people and places important in the Underground Railroad, collections of local history reminiscences, and a reproduction of a slave quarter, were originally put up in the church dining hall. The museum has grown to fill an addition to the church. Visited by hundreds of people annually, a tour of sites important in the Underground Railroad in the central Kent County area is offered by the Museum.

Corbit-Sharp House
118 Main Street
The Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa, Delaware was the home of a noted Underground Railroad sympathizer and was the site of a close-call on the Underground Railroad described in a later-in-life reminiscence of a child of the family.

Delaware Public Archives
121 Duke of York Street
The Delaware General Assembly has mandated that the Delaware Public Archives be the permanent repository for government records of all government entities – the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches; county and municipal governments; and schools and other special districts. Among its government records and collections (private, corporate, religious records and newspapers) are original source materials invaluable to the understanding of the Underground Railroad.

Wilmington Friends Meetinghouse and Cemetery
401 N West Street
The first Meeting House on this site was built in 1738. The current building was built in 1816. Wilmington was the last major stop on the East Coast overland route of the Underground Railroad. One of the central figures of this network was Thomas Garrett, a Wilmington resident and member of this Meeting, who was known as the “Stationmaster of the Underground Railroad. "Following his death in 1871, he was laid to rest in the adjoining burial ground.

Camden Friends Meeting House and Cemetery
122 E Camden Wyoming Ave, Camden, DE, 19934
122 E Camden Wyoming Avenue
The Camden Friends Meeting House is associated with the Underground Railroad as a site of regional Quaker worship that formed the hub of a network of individuals, connected by faith, family, and conviction, who assisted freedom seekers navigate the complex and dangerous Delaware landscape on their way north to Philadelphia and beyond.

Delaware State House
25 The Green
Completed in 1791, the Old State House was the first permanent capitol building in Dover, Delaware. Located on the historic Green, this building has served as a focal point in the state's civic life for over two centuries.

Family Heritage Museum
5840 26th Street
Family Heritage House, Inc. welcomes you to "Timeline: A Walk Through History" in this inaugural exhibition, which features 15 displays starting with African Heritage, moving to American experiences in slavery, fights for freedom, histories of community building and education, the Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights, Kwanzaa, and returns to Africa with "A New Day Begins: Free Elections in South Africa."

Southeast Archeological Center (NPS)
2035 E Paul Dirac Dr, Tallahassee, FL, 32310
2035 East Paul Dirac Drive
This center is responsible for archeological research, collections, and database management for all park units located in the southeast region of the National Park Service (NPS). The collection comprises more than 6.5 million objects and associated projects.

Fort Jefferson (NPS, Dry Tortugas National Park)
City
Dry Tortugas National Park
DirectionsWrite a review
Construction started at For Jefferson in 1846. It is located in the Dry Tortugas-a chain of tiny islands west of Key West. The Fort was never completed, and the Union Army decided to use it as a prison for criminals from their army. One of the most famous prisoners was Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was one of the people charged with conspiring with John Wilkes Booth.

Fort Mose Historical State Park
15 Fort Mose Trl, St Augustine, FL, 32084
15 Fort Mose Trail
Fort Mose was the first legally sanctioned free black community in the modern United States. In 1738, the Spanish governor of Florida chartered Fort Mose and the nearby community of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mos as a settlement for escaped slaves from the British Carolinas.

Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park
1200 Crandon Blvd, Key Biscayne, FL, 33149
1200 Crandon Boulevard
The following is taken from a January 16, 1844 report to J.M.Porter, Secretary of War, Washington City (D.C.) concerning the subject of . . .fortifying the Keys and Islands around Cape Florida, and connecting the waters of Matanzas River and Musqueto Lagoon with Indian River and Haulover in East Florida, etc.. . after the Second Seminole War (18-35-1842): In my conferences with the Indian chiefs in 1837, I ascertained that a constant communication had been kept up between the Seminoles and certain persons in the Bahamas, and most of the Negroes who had eloped from their masters and sought refuge among the Indians. . . Major. Gen. T.S. Jessup

Fort Mose: Battle of Bloody Mose Anniversary Commemoration
15 Fort Mose Trl, St Augustine, FL, 32084
15 Fort Mose Trail
Battle of Bloody Mose: Anniversary Commemoration is an annual event held at Fort Mose Historic State Park that interprets how early freedom seekers escaped enslavement in the British Colonies through flight to Spanish Florida and the battle between British and Spanish colonial forces that took place on June 26, 1740 to control the territory.
Established in 1738, Fort Mose is the site of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first legally sanctioned, free African settlement in what is now the U.S. and one of the earliest sites associated with the UGRR. From the 1600s, hundreds of runaway slaves from the plantations of the Carolinas endured the long, arduous journey to La Florida in search of freedom and opportunity for themselves and their families. Many settled at Fort Mose. For the escaped Africans residing at Fort Mose, the June 1740 battle constituted a urgent defense against the loss of their newly found freedom and their return to slavery.
This program uses first person interpretation and living history demonstrations to interpret the story of the residents of this historically significant site and their military defense against re-enslavement.

Fort Mose: Flight to Freedom: Annual Living History
15 Fort Mose Trl, St Augustine, FL, 32084
15 Fort Mose Trail
Introduced in 1997, Flight to Freedom Living History Program is an annual 3-day event held in February at Fort Mose Historic State Park, which is the first legally sanctioned free African settlement in what is now the U.S. In 1738, the Spanish governor of Florida chartered Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, or Fort Mose for short, as a settlement for those fleeing slavery from the English colonies in the Carolinas. Over the next 25 years, Fort Mose and Spanish St. Augustine became a sanctuary for Africans seeking liberation from the tyranny of English slavery.
Flight to Freedom interprets and educates school children ages 5 to 18 years old and the general public about the establishment and day-to-day life of this historically significant site through first person interpretation and living history demonstrations. Using the voice of several different characters based on persons documented to have lived at Fort Mose, the story of resistance to slavery through escape and flight to the South is told to visitors via a 3-part, guided tour; African drumming; re-enactment of military drills; historic cooking demonstrations; and various other hands-on activities.

Fort Mose: Last Saturday Living History Program
Last Saturday Living History Program is a monthly event held at Fort Mose Historic State Park. Fort Mose is the site of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first legaly sanctioned, free African settlement in what is now the U.S. In 1738, the Spanish governor of Florida chartered Fort Mose as a settlement for those fleeing slavery from the English colonies in the Carolinas. Over the next 25 years, Fort Mose and the Spanish Saint Augustine became a sancturay for Africans seeking liberation from the tyranny of English slavery. The Last Saturday Living History Program interprets the story of the residents of this historically significant site using first person interpretation and living history demonstrations. The Last Saturday Living History Program uses historical research to develop fictional characters portrayed during this demonstration. The characters serve as a way to interpret the establishment of Fort Mose to the public in a meaningful and personal way.
The Last Saturday Living History Days serve to interpret the story of these freedom seekers and highlights one of the earliest sites associated with the UGRR.

Mattie, Johnny and Smooth White Stones, Part II
The program, "Mattie, Johnny and Smooth White Stones: Part II", is the continuation of a story about a slave couple who escaped on the Underground Railroad. This 35 minutes film provides a first person narrative of a freedom seeker, Mattie, who tells her story after successfully journeying from Georgia to Ohio. Though dozens of slaves made it across the Mason Dixon line to freedom, many of their slave owners would petition for their return or send slave catchers to retrieve them because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Thus, this story allows the viewer to see what life was like after the long journey to freedom for some of the runaways. Part II was shot on location in Ripley, OH where noted abolitionists John Rankin and John Parker and others helped dozens of runaway slaves. These men and their antislavery activities are featured in the film.

From Africa to Eternity
From Africa to Eternity, Inc., a 501C3, is an educational, touring exhibit that includes more than 3000 authentic artifacts and rare periodicals that chronicle the African American experience from pre-enslavement to the present. A permanent component of the display includes a presentation on the horrors of the African Diaspora, enslavement, abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. The exhibit includes such rare artifacts as enslavement shackles used on captured runaways (1840s), an original congressional document from the Amistad trials (1841) and first editions of publications written by noted black and white abolitionists. These articles and others are used extensively to convey the theme of resistance as a response to legal bondage.

Mattie, Johnny and Smooth White Stones, Part III
Mattie, Johnny and Smooth White Stones: Part III" is part of a trilogy about a slave couple who attempt to escape together on the Underground Railroad. Parts I and II were both selected for inclusion in the Network to Freedom.

Mattie, Johnny and Smooth White Stones
Holy Hill Productions produced a short film entitled, "Mattie, Johnny and Smooth White Stones." This is a story about a runaway slave on the Underground Railroad. It has appeared in film festivals around the United States and will air on an Atlanta-based television station during Black History Month.

Fort Pulaski National Monument (NPS)
StreetName
US Highway 80 E
On April 10-11, 1862, Union forces bombarded the fort with rifled cannons, forcing the Confederates to give up the fort. This site is now owned and operated by the National Park Service.

Auburn Avenue Research Library
101 Auburn Avenue NE
Founded in 1921, the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History (AARL)is a special library of the Atlanta-Fulton County Library System. Their archival materials included documentation of the Underground Railroad in the U.S. and Caribbean.

National Archives and Records Administration, Southeast Region
5780 Jonesboro Road
This repository holds approximately 15,000 manifests from the ports of Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Beaufort, South Carolina. Original ship manifests from the U.S. Customs Service dating from 1808 include the name of the ship and its master, port of departure, port of destination, and a list of the slaves on board.

Todd House
705 Park Street
The Todd House was the home of the Reverend John Todd and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The Todd House and Tabor, Iowa were a meeting place for many of the leading abolitionists in the United States during the 1850's, such as: John Brown, James Lane, and Samuel Gridley Howe. It was also a stop on the famed Jim Lane trail. The Todd House is one of only four registered stops on the Underground Railroad in Iowa, and it is certified by the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. The Reverend Todd and the colony at Tabor were dedicated to the proposition that everyone including women and people of color deserved an equal opportunity for a college education. They started a college in Tabor that espoused those beliefs. Inside the Todd House is a museum that has many visitors each year especially children on school visits. The Todd house has been featured on Iowa Public Television in connection with educational programs on the Underground Railroad. In 1999, the Todd House started a program of going through all the papers of the Reverend Todd, indexing them and compiling them for future publication and display.

Ira Blanchard Home Site and Cemetery
City
This cemetery contains the graves of Dr. Ira Blanchard and his family. The cemetery is adjacent to the site where Dr. Ira Blanchard and his family had a homestead. According to oral history historical documents, Blanchard’s residence was used as a safe house and Blanchard served as a conductor.

J.B. Grinnell Burial Site at Hazelwood Cemetery
200 First Avenue
This site is the final resting place of Josiah Bushnell Grinnell (1821-1891), in Hazelwood Cemetery, Grinnell, Iowa. J. B. Grinnell, who began his career as a Congregational minister, was a passionate abolitionist from his youth, and an active participant in the Underground Railroad. The town which he founded in 1854 embodied Grinnell's commitment to abolition, and while J. B. usually obeyed the government, he was a conscientious breaker of the Fugitive Slave Law. He used his influence, his home, and wool barn to aid escaping slaves in their quest for freedom. Believing slavery to be evil, he welcomed the famous radical, John Brown to Grinnell in the winter of 1859 as he fled Kansas, bringing with him a party of guards and twelve fugitives. Humans and weapons were housed in Grinnell's home, his wool barn and a local hotel. None of these sites remain in existence. His home, located on Park Street, deteriorated, was moved to Broad Street and eventually torn down in 1984.Therefore, the Grinnell gravesite, situated on land he donated to the town, overlooking the community named for him, is the best place to commemorate his involvement in the Underground Railroad.

Hitchcock House
Hitchcock House was a station on the Underground Railroad. Built in 1856 by Congregational minister George B. Hitchcock, the house served as a station for fugitive slaves escaping from Missouri, but more important, fugitives escaping from Kansas Territory during the "bleeding Kansas" period found Hitchcock House a place of safety and rest on their way to freedom in Canada.

Lewelling-Gibbs House
401 South Main Street
During the pre-Civil war era of the 1840's and 1850's a small settlement of Quakers located in Salem, Henry County, Iowa Territory, banded together to help runaway slaves find their way to freedom. The Lewelling, Gibson, and Shriner houses, along with the Beehive and Henderson Hotel formed a network of stations on the Underground Railroad. The Lewelling Quaker Museum is the only building still intact and is a well-preserved two story, yellow stone house listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Evidence of Underground Railroad activity in this town is corroborated by the lawsuit, Ruell Daggs vs. Elihu Frazier, et al. Other supporting documents consist of written reminiscences of O. A. Garretson and Rachel Kellum, as well as a newspaper advertisement for runaway slaves. The role these abolitionists played created a split within the Quaker community causing them to be disowned and allocated a separate section in the Salem South Cemetery. The Lewelling house was purchased by five men in 1960 and opened to the public in 19621. Today, the museum offers tours to local school children and visitors from across the nation.

Tabor Cemetery
26502 Waubonsie Avenue
Established in 1853 and located in Mills County, Iowa is the Tabor Cemetery. As the final resting place of many of those associated with the Underground Railroad in Tabor, Iowa, the cemetery is perhaps the best place to commemorate the town‟s significance to this important history because in many cases it remains the only tangible site that can be associated with those who were involved.1 The Underground Railroad activity of the people of Tabor, Iowa is well documented in reminiscences, correspondence, books, and in the Wilbur H. Siebert collection. These sources underscore that the involvement of this small town in Western Iowa was not just the result of individual efforts, but the community as a whole. As a result of their ties with Oberlin, Ohio and the Congregationalist Church, the settlers of Tabor were adamant in their beliefs of equal rights for all people regardless of race and sex and their participation in the Underground Railroad was an extension of these beliefs.

Shattering Silence
1111 East Court Avenue
Overlooking the city, the Shattering Silence monument, located in Des Moines, Iowa, on the State Capitol grounds, is a standing memorial of the Iowa Territorial Supreme Court’s first case, In the Matter of Ralph, (a colored man,) on Habeas Corpus. Installed in 2009, the public art sculpture designed by artist James Ellwanger commemorates the 170th anniversary of this landmark fugitive slave court case. This case began when an enslaved man by the name of Ralph Montgomery was given permission from his master to travel to Iowa. He was heading to Dubuque with the intent of mining the local mineral fields in order to gain the 550 dollars required to purchase his freedom. After failing to uphold his end of the written contract, Ralph was then captured as a fugitive slave to be sent back to his owner in Missouri. The intervention of two Irish farmers allowed Ralph to be returned to Dubuque for a fair trial. The case was quickly sent on to the Territorial Supreme Court where Ralph was fittingly declared free on the Fourth of July in the summer of 1839 because the court held, “no man in this territory can be reduced to slavery.”

J.H.B. Armstrong House
105 W Pleasant Street
In the late 1840's and early 1850s such pioneers as Nathan Stanton, Walter S. Johnson, J. H. B. Armstrong, John Fulcher, David Green, John and Jacob Calvert, Solomon and Luther Holbrook, Daniel and John McDonald, Edward J. Gault, Seth B. Stanton and others settled in Cincinnati, Iowa. They were all men of strong convictions on moral and religious questions and were also ardent advocates of temperance and were profoundly anti-slavery. Located just north of the Missouri line, Cincinnati became a station on the Underground Railroad assisting slaves fleeing northward from servitude.
Located just north of the Missouri line, Cincinnati became a station on the Underground Railroad assisting slaves fleeing northward from servitude. In the 1850s, J. H. B. Armstrong was among the pioneers who were advocates of temperance and anti-slavery. This is the site of his house located on West Pleasant Street.

Nishnabotna Ferry House
701 Minnesota Street
This was the home of the ferry operator, Samuel H. Tefft, in Lewis, Iowa. During the late 1850s, Tefft’s ferry carried passengers, including freedom seekers and conductors like John Brown who were entering Iowa from Nebraska City. Stagecoaches, free-soilers heading for Topeka, the Mormon Handcart Companies of 1856 and 1857, Gold Rush enthusiasts, and general westward migration increased traffic.
Contemporary reminisces and local tradition maintain that the East Nishnabotna Ferry crossing outside of Lewis, Iowa (Cass County) was utilized by freedom seekers and their guides on the Underground Railroad during the late 1850s. The ferry crossing was on the main state/post road between Des Moines [east] and Kanesville (Council Bluffs) [west]. This portion of the road was on the Jim Lane Trail and the Tabor to Springdale route of the Underground Railroad across Iowa. It was the only way to cross the river for many miles in both directions. One noteworthy incident occurred in February 1859, as John Brown, with the help of others, transported a dozen freedom seekers across the ferry. The river crossing is an appropriate place to commemorate this association with the Underground Railroad in Southwestern Iowa. Today, the Nishnabotna Ferry House property is owned by a local historical association. It is located across the river, approximately a quarter-mile east of the George B. Hitchcock House. The ferry keeper’s house is the only remaining structure from the period.

James C. Jordan House
2001 Fuller Rd, West Des Moines, IA, 50265
2001 Fuller Road
James C. Jordan, one of Iowa’s most influential early settlers built this house, probably in phases, between 1850 and 1870. Jordan represented Valley Junction (now West Des Moines) in the Iowa Senate and was influential in introducing legislation to move the state capitol from Iowa City to Des Moines. Under Jordan’s leadership the first school in Valley Junction was built. Religious services for all faiths were held in his home. Jordan was apparently a staunch aboltionist, and is said to be the “Chief Conductor” of the Underground Railroad for Polk County. While it may not be possible to substantiate such a broad claim, his pastor eulogized him by stating “In the troublous days of slavery this great heart reached out and helped the oppressed, seeking the north star of freedom.”1 What can be documented reliably about Jordan is that he assisted John Brown on his famous last trrip from Kansas before the raid at Harper’s Ferry.

Denmark Congregational Church
401 Academy Avenue
Between 1840 and 1868, Reverend Asa Turner and church members worked against slavery, primarily by providing stations. The church is still in use.

Blanchard Hall, Wheaton College
501 College Avenue
Built for the Wesleyan Methodist's Illinois Institute in 1853, Blanchard Hall in Wheaton, Illinois served as the main college building for all activities and instruction, and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Founded by Underground Railroad activist, the Institute was first led by well-known abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor, Rev. John Cross. After years of financial struggle the Wesleyans brought fellow abolitionist Rev. Jonathan Blanchard to take leadership of the struggling institution. Blanchard was one of Theodore Dwight Weld's Seventy and a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati and Western Illinois. According to a memoir by Ezra Cook in Charles Clark's History of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Veteran Infantry (published under the auspices of the Veteran Association of the Regiment in 1889), "…runaway slaves were perfectly safe in the College building, even when no attempt was made to conceal their presence….With hundreds of others, I have seen and talked with such fugitives in the college chapel. Of course they soon took a night train well-guarded to the next station on the U. G. R. R." (p. 490). Cook provides the first "hard" evidence to support the claims of Underground Railroad activity occurring on campus. In 1859, Blanchard renamed the school Wheaton College, which is still in existence, to honor benefactor and Illinois Institute trustee Warren L. Wheaton.
Blanchard Hall is a symbol of Wheaton's unique pioneering role in abolitionism, its matriculation of women on an equal basis, and its matriculation of students of color, including the graduation of the Illinois' first African-American college graduate.
In 1979 Blanchard Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Gillette House
1005 Grove Street
The Gillett property (a.k.a. the Fitzsimmons House), located at 1005 Grove Street in Jacksonville, Illinois, was used in at least one incident as a hiding place for three enslaved women escaping from St. Louis, Missouri on the Underground Railroad in 1849. Evidence of the incident is found in several printed versions of the episode and in a paper written in 1905 by Julia Wolcott Carter, the daughter of Elihu Wolcott, the acknowledged leader of the Underground Railroad movement in Jacksonville. Carter's evidence is based on her interview with Underground Railroad activist Jonathan Baldwin Turner. According to Turner, the three women had been hidden "in an old shanty on what is now known as the Fitzsimmons place (the Gillett property)" before being transported to another location.
Because the "shanty" no longer exists, the house which was associated with the property at the time the incident occurred, it is the best place to represent this history. The house is now part of Illinois College.

New Philadelphia Town Site
Section 27, Hadley Township, South of County Highway 2
Family and local residents’ accounts, documented oral histories and primary documentation attest that New Philadelphia and area residents participated actively in the Underground Railroad by concealing, harboring and sometimes accompanying runaway African Americans to Canada. New Philadelphia, Illinois was a gathering place for African Americans of the region and, although integrated, regarded by many local residents as a black town.
Founded in 1836, New Philadelphia is the first town in our nation legally registered by an African American. The town traces its association to resist enslavement to founder Frank McWorter. Before moving to Illinois from Kentucky in 1830, McWorter purchased freedom for his wife, himself and a son who had fled to Canada. Risking capture by slave trackers, the McWorters returned to Kentucky to purchase freedom for family members. McWorter freed sixteen family members with funds earned through entrepreneurial enterprises.
Now an archaeological site with only a few building foundations visible on the landscape, New Philadelphia was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 for its potential to provide nationally significant information about the lifeways and relationships of African Americans and European Americans in a pioneer setting, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2009 for its potential to yield information of major scientific importance and to affect archaeological theories, concepts and ideas.

Quinn Chapel AME (formerly Brooklyn AME)
108 North 5th Street
This application is nominating Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Brooklyn, Illinois (originally called the Brooklyn AME Church). One of the earliest AME churches in the state, the church was part of the Brooklyn community, an antebellum town home to many free blacks and former slaves and a well acknowledged stop on the Underground Railroad.Founded by black abolitionists William Paul Quinn and Priscilla Baltimore in 1839, members of the congregation, including Baltimore and the Carper family, were active agents in the Underground Railroad. It is also associated with Jordan Winston Early, another AME preacher and abolitionist who is said to have built the first church building. The oral tradition passed down in the town names the pre-Civil War church building as a station on the Underground Railroad. Although no longer in its original location, Quinn Chapel is still an active church and remains a vital social institution 174 years after its founding. Furthermore, the current church stands on property once owned by Priscilla Baltimore, and it is believed that she utilized the surviving basement as a place to hide freedom seekers.

Kimzey Crossing /Locust Hill
7883 Kimzey Road
Kimzey Crossing, formerly known as Locust Hill, was the home of Benajah Guernsey Roots, civil engineer, educator, agriculturist and abolitionist, who moved from Connecticut to Illinois in 1837. Initially settling in Shaweentown, Roots soon relocated to a 1200-acre farm south of Tamaroa, where he built a five-room log cabin, began Locust Hill Academy, and, according to family tradition, began aiding runaway slaves.

Lucius Read House
101 W Blackhawk
The Lucius Read House is a brick frontier home. The nearby museum includes information on the Underground Railroad, Civil War veterans and other stories.

Congregational Church
520 W College Ave, Jacksonville, IL, 62650
520 W College Avenue
The leaders of this church served in the Underground Railroad, as members of this church were all against slavery. Most of the stories recorded in Jacksonville's history of the Underground Railroad are related to persons who were members of this church.

Dr. Richard Eells House
415 Jersey Street
This historic home in Quincy, Illinois, built by abolitionist Richard Eells, was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Pettengill-Morron House
201 SW Jefferson Street
Moses Pettengill and his wife, Lucy, who came to Peoria in 1834 from New Hampshire, built this house. Moses and Lucy worked in the movement to abolish slavery, and during the Civil War, the house was reported to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. When the Pettengills' wood frame house burned down, the present house was rebuilt in 1868.

Owen Lovejoy Homestead
Route 6 East
The Lovejoy Homestead was used as a station on the Underground Railroad. Reverend Owen Lovejoy occupied the house from 1838 until his death in 1864. He was a prominent member in the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad. He also served as the founder of the Illinois and national Republican party, and as a congressional leader.

Galesburg Colony Underground Railroad Freedom Station at Knox College
337 South Cherry Street
Galesburg and Knox College, located in West Central Illinois, were founded in 1837 by anti-slavery advocates who came to Knox County from upstate New York. The college served as a station on the Underground Railroad

Illinois College—Beecher Hall (Chapel) and the site of the College Building (1832-1852)
1101 W College Ave, Jacksonville, IL, 62650
1101 W. College Avenue
Illinois College was founded by New Englanders who ardently opposed slavery. Professor David Smith's house and the Fayerweather House are believed to have been involved in the Underground Railroad.

Sheldon Peck House
355 E Parkside Avenue
The Sheldon Peck Homestead, a historic house museum located in Lombard, IL (formerly Babcock's Grove) is 20 miles east of downtown Chicago. Built in 1839, the house was home to Sheldon Peck, a nationally-known folk art painter, who was involved in the Underground Railroad. Peck's Underground Railroad activity was documented in a memoir kept by his youngest son Frank. It included accounts of Peck harboring Freedom Seekers on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s. Frank's memoir describes Old Charley, a Freedom Seeker who stopped at the Peck House. It also included lyrics to a slave spiritual song that Old Charley taught Frank. In addition, a painting by Sheldon's daughter Susan is believed to be of a Freedom Seeker that stopped at the Peck House.
Peck was publicly considered a ―radical abolitionist and had numerous friends and business associates involved in the Underground Railroad. In addition, several anti-slavery meetings were held at the Peck Homestead and Peck was an ―agent for the Western Citizen, an anti-slavery newspaper published in Chicago. Since 1999 the Peck Homestead has been a public museum and is operated by the Lombard Historical Society, a 501 ©(3) not-for-profit.

Jameson Jenkins Lot (NPS, Lincoln Home National Historic Site)
516 South Eighth Street
Jameson Jenkins was an African American teamster in Springfield from the late 1840s through the 1860s. He was a neighbor of the Lincoln family and a conductor on the Underground Railroad. His house no longer exists, but the lot on which it sat is part of the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.
This site is a city lot once belonging to Jameson Jenkins, a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Springfield, Illinois. On this lot stood the home of Jameson Jenkins, who was a successful drayman living in Springfield during the 1850s. Jenkins lived one block south of Abraham Lincoln.
On January 16, 1850, Jameson Jenkins assisted a group of runaway slaves escape the hands of slave catchers and took them north to the next stop on the Underground Railroad: Bloomington, Illinois. During the following days, both town newspapers reported various and contradictory stories regarding the runaway slaves, them being caught, and the person who betrayed them. The newspapers later revealed that the person who assisted the runaway slaves was Jameson Jenkins. The newspaper also explained the reasoning behind the various contradictory stories was so that the Underground Railroad car that Jenkins traveled on would not be discovered.
Today the Jenkins lot is located within Lincoln Home National Historic Site, which contains the home of Abraham Lincoln within a historical neighborhood setting. However, the lot is empty, the original Jenkins house was razed sometime between 1896 and 1917. The location of the lot; within a National Park, ensures that archeological resources related to the home of Jameson Jenkins are preserved.

Old Slave House
4325 Crenshaw Lane
Though once confused with the UGRR in the 1930s, the Old Slave House actually represents the last surviving element of the organized kidnapping rings that harassed and threatened free residents of African descent. As such it represents the "Reverse Underground Railroad."

Dr. Hiram Rutherford House
Intersection
Pike Street and Illinois Route 133
Dr. Hiram Rutherford was involved in an 1847 legal case in which Abraham Lincoln represented a slaveholder trying to retrieve slaves harbored by Rutherford. After the hearing, the Circuit Court freed the slaves.
Dr. Hiram Rutherford built his two story frame house off the square in Oakland in 1847. This building forms the core of the Oakland Landmarks, Inc. historic compound. Dr. Rutherford, Gideon Ashmore a local hotel tavern owner, General Robert Matson a slave owner from Kentucky with a farm north of Oakland, and Abraham Lincoln became involved in the Matson Slave Trial in 1847. Each spring Matson would bring some of his slaves to Illinois to work his Illinois farm and then take them back to Kentucky in the fall after the crops were harvested. One family fearing the wife and children would be sold when they returned to Kentucky fled and sought shelter with well known abolitionists Rutherford and Ashmore. Matson filed a suit against Rutherford and Ashmore in the circuit court under the Black Law, demanding damages in the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars, or five hundred dollars for each slave. This trial became known as the Matson Slave Trial and has been called one of the top 5 Legal Cases in Coles County between 1830-1900. The case was heard in Circuit Court in Charleston in October. The case hinged on the concept that if the slaves were only crossing the state (in transit) they would not be free but if they were located for a time by the consent of the master they would be free. Rutherford and Ashmore won, the slaves were freed, and Matson left town without paying his bills (which included Lincoln’s fee).

Rocky Fork
550 Boy Scout Lane
As early as 1816, this area was one of the first Free State stops for slaves escaping Missouri. In the 1830s, a more organized Underground Railroad route was established through the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This area continued to serve as both a way stop and escapee community after the Missouri Emancipation Proclamation of 1865.

Underground Railroad in Illinois
1541 Hill Avenue
A primary purpose of researching the Underground Railroad in Illinois and adjacent states, has been to address the dearth of verified knowledge about UGRR operations west of the Ohio River. Key findings of this research have been that most freedom seekers coming through Illinois had been enslaved in Missouri and that Chicago was the terminus of most Illinois routes. The incorporation of these findings into an illustrated narrative program is used to disseminate knowledge of this important aspect of our history.

John Gill and Martha Wilson Craven House
6927 W. State Road 250,
The John Gill Craven Home was a link in the Underground Railroad's large operation that was being conducted in Lancaster, Indiana. John Gill Craven was the son of Thomas Craven and helped his father start the Eleutherian Institute in 1848 that became Eleutherian College in 1854. John Gill Craven was the Principal and ran the College for several years. Since the school was an "abolition school", open to all regardless of color, and situated only a few miles from slave territory, it excited the bitter opposition of pro-slavery people, many of whom lived in that part of the state where the school was situated. John Gill Craven and James and Lucy Nelson were arrested by Wright Rae, the Sheriff of Jefferson County Indiana, under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. John and Martha Craven opened their home to black students and helped many freedom seekers to freedom. George DeBaptiste was living in the "Georgetown District" in Madison, Indiana, and brought many freedom seekers to Lancaster, Indiana, calling this area the "New England Settlement" where the underground railroad was always ready.

Levi Coffin House State Historic Site
Us Highway 27 N, Fountain City, IN, 47341
The Levi Coffin House was an important "station" on the Underground Railroad because it was the home of Levi and Catharine Coffin from 1839 to 1847 in Newport (now Fountain City), Indiana. The two-story house is a modified Federal-style brick home. In addition, the brick-floored kitchen and spring-fed well are located in the basement. Levi, a well-known Quaker abolitionist, and his family had left North Carolina because of their opposition to slavery. In his Reminiscences…, Coffin estimates that he aided and average of 100 freedom seekers a year over the 20 years that he and his wife worked in the Underground Railroad in Fountain City. Levi Coffin’s activities in the Underground Railroad caused many to consider him its “president.”

Hannah Toliver Historical Marker
W Riverside Dr & Pearl St, Jeffersonville, IN, 47130
W Riverside Drive and Pearl Street
Free black Hannah Toliver was arrested in 1864 for violating the Kentucky state law of "enticing a slave." She was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to seven years in prison for aiding the escape of an unnamed slave of William Murphy of Kentucky. Hannah spent only 7 months, 18 days in prison before being pardoned by Kentucky Governor Thomas Bramlette.

William and Margaret Hicklin House
2330 S County Road 675 E, North Vernon, IN, 47265
2330 S County Road 675 E Boulevard
William and Margaret Hicklin acquired 320 acres in Jennings County Indiana on Little Graham Creek in 1819. Their sons, Thomas, Lewis, John L. and James lived on this land and operated an Underground Railroad Station.

Carnegie Center for Art and History
201 E Spring Street New Albany
The Carnegie Center for Art and History houses a permanent, award-winning exhibition title, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the UGRR. The exhibit examines the antislavery community in Floyd County, Indiana, and places it in a broader context by describing the social, economic, and cultural contours of the Falls region of the Ohio River Valley. This project explores three broad themes that are critical to understanding the nature of the UGRR as it existed in Southern Indiana. First, it draws attention away from the traditional Boston-New York-Oberlin abolitionist nexus and points to the significance of antislavery activism along the Ohio River. Second, the project draws attention to the biracial nature of abolitionism, particularly at the local level. Finally, the project reveals the central role played by African Americans in the UGRR and provides an unprecedented look at the black community of the Falls region.

Georgetown Historic District
Sheets and Wharton, Woodburn, Camby North Addition
The Georgetown District, located in Madison, Indiana on the Ohio River became home to African Americans as early as the 1830s, eventually developing into a network of Underground Railroad conductors and stations. Georgetown, located just five blocks from the Ohio River, became a place in which many freedom seekers found a community of safe houses and conductors willing to give them aid to reach the next station toward freedom. This neighborhood became the center for the Underground Railroad activity of Madison as well as the focal point for the Kentucky mobs who attempted to disband this community. The unique feature about this neighborhood is that the homes, churches, and environment that the freedom seekers, conductors, and abolitionists saw still exist today. The two Underground Railroad associated churches still stand, as do the homes of several UGRR leaders. The neighborhood retains a high historical integrity for the period of significance (1820-1865); 64% of the original structures still stand.

Indiana Supreme Court—Courts in the Classroom
200 W Washington St, Indianapolis, IN, 46204
200 W Washington Street
The Indiana Supreme Court- Courts in the Classroom program provides educators the opportunity to disseminate information about state legal, political and social history to their students through an online collection of lesson plans and materials available at www.in.gov/judiciarvlcitc.This program highlights nineteenth-century African American legal history in Indiana. It provides the necessary legal context to understand the national political and social climate under which the Underground Railroad operated through a variety of documents and lesson material. Courts in the Classroom specifically addresses the laws regarding African Americans in Indiana from Statehood to the Civil War, -African Americans' struggles to attain rights within the state legal system, African Americans using the courts to gain their freedom, and the individuals such as lawyers, judges, and abolitionists who supported African Americans in their battles. Lesson plans enable students to analyze primary sources pertaining to specific lawsuits, reenact legal cases from scripts substantiated by documentary evidence, and consider contemporary court rulings. Courts in the Classroom teaches students about the legal history behind the Underground Railroad through hands-on activities

Union Literary Institute
8525 S Arba Pike
Anti-slavery Quakers and free people of color from the surrounding African American settlement founded the Union Literary Institute (ULI) in 1845. The significance of ULI to the UGRR is that the founding fathers of this school, both black and white, were active participants in the UGRR in Indiana and Ohio. It was the first known institution in Indiana to promote education in an integrated, classless, and residential environment.

Lyman Hoyt House
7147 West State Road 250
Lyman Hoyt House, an active station on the Underground Railroad was operated by the owner, Lyman Hoyt. Lyman and wife Asenath Whipple Hoyt moved from Vermont to Lancaster, Indiana, in 1830 to join James Nelson and his wife Lucy Whipple Nelson that came to Lancaster, Indiana in 1820 from Vermont. Dr. Samuel Tibbets and wife Susanna Coombs Tibbets moved to Lancaster, Indiana in 1830 from Clermont County Ohio, had previously lived in Vermont. These three families brought children with these moves and marriages occurred to link these families. John H. Tibbets married Sarah Ann Nelson Tibbets making John a nephew of Lyman Hoyt. This provided the trust for this group to work the Underground Railroad routes without getting caught. This group of families had similar backgrounds and beliefs of "freedom" being available for all races. Lyman was one of the main conductors in Lancaster, Indiana from 1830 to 1856. The Hoyts had the first black student to enter Eleutherian College living in their home. Lyman hid runaway freedom seekers in his barn loft and a cave near his home and gave his clothing, food and transportation in his wagons to the next station.

Underground Railroad Initiative, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archeology
402 W Washington St, Indianapolis, IN, 46204
402 W. Washington Street, RM W274, Indianapolis, IN 46204-2739
In response to the 1998 challenge by the National Park Service for State Historic Preservation offices to locate their Underground Railroad resources, the Indian Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology (DHPA) created its Underground Railroad Initiative in 1998. In 1999, the DHPA formed a committee of volunteers known as the Indian Freedom Trails (IFT), with the purpose of researching the UGRR; the IFT has been accepted into the Network to Freedom as an Educational and Research Program. This group has group has grown such that it is working towards not-for-profit status, but remains a strong partner DHPA. The DHPA UGRR Initiative takes several forms to assure the research, preservation, and education of Indiana’s UGRR heritage. The DHPA accomplishes these goals through publications, conferences, presentations, volunteer recruitment, preservation of structures, and research training. DHPS has seen several successes including publications of researchers’ original work, well-attended conferences, extensive media exposure, volunteer recruitment and training, preservation of known UGRR sites, and increased public outreach.

Indiana Freedom Trails
402 W Washington St, Indianapolis, IN, 46204
402 W. Washington Street, RM W274
Begun in 1998, Indiana Freedom Trails (IFT) started as a committee of the State Historic Preservation Office. The project has developed into a cohesive, diverse group working to locate, verify, protect, preserve, and promote those Indiana sites and routes involved in the Underground Railroad (UGRR). IFT members dedicate themselves and their resources to the research, education, interpretation, and reverence of Indiana's UGRR heritage for the benefit of future generations. The group includes representatives of state agencies, historical societies, and libraries, along with private individuals; all of who are volunteers. Volunteers work within their regions to research the sites in their area, then the group places these regional sites into statewide context and how the sites and individuals are related. The group is beginning to work with researchers in other states to connect Indiana's sites with other state's sites.

Chapman Harris House
1602 N Eagle Hollow Rd, Madison, IN, 47250
1602 N. Eagle Hollow Road
This site was the home of Chapman Harris, who was an African American gentleman known for his work on the UGRR. Chapman came to Jefferson County, IN as a 37-year-old single man in 1837 from Virginia. He was soon sworn in and joined the fight for freedom for his race. His first UGRR assignment was to take a runaway slave to Lancaster where he worked with John H. Tibbets and Mr. Neslon.

Decatur County Court House
150 Courthouse Sq, Greensburg, IN, 47240
150 Courthouse Square
In 1847, Caroline and her children escaped from owner George Ray of Trimble County, Kentucky, and made their way to Decatur County, Indiana where a series of events resulted in the arrest of Luther Donnell for aiding their escape. When the family reached Decatur County, Woodson Clark captured the family and confined them until he could arrange transportation south. The African American community enlisted the help of Luther Donnell, who worked to obtain a writ of habeas corpus to take possession of the family. Eventually the family was located and assisted via the Underground Railroad, by both the African American and White community, to Canada. Donnell was arrested under Indiana law and indicted for “aiding Negroes to escape.” The jury found him guilty. Then Ray brought suite in the US court for the recovery of the value of his slaves. He obtained a judgment of $3000 ($1500 for the value of the individuals plus court costs). In 1852, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the criminal case verdict based on judicial error, that the Indiana law under which Donnell was prosecuted was unconstitutional.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
414 W Vermont St, Indianapolis, IN, 46202
414 W Vermont Street
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Indianapolis in 1836 and was part of the western expansion of A.M.E. Churches, led by William Paul Quinn in the 1840's. Richard Allen, founder of the denomination, had established the first church, Mother Bethel, in Philadelphia, in 1794. The Indianapolis Station, as it was called was known for its activism. Members of the congregation, assisted freedom seekers on the UGRR. The Ministers risked their lives and freedom, to establish churches in the slave states before 1860. They attended abolitionist meetings, established schools, edited and published journals.

Freedom is My Home
Freedom Is My Home brings about a new way of looking at the Underground Railroad – from the view of a woman and her personal stories of serving as a conductor. The one-woman play shows the perspective of a woman who did not condone slavery and felt the courage to do something about it, even though danger was evident. The play contains real stories of daring escapes and the friendships born in the course of aiding fugitives, examines alternative methods of communication, and delves into the strength, courage, and determination needed by all participants. This play shares one Quaker woman’s story, what brought her to this place, her emotional encounters with the pursued and the pursuers, and why she continued to ask, “Can we standby and let this happen?”

Seymour Train Station
Corner of Jeffersonville Avenue, St. Louis Avenue, and Circle Street
On April14, 1860 Alexander McClure, an enslaved man from Nashville, Tennessee, arranged for friends to place him in a box and ship him to a "Hannah M. Johnson" care of Levi Coffin, a prominent Underground Railroad activist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. At the train station in Seymour, Indiana (Jackson County) Alexander's was broken while being transferred to the southeast bound train and he was revealed, ending his journey to freedom. Alexander was arrested and extradited to Tennessee. Alexander implicated three persons who helped him in his attempted escape, a free black man, an enslaved black man, and a white man.
Nathan James, a free black in Nashville, was arrested and found to be an escaped slave himself. It is unclear what happened to James, but it appears he might have been sold into slavery. Alfred Savage, the slave who allegedly introduced the Alexander to the third conspirator, a white man, was given 15 lashes for his part. It is unclear what ever became of Savage. The white man's identity was never revealed, as all of the others involved claimed not to know his name. Levi Coffin was questioned about his role in the escape, but he denied any knowledge. Hannah M. Johnson, the woman to whom Alexander had tried to ship himself, was never found. After his failed escape, it seems Alexander remained in Tennessee as he can be found living and working in Nashville after the Civil War.

Caroline Escape Marker
4783 E County Road 280 N, Greensburg, IN, 47240
4783 East County Road 280
In 2008, the Indiana Historical Bureau (IHB) erected a marker to commemorate the escape of Caroline at the Kingston Cemetery in Decatur County, Indiana. Caroline, a fugitive enslaved woman from Trimble County Kentucky, escaped with her four children (ages 2-12) on October 31, 1847, from George Ray. They crossed the Ohio River near Madison, IN (Jefferson County). They were conveyed via the Underground Railroad from there to Decatur County. While in Decatur County the family was recaptured by Woodson Clark, a pro-slavery resident of the area. But with the help of black and white abolitionists, the family escaped again and were helped further north through Underground Railroad stations in northern Decatur County, Rush, and Union Counties. After the escape, George Ray successfully brought a civil case against Luther Donnell, a member of the community who had assisted in the escape. According to William M. Hamilton's account, written many years later, Caroline and her children made it safely to Canada and wrote a letter to Luther Donnell, thanking him for his efforts.

Dr. Samuel Tibbets House
This was the home of Dr. Samuel Tibbets, who was active in UGRR work as well as active in fighting slavery by taking a stand against it openly in newspapers and letters to United States Congress.

Underground Railroad in Floyd County, Indiana
201 E Spring Street
The primary goal of this program is to assist the public in its understanding of the flight and plight of runaway slaves as they crossed the Ohio River into Floyd County, Indiana, prior to and throughout the Civil War period. Floyd County is in a very unique spot in that it stretches thirteen miles along the Ohio River across from Louisville, Kentucky. There were, therefore, border problems and ensuing complications for slaves who attempted to cross the river through this metropolitan area. Slave catchers and police worked together and easily crossed the river using the ferry and railroad systems. Therefore, escape through this area was very difficult. Newspapers frequently reported on capture of runaway slaves in this southern Indiana region. This program conveys the problems but also gives documented examples of slaves who were able to escape through Floyd County on their own as well as with the help of local citizens. The free African American community was primarily responsible for assistance, but help also came from white, anti-slavery church members.
The program also emphasizes the fact that the Underground Railroad was still in operation in this area after President Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation. Because Kentucky was a Union state, the proclamation did not apply to Kentucky slaves. Many slaves ignored that fact, however. Between January 1, 1863, and the end of the Civil War, Floyd County was flooded with fugitives from slavery. The Indiana Exclusion Act of 1851 was not rescinded until 1866. That coupled with the fact that bias against blacks continued to exist, meant that benevolent activity of any kind toward runaway slaves and contraband families had to be suppressed. The program manager makes use of overhead transparencies and shares her extensive research of census records, church and court records, newspapers and oral histories.

Oswell Wright Historic Marker
417 E Chestnut Street
In September 1857, Charles Woodford, an enslaved blacksmith, disappeared from Brandenburg, Kentucky. Oswell Wright, a free African American living in Corydon, IN and David and Charles Bell, white farmers living on the Indiana side of the Ohio River were arrested by KY officials for helping with Woodford's escape. The Bells' relative broke into the local jail and freed David and Charles. Only Oswell Wright was brought to court and convicted of helping Charles. Wright was sentenced to five years. Upon release, he returned to live in Corydon, IN where he died in 1875.

John H. Tibbets House
6810 N. Boyd Road
This site represent the home of John H. Tibbets, a conductor on the Underground Railroad. John H. Tibbets worked with free African Americans in the Georgetown District of Madison, Indiana, to successfully move many freedom seekers crossing the Ohio River to reach Canada. Preservation of his home and his life story is our mission. John Henry Tibbets was a conductor on the UGRR and a leader and trustee of Eleutherian College in Lancaster, Indiana. John worked with George DeBaptiste, Elijah Anderson and many other known UGRR conductors in Indiana.

Isaiah Walton House Site
6927 Indiana 250
This site was the home of Isiah Walton, who was an UGRR Conductor and worked with John H. Tibbets in aiding the freedom seeker north. His work also included Anti-Slavery Society, Historic Eleutherian College and his membership in the Anti-Slavery Baptist Church in Lancaster, IN.

Historic Eleutherian College
6927 W. State Road 250
Completed in 1856, this was the first college in Indiana to admit students without regard to race or gender. Lancaster was a known stop for fugitive slaves traveling from Madison, Indiana to Indianapolis. Three of its trustees, Samuel Tibbetts, Lyman Hoyt, and James Nelson, were frequently mentioned in connection with the Underground Railroad.

Wakarusa River Valley Heritage Museum
N 851st Diagonal Rd, Overbrook, KS, 66524
NULL261 North 851 Diagonal Road
The Clinton Lake Museum opened May 1, 1983. It is leased to the Clinton Lake Historical Society from the U.S. Corps of Engineers. The society operates the museum from May 1 though October of each year. it is open to the public each weekend from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Sundays, holidays, and by special request for other times. The purpose of the museum is to preserve and interpret the history of the several extinct and extant villages and communities in the Clinton Lake vicinity. In 1854, the area around the museum, the Wakarusa Valley, was settled by many people who believed that slavery was wrong. This area is historically known as the home of the Bloomington Guards, the Underground Railroad where Quaker abolitionists provided a safe haven, and where many of both races served in the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Dr. John Doy House Site
Sherwood Drive
The Dr. John Doy homesite, today about three miles northwest of downtown Lawrence, Kansas was part of the original 160 acre tract where abolitionist, John Doy settled in October 1854 as part of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Doy was called the “General Conductor” of the UGRR in the Lawrence area. He lived in a log structure on this property with family from 1854-1860.

Captain William Mitchell House
288831 Mt. Mitchell Road
The Captain William Mitchell Farmhouse is a well-preserved vernacular structure that began its existence as a log cabin in the late spring of 1856. Captain Mitchell built it with the help of the newly arrived members of the Connecticut-Kansas Colony, later called the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony.

John and Mary Ritchie House
1116 SE Madison Stret
Topeka, Kansas played a major role in the UGRR, serving as a place of refuge and conduit of slaves who traveled along established routes between the south and freedom. During the tumultuous Bleeding Kansas period, John and Mary Ritchie and other Topeka residents turned their homes and property into safe havens for escaping slaves tracked by owners, federal law enforcement, and the slave catchers who prowled reiver banks and towns hoping to catch the fugitives and drag them south for cash.
John Ritchie, an abolitionist delegate to the Leavenworth and Wyandotte Conventions, helped John Brown escape during the Battle of the Spurs on January 31, 1859.

Watkins Community Museum of History
1047 Massachusetts St, Lawrence, KS, 66044
1047 Massachusetts Street
Watkins Community Museum of History, housed in an 1888-dash built Richardsonian Romanesque building – formerly a bank and mortgage company, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum is governed by an eight – member Management Committee as part of the Douglas County Historical Society, which has 23-member Board of Directors. The purpose of the Society is the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical materials of Douglas County in particular and the State of Kansas in general. The museum has permanent and temporary exhibits, a research room, a children’s "Hands on History Room", documents, photos and 3-D collections and library.

Constitution Hall, Free State Capital
429 S. Kansas Avenue
The name "Constitution Hall" was given to the two-story building, with a basement at this site. Construction began April 1855. It soon became the official headquarters for the "Topeka Movement", "code name" for the then illegal activities acting against the Pro Slavery laws. John H. Kagi who died at Harpers Ferry with John Brown, was a reporter for the Tribune located here. Joseph Miller, the treasurer for the Topeka Underground Railroad lived and had a tin shop and stored supplies in the basement. Rev. Lewis Bodwell, preacher for the Congregational Church and a major conductor of freedom seekers used the facility. Armstrong, organizer for the Underground Railroad in Shawnee County also used the facility. The building being the only substantial one in the embryo city became the hub for the political, military, religious, economic, educational, social, commercial, and safety center for citizens and fugitives during the period in Kansas history known as "Bleeding Kansas". The Free State Capitol building of Kansas (1864-1870) encapsulated old Constitution Hall and expanded it by extensions on each end. It contained all of the offices for the newly organized state government and was used until after the Civil War when funds were appropriated to construct the present more prestigious building.
On October 23, 1855, a Free State convention adopted an anti-slavery constitution here; served as the capital building from 1864-1870.

Quindaro Ruins
7250 State Avenue
This site with a formally organized hub of stations on the front line in the border zone just across the Missouri River from Missouri. The site has a cluster of stations and the officers in the organization are represented there by Sam. C. Smith.

Henry and Ann Harvey Farm
10475 Walton Road
The Henry Harvey farmstead is the site of Ann and Henry Harvey’s log cabin constructed in 1854 shortly after the creation Kansas Territory. Corroborating written reminiscences preserved in the Kansas State Historic Society and the Wabaunsee County Historical Society and local oral history provide evidence of the Homestead’s role in the Underground Railroad in the mid-nineteenth century. The Harvey family were members of the Society of Friends and life-long anti-slavery proponents. Members of their extended family had been active in the URR in Ohio. Ann and Henry also served as Quaker missionaries to the Shawnee Tribe, helping them get established in Kansas. Their son George Madden Harvey filed the first claim in Richardson County, Kansas Territory on the adjoining property. Evidence suggests he lived with his parents. The Harvey home was a station on the URR and sons George and Samuel are thought to have been conductors. There is also evidence that their grandson Al was involved. The Harvey log cabin existed until ca. 1900 when the present vernacular frame house was constructed. The farmstead continues to operate as a working farm in what remains essentially a nineteenth century landscape.

John E. Stewart Property
The property nominated is the site of the John E. Stewart farm in Douglas County, KS. Methodist minister was a fiery abolitionist. Stewart was a crucial link in UGRR, so crucial that in 1860 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Massachusetts minister, abolitionist, and confidante of John Brown, described Stewart as the head of the clandestine operation in Kansas. Stewart's farm became a rendezvous for Free-State men and provided a safe haven for slaves Stewart smuggled out of Missouri before they could be sent on through Nebraska into Iowa and then Chicago or Canada.

Joseph Gardner Cabin Site
The Joseph Gardner Cabin Site is a documented use station on the UGRR and is associated with a person who played a verifiable role in the abolitionist network in the Wakarusa Valley which helped smuggle escaping slaves to freedom.

Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie
29377 Mitchell Prairie Ln, Wamego, KS, 66547
29377 Mitchell Prairie Lane
The Mt. Mitchell Heritage Prairie is a 45-acre tallgrass prairie preserve located in the Flint Hills of Kansas. The park was originally part of the Captain William Mitchell farm, which received Network to Freedom site designation in 2002 as a well-documented UGRR station. The prairie is located across the road from the Mitchell Farmstead, which is a private residence. Remnants of the Topeka Fort Riley Road, used by the UGRR, are visible in the park. In 1953 Mitchell's son, William I. Mitchell, gifted the property to the Kansas State Historical Society with the stipulation that it become a park memorializing his father and the Connecticut Kansas Colony, popularly known as the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony. Many of the colonists participated in the UGRR. The historical society erected a monument to Mitchell and the colony but never developed the park. In 2006, a grassroots group, the Mt. Mitchell Prairie Guards facilitated the transfer of ownership to local control and began developing the property into the public park envisioned by W.I. Mitchell. The Mt. Mitchell Prairie Guards are working to make the park the primary educational venue for telling the story of the Kansas UGRR in the area.

Henry Hiatt House Site
County Road 1023
The Henry Hiatt House Site is nominated for its association with Henry Hiatt, a documented abolitionist and conductor on the UGRR. Born into a Quaker family in 1815, Hiatt migrated to the Kansas Territory with his family in 1856, settling first at Bloomington, then, in 1857 or 1858, at Mound City. While residing at this second location that Hiatt later recalled escorting fugitive slaves to Topeka where he delivered them into the safe keeping of John Ritchie of that city. Today, the site of the second Hiatt homestead is included in a formal tour of the UGRR sites and is featured in a permanent UGRR exhibit at the Wakarusa Valley Heritage Museum.

Underground Railroad in Douglas County, Kansas
501 Louisisana Street
Kansas Travel provides tours about the Underground Railroad in Douglas County, Kansas. All three of the tour guides are members of the Underground Association of Douglas County, Kansas and have done extensive scholarly research about the Kansas Underground Railroad finding new information and images that add to the existing knowledge. They have also worked toward preserving sites and educating the public.

John Armstrong House
429 SE Quincy Street
The John Armstrong House built in 1855, also known as the Mrs. Scales House, named for Armstrong's mother-in-law, Mrs. William Scales who owned the home when Armstrong arrived in Topeka and took up residence there. The site of the home is significant in the history of the UGRR as a place where those escaping slavery were secreted on their way to freedom in the North and Canada. Those hidden here were escorted to freedom in the North and Canada on the Jim Lane Trail.

Wabaunsee Cemetery
Highway K-18
The Wabaunsee Cemetery is the final resting-place of seventeen individuals known to have participated in the Underground Railroad. It is a country cemetery situated amidst fields of wheat, soybeans and corn one mile northeast of the historic community of Wabaunsee. The famous Beecher Bible and Rifle Church listed on the National Register of Historic Places is in the village. Mt. Mitchell a thirty-acre hilltop tallgrass prairie owned by the Kansas State Historical Society is one mile to the east. A monument to the memory of the Colony is at its summit. The cemetery contains the graves of about sixty Civil War veterans and many of the Colony’s members and their descendents. Maude Mitchell designed the memorial gate built from glacial erratics in 1952. She was the daughter of Captain William Mitchell URR station keeper and conductor. Corroborating written evidence and family oral history provide documentation of the following individuals participation; Captain William Mitchell, Agnes Mitchell, James Monroe Bisby, Hannah Bisby, J. Evarts Platt, Enoch Platt, Sarah Platt, Joshua Smith, Mary Dibble Smith, John Smith, Charles Burrill Lines, Maria Wooding Lines, Austin Kelsey, Maria Bristoll Kelsey, Samuel R. Weed, Julius F. Willard and Amos A. Cottrell.

Fort Scott National Historic Site
1 Old Fort Boulevard
Fort Scott served as a safe haven for refugees, including many escaped and liberated slaves, during the Civil War. While women and children found refuge here, many able bodied formerly enslaved men filled the ranks of the 1st and 2nd Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiments, elements of which were recruited and organized at Fort Scott. While many African-Americans moved on after the war, some stayed and became a part of the community.
Fort Scott National Historic Site is part of the National Park System and recognized as a National Historic Landmark. It was a US Army frontier fort from 1842-1853, guarding the Permanent Indian Frontier. The fort buildings were auctioned in 1855 and became the nucleus of the civilian Town of Fort Scott, which was a center of Bleeding Kansas intrigue during territorial days (1855-1861). Predominantly pro-slave at its founding, the town and county developed a free-state focus by 1859. The town was fortified during the Civil War and became the primary US Army supply depot, training center, and general hospital in southeast Kansas.

Owens House
3212 Rochester Road
The Owens House, located in Topeka, Kansas, was built in 1858 along the Lane Trail by William Owens from Rhode Island. The home, a station on the Underground Railroad, was often visited by John Brown and other conductors. One of these visits was during John Brown's "Last Trek through Kansas." Brown's party which included 13 freedom seekers he had helped liberate out of Missouri stopped at the Owens House for meal and a safe place to rest. The Owens House was the last stop before Brown would engage in the infamous "Battle of the Spurs," in which the party was attacked by pro-slavery men attempting to end their journey to freedom.

Planters Hotel
Corner of Esplanade Street and Shawnee Street Sidewalk
Located in Leavenworth, Kansas, the "first city of Kansas," is the site of the Planters Hotel a.k.a. Planter's House. In 1859, the hotel was the site of a kidnapping. Charles Fisher (a.k.a Peter Fisher), who worked at the hotel as a barber, was abducted from the hotel under suspicion of being a fugitive slave or being in violation of the fugitive slave act by assisting others in their escapes. After being arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed, Fisher who maintained he was free was taken into Missouri. Fisher, however, was able to escape and returned to Leavenworth. The two kidnappers were subsequently charged with kidnapping and brought to trial. Fisher was subpoenaed as a material witness despite prohibitions against blacks testifying against whites in court. Meanwhile, a man came forward claiming to be Fisher's owner and Fisher was detained in the custody of the Marshal at Planters Hotel. Fisher was able to escape with the help of free-state men, but was ultimately recaptured and sold into slavery. Fisher, however, once again found his way to freedom and returned to Leavenworth in 1863.
The Planters Hotel was torn down in the 1950s and the site, which is privately owned, is currently an empty lot. However, the City of Leavenworth has utilized its right away to put a marker and re-creation of the hotel steps, commemorating the hotel's existence, especially as it was related to Abraham Lincoln's 1859 visit.

Northern Kentucky University, Institute for Freedom Studies
Landrum 330, Nunn Drive
The Institute for Freedom Studies serves to promote interdisciplinary research, teaching, and community outreach grounded in the scholarly study of American cultural history with a specific focus on the legacy of the enslavement experience and the Underground Railroad. Institute faculty members offer Underground Railroad courses each semester, which explore and critique the themes of freedom, slavery, and resistance.

White Hall State Historic Site
212 Elizabeth Street
White Hall was the home of Cassius Marcellus Clay, who was an emancipationist, newspaper publisher, Minister to Russia, and friend to Abraham Lincoln. Today, guided tours take you through the home discussing the Clay family and of White Hall.

Fee Land: The Story of Juliet Miles
1708 Hillsdale Road
The John Gregg Fee, Jr. farm, located in eastern Bracken County, Kentucky, is commonly referred to as "Feebrook" by family and local citizens. The fading red brick home was constructed with the use of slave labor; the slave cabins where Juliet and Add Miles lived, however, were not made of brick and their log construction did not last much longer than the Civil War. Other than a few additional structures for farm use, the farm remains as it was during the time of Juliet Miles' escape with her family.

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad: The Art of Mark Priest
3512 River Park Dr, Louisville, KY, 40211
3512 River Park Drive
Harriet Tubman & the UGRR: The Art of Mark Priest, is an educational program comprised of over 60 paintings, drawings and prints. the artwork is a narrative collection of images depicting people and events connected with the UGRR conductor, Harriet Tubman. Images are sequentially displayed, telling the visual stories of documented historical accounts. The exhibition is a self-directed experience enhanced by DVDs, storyboards and brochures. Upon request the artist gives lectures, slide talks, or a guided tour, discussing paintings, process and research involved in creating the art, questions are encouraged. Each account has written storyboards with source material referenced, ensuring that the viewer gets a full understanding of the significance of the historical events portrayed. Short narrative video trailers can be played continuously to peak the audience's interest in seeing the full story in the visual narrative they are about to experience. The artwork range in sizes from 2.5" X 2.5" to 6' X 12". The paintings are acrylic on canvas, the prints are digital and woodcuts, the drawings are done in graphite or ink on paper. Many of the paintings are larger than life, immediately thrusting the viewer onto the threshold of the life of Harriet Tubman.

Long Walk: From Slavery to Freedom
9800 Springbark Dr, Louisville, KY, 40241
9800 Springbark Drive
The Long Walk: From Slavery to Freedom," an interpretative program, is a captivating storytelling about Carolina, a slave and her daughter, Wednesday, who are runaways, struggling to reach the UGRR train to freedom. It is highlighted with a compelling introduction about harsh plantation life and spiced with the most riveting phrases from Negro spirituals.

Lucy Higgs Nichols: The Civil War Nurse
9800 Springbark Dr, Louisville, KY, 40241
9800 Springbark Drive
The Higgs family owned Lucy Higgs Nichols from the time of her birth, 1837, until her mid-twenties.In 1862 Lucy, her baby, and the baby's father, joined a group of Negro runaways passing the farm where Lucy was held in bondage.They ran three to five miles from Grays Creek to Bolivard, TN where Lucy joined the 23rd Indiana Regiment.She served as a Civil War nurse - the only black and only woman in the troop.After the regiment was mustered out in Louisville, she returned to New Albany, IN, with the men, became a citizen, married John Nichols, and joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in New Albany as an honorary member.In 1898 she received a nurse's pension, with the full support of 55 member of the 23rd Indian Regiment, by a Special Act of Congress.In 1915, at the age of 77, she died and was buried next to her husband in the Colored Cemetery (New Albany, IN) with full military honors.The story of Lucy Higgs Nichols was feature in newspapers across the country.

Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park
6614 Danville Rd, Nicholasville, KY, 40356
6614 Old Danville Pike
The 4000 square acre Union Army depot known as Camp Nelson provided supplies for Federal troops of the Army of the Ohio stationed throughout Kentucky and Eastern Tennessee. Camp Nelson was also the one of the largest recruitment and training centers for African American troops.

River Road African American Museum
406 Charles St, Donaldsonville, LA, 70346
406 Charles Street
Opened in March 1994, the River Road African American Museum and Gallery (RRAAMG) serve as an important repository of African American history, art, and artifacts in Louisiana. The RRAAMG is the only facility in south Louisiana’s "plantation country" dedicated to telling the history of enslaved people who labored on area plantations. The Museum’s permanent collection include a wide variety of resources including documents pertaining to the 18ll Slave Revolt, slave narratives from the WPA referencing the river parishes in south Louisiana, antebellum newspaper advertisements, personal letters, and oral histories.

Los Adaes
6354 Highway 485
The Spanish colonial mission and fort known as Los Adaes held the unique position of being a borderland site and served as both a destination and a UGRR way station on an established route between French Louisiana and Spanish Texas.As such it was under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Crown which early on prohibited the enslavement of peoples in the New World. Unfortunately, this prohibition was oftentimes ignored as economic necessity prevailed and the labor needs for plantations and thusly an enslaved labor force formed. However at Los Adaes cattle ranching and subsistence farming was the primary economic pursuit for the residents, thereby eliminating the need for enslaved laborers. As a borderland community, Adaes was not self-sufficient and residents engaged in trade for food with the French at Natchitoches (Galan 2006:2). This led to an established path between the two countries (Spanish Texas - French Natchitoches) which is known today as El Camino Real de los Tejas. The long established transportation corridor, known as El Camino was the route chosen by freedom seekers escaping to Los Adaes and other parts of the Spanish interior. By the late 1700s, free people of African descent formed 15% of the population in Texas (Barr 1996:3).

Cammie G. Henry Research Center at Northwestern State University of Louisiana
913 University Parkway
There are more than 5000 linear feet of collections within the Center. These collections include more than 3,000 maps, 3,159 reels of microfilm. The Center holds a rare book collection of more than 3,300 volumes, a Louisiana book collection of more than 12, 00 volumes. Louisiana government documents, more than 300 newspapers, and 10 linear ft. of oral history tapes. Of these materials approximately 15%-20% contain information related to the Underground Railroad or slave related activities. Although a small collection in overall size, it holds valuable information regarding slave legal policies, trials, religious attitudes, fugitives, labor, living conditions, marriages, baptisms, deaths, and kinship.

Samuel May, Jr. House
960 Main Street
This house in Leicester, MA, was the home of radical abolitionist Samuel May Jr. (1810-1899)from his marriage in 1835 until his death. General agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society for eighteen years and a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee of 1850-61, he was one of the most active conductors in this area.

Maryland State House
100 State Circle
The Maryland State House has significant relevance to the Underground Railroad in five areas that involve all three branches of government as well as two conventions, one seeking to defend slavery, the other abolishing it. The Maryland legislature debated and enacted laws relating to runaway slaves, punishment for assisting runaways, and the rights of slaveowners to recover escaped slaves. The State's governors, from their State House office, issued pardons for individuals convicted of crimes for their Underground Railroad activities and issued requisitions for the return of men charged in Maryland with assisting runaways who were being held in other jurisdictions. The Court of Appeals, which met in the State House, heard on appeal from circuit courts cases relating to the Underground Railroad. In January 1842, a "Slaveholders' Convention" met in the House of Delegates chamber and drew up a list of twenty-five propositions for consideration by the legislature; a bill incorporating the Convention's proposals subsequently passed the House of Delegates but was rejected by the Senate. Finally, the Consitutional Convention that met in 1864, by abolishing slavery in Maryland, brought the activities of the Underground Railroad to an end.

Emily Plummer House (Riversdale)
4811 Riverdale Rd, Riverdale Park, MD, 20737
4811 Riverdale Road
Members of the extended Plummer family dreamed of freedom from slavery. The best place to commemorate the escape and achievement of this aspiration for Emily Plummer and her younger children, is at the home of Emily Plummer's husband Adam Plummer at the Calvert plantation Riversdale, in Prince George's County, Maryland (MD). Adam brought back his wife and children to live in freedom after they escaped from a plantation in Ellicott City, MD, were caught, jailed in Baltimore, and could not be reclaimed by their master.
The lives of Adam and Emily Plummer are remarkably well documented considering both were born and raised enslaved.Records on the lives of the Plummers include a book by their daughter Nellie Arnold Plummer called Out of the Depths, letters between Emily and Adam Plummer, and newly recovered portions of a diary by Adam Plummer , now held at Anacostia Museum.
Riversdale is now a house museum, owned and operated by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Riversdale interprets the attainment of freedom for this family through a booklet on Adam Plummer and his family, an exhibit panel, and occasional events commemorating the lives of the Plummer family.

Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum
10515 Mackall Road
Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (JPPM) is a MD state museum of history and archaeology whose mission is to preserve, research, and interpret the diverse cultures of the Chesapeake Bay region. Located in Calvert Co. on a 560-acre property along the Patuxent River and St. Leonard Creek, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The park includes park of the site of the Battle of St. Leonard Creek, a large War of 1812 naval engagement. Charles Ball, a Calvert Co. resident who wrote a narrative of his life in enslavement and his escape to freedom in the North, described fighting in this battle in his book, Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball. A large portion of the property that is now JPPM was owned by George Peterson at the beginning of the Civil War. According to the 1850 census, Peterson enslaved 16 people. At least two of them, William Coates and William Jones, enlisted in the USCT and were freed.

Hampton National Historic Site
535 Hampton Lane
Hampton National Historic Site, a premier example of Georgian architecture and landscape design, was once the center of a vast Maryland land holding that was a remarkable commercial, industrial and agricultural estate forged with indentured and enslaved labor. Hampton reflects a central irony in U.S. history – that a nation newly created on the principles of equality and freedom could accept the institution of slavery. National events and social change – the Revolution, establishment of a new economy, slavery, the Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction – are reflected by the site’s cultural resources, an unmatched and comprehensive assemblage of structures, landscapes, collections, and archives, preserved by one family over ten generations. This exceptional ensemble is an unusually complete chronicle that reveals the daily activities of the Ridgely family, laborers and slaves, and illustrates 18th and 19th century history and design. Documentation in the form of runaway slave advertisements, court records, correspondence, and family histories that people enslaved at Hampton tried, and in some cases succeeded, in following the Underground Railroad to freedom.

Experience Harriet Tubman and the UGRR by Sea
4303 Bucktown Road
Experience Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad by Sea offers visitors the opportunity to experience and learn about the life of Harriet Tubman and historical details of the Underground Railroad on the very landscapes where these events happened and where the people lived, specifically along the river landscapes of the Big Blackwater River within and along the borders if the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in South Central Dorchester County. Come and experience this incredible landscape by canoe or kayak, with a family who has lived there since the mid 1600's. Learn of the quests of the people of the 1800's who lived on the river and the flights to freedom of those able and daring enough to escape. This river landscape features historic sites directly related to Harriet Tubman and her family, and the lives of several freedom seekers fleeing this region of the County during the early to mid nineteenth century. The four and one-half hour kayak tour affords visitors a unique opportunity and perspective on the nearly pristine environment virtually unchanged from Tubman's days enslaved here, including the historical influence of the water on every day living and its place as a barrier and a pathway to freedom.

Sotterley Plantation
44300 Sotterley Lane
Sotterley Plantation, St. Mary's County, Maryland, encompasses almost 300 years of Southern Maryland history. Sotterley, as we know it today, was part of an original 1650 land grant of 4000 acres. In 1717, James Bowles constructed the original Mansion House. During the 18th century it was a thriving tobacco plantation, owned by the Plater family, and in the 19th century, under the Briscoe family, Sotterley continued as a plantation and busy steamboat landing. Records indicate a community of enslaved African Americans under James Bowles through the Plater era of the 18th century. In the 19th century the estate contained one of the largest communities of enslaved African Americans in southern Maryland. Today the plantation is maintained as an example of a tidewater plantation on the banks of the Patuxent River. Remarkably, thanks to descendant Agnes Kane Callum, there is a great deal of documented information available on her enslaved family members, as well as on the plantation's owners. In the 18th century George Plater III, Maryland’s 6th Governor, advertised as runaways: Towerhill (Maryland Gazette, Feb 16, 1786) and Clem (Maryland Gazette Dec. 2, 1784). In the 19th century, George Briscoe escaped servitude at Sotterley to join the US Colored Troops.

Frederick Douglass Driving Tour of Talbot County
25 S. Washington Street
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. He Later escaped and became one of the leading Americans in the Abolition Movement. His eloquent words inspired many whites to work on the Underground Railroad. This self-guided tour of Talbot County gives the visitor an overview of Frederick Douglass's early life.It was here that he learned what it meant to be a slave and that it was possible to escape. The tour includes the Freeland Farm.Douglass's Aunt Jenny and Uncle Noah successfully escaped from the farm in 1825.Douglass himself attempted to escape in 1836, but was arrested and taken to the jail in Easton.The site of this jail is also on the tour, although the current building is from a later date. Visitors can drive by fourteen sites associated with Frederick Douglass's life.They can see the landscape of vast plantations that were economical only if worked by unpaid labor.They can walk on the grounds of the courthouse where Douglass was held prisoner and many years later returned to give a lecture.

Jacob and Hannah Leverton House
3531 Seaman Road
The nominated site was the home of Jacob and Hannah Leverton, Quakers. As agents of the Underground Railroad [UGRR], Jacob and Hannah Leverton sheltered freedom seekers. Near the division line between Caroline and Dorchester Counties, their first-quarter 19th century brick dwelling was located on several hundred contiguous acres of land. In 1898, William T. Kelley claimed that the Leverton home was “the main stopping place for the UGRR in the area.” Jacob Leverton helped a battered young girl escape her pursuers before they appeared at his farm, demanding an explanation for her disappearance. In January 1858, after exposure of their UGRR activities, Jacob’s son, Arthur, and free-black neighbor, Daniel Hubbard, had to flee their homes to evade retaliation by an angry mob. Kelley and his Quaker father, Jonah, described by his son as “a strong anti-slavery man,” harbored unnumbered refugees on Jonah’s land composed of several hundred acres west and south of Leverton. During the 1840s and 1850s, free-blacks bought small farms along the north side of the road between the two counties. In effect, this area near Preston was a haven of a thousand acres stretching nearly a mile along the bi-county road, largely owned by people who were sympathetic to the riddance of institutionalized slavery.

Grantham and Forrest Farm
31245 Chesterville Bridge Rd, Millington, MD, 21651
31245 Chesterville Bridge Road
Grantham and Forrest Farm is the site of escape from enslavement by Benjamin Tillotson (Abram Tilison). The plantation, located in Kent County, Maryland, was owned by Samuel Jarman. Tillotson ran away from Jarman in 1857, during a religious camp-meeting, because he was afraid he would be sold to Georgia upon the death of his master. Tillotson traveled north on the Underground Railroad, hiding in barns and coming close to being captured. He made it to Philadelphia where his account was recorded by William Still and sent on to St. Catharines, Ontario. While in Canada he became an active member of his community and his life story was recorded by a neighboring white man, Fred Parnell. This case highlights many elements of the Underground Railroad and the abolition movement. Still's account and Tillotson's own describe Jarman differently. Still protrays Jarman as an abusive and unsympathetic slaveholder, while Tillotson describes him as a lenient and good-natured man. Still needed to publicize the evils of slavery, and his treatment of Jarman is the result of his anti-slavery agenda. Tillotson's own description gives us an unprecedented account as to what life was like for slaves in Kent County.

Gorsuch Tavern
15910 York Rd, Sparks Glencoe, MD, 21152
15910 York Road
At "19 Mile Stone" on York Road built in 1810 by Capt. Joshua Gorsuch, a shipbuilder. The Tavern was the meeting place of the Baltimore contains who went to Pennsylvania to reclaim their slaves, thus bringing on the Christiana Riot of 1851.
The Gorsuch Tavern, also called Gorsuch Homestead, is in Verona, Baltimore County, Maryland. In 1851, the tavern was the gathering place where various Gorsuch relatives met and set off for Christiana in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to recapture enslaved African Americans from the Edward Gorsuch place, “Retreat Farm,” across the road and west of the tavern. It is the best site in Baltimore County to commemorate the story of a significant escape from slavery and the effort of a master to recapture his bondsmen by force. This confrontation resulted in a celebrated trial in Philadelphia that inflamed the tensions already existing between north and south after the compromise of 1850. With the aid of the U. S. Deputy Marshal, the Gorsuch party tracked down the whereabouts of the runaways in Christiana. When the Gorsuch party arrived in Christiana, they encountered armed resistance to taking the freedom seekers back to Maryland; at an obviously planned signal, a biracial group came to the rescue of the freedom seekers and their host. In the ensuing fracas on the stairway of a farmhouse hideaway on September 9, Edward Gorsuch was killed and Dickinson (his son) was wounded.

Jane C. Sween Library
111 W Montgomery Ave, Rockville, MD, 20850
111 W Montgomery Avenue
The Mountgomery County Historical Society's (MCHS) Jane C. Sween Library serves as a repository for government and family records and a research facility for private and public researchers. MCHS government and family records include materials that are invaluable for understanding the history of the Underground Railroad (UGRR) in Montgomery Co. and MD, and they also serve as important sources for state and local African-American history. County antebellum tax lists, probate records, and census records reveal much about the patterns of slaveholding in Montgomery Co. and establish social and cultural context for UGRR. The MCHS collection of county newspapers record fugitive slave notices, sales of bondsmen, and other related information. Local African-American authors and genealogists have provided books, manuscripts, and oral histories which enhance the collections. MCHS has used these sources to create a teaching unit on UGRR for 5th and 6th graders. The library is open to the public and research assistance is avaialable through www.montgomeryhistory.org. The print collections are indexed and available through the public library's online catalogue.

Experience Harriet Tubman and the UGRR by Land
4303 Bucktown Road
The Experience Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad by Land is a twelve mile, three hour biking tour offering visitors the opportunity to experience and learn about the life of Harriet Tubman and historic details of the Underground Railroad on the very landscapes where these events happened and where the people lived. Come to
Dorchester County , Maryland , birthplace and childhood home of Harriet Tubman, and experience the land by riding on Trek 7 speed bicycles. The tour focuses on the greater Bucktown and Little Blackwater Bridge area near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, where Tubman spent portions of her childhood and young adulthood. Learn of the plight of the people of the county in the 1800's and the flights to freedom of those able and brave enough to flee. Hear the stories told by a family who has lived in the county since the mid 1600's. The agricultural and water landscapes feature historic sites directly related to Harriet Tubman and her family, and the lives of several freedom seekers fleeing this part of the County during the early to mid nineteenth century.

Banneker-Douglass Museum
84 Franklin Street
The Banneker-Douglass Museum preserves, documents, and exhibits the historical and cultural experiences of African Americans in Maryland. It is named in recognition of two key African-American figures in Maryland history: Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) and Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). Frederick Douglass was a significant leader in the Underground Railroad. He escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist and orator of his time. In addition to offering interpretive program information about Frederick Douglass, the Museum's permanent exhibit entitled "Deep Roots, Rising Waters: A History of African Americans in Maryland" includes special coverage of two other prominent Marylanders involved in the Underground Railroad: James W.C. Pennington and Harriet Tubman. The Museum is administered by the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture. A major goal of both the Museum and the Commission is to encourage an understanding and appreciation of African-American history and culture through research, publications, programming, and public education for the benefit of Maryland students, the general public, and future generations. The Museum is Maryland's official repository of African-American material culture.

Marietta House
5626 Bell Station Rd, Glenn Dale, MD, 20769
5626 Bell Station Road
Marietta, pre-Civil War home of Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court Gabriel Duvall (1811-1834) and subsequently his heirs, was a profitable plantation dependent on its enslaved labor. This building is open to the public as Marietta House Museum.

Shawnee Old Fields Village Site
City
Shawnee Old Fields Village existed in Allegany County, MD, at the confluence of the North and South branches of the Potomac River, strategically located along the Great North-South [Indian] Warriors Path. It is associated with the Underground Railroad during the occupation of the Shawnee Indians at King Opessa's Town and neighboring towns from about 1711 to 1727; the Shawnee offered a refuge to freedom seekers. The Governor of VA offered a bounty of a gun and two blankets for each runaway returned by a Shawnee. The Governor of MD met with Indian traders in Annapolis and sent Charles Anderson to negotiate the return of runaways who were living at various towns on the Potomac. For the two governors, the resolution came when the Indians abandoned their towns on the upper Potomac River, probably to return to the Ohio River Valley.

David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies
225 Nonotuck Street
The David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and UGRR Studies houses a growing archive of approximately 3000 pages of reproductions of nineteenth century newspaper articles, recollections, booklets, and maps relating to the Garrisonian abolitionists who founded the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. The NAEI admitted self-emancipated slaves as members. David Ruggles, an active UGRR agent in NYC in the 1830s, was a member of the NAEI, as was Sojourner Truth. The archives include materials documenting the UGRR activity of evangelical abolitionists and Liberty and Free Soil partisans. The NAEI sold property to evangelical fugitive assistant J. P. Williston. At his Greenville Manufacturing Company he provided work for fugitive slaves. Through his efforts and the multiracial attitudes fostered by the NAEI, Florence became ten percent African American by 1850. The David Ruggles Center library includes books on UGRR and Abolition from along the Connecticut River. Exhibits of high quality reproductions of documents describe individuals and movements of the era through cooperative relationships with facilities such as the Sophia Smith Collection and Historic Northampton.

Mount Auburn Cemetery
580 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge, MA, 02138
580 Mount Auburn Street
Mount Auburn Cemetery is the final resting place of abolitionists and figures associated with the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers Harriet Jacobs and John Jacobs each published a narrative about their escape from enslavement in order to gain support for the abolitionist movement. The monument of Peter Byus tells the story of another freedom seeker. Charles Torrey aided the escape of runaways through Baltimore on their journey to freedom. Caterer Joshua Bowen Smith employed freedom seekers and kept them safely hidden from bounty hunters passing through Boston. Abolitionist George Luther Stearns often hid runaways at his Medford, MA farm. Stearns and abolitionist Samuel Gridely Howe were two members of the “Secret Six,” a group of men who secretly financed the activities of abolitionist John Brown prior to Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Senator Charles Sumner began his political career as an outspoken defender of the abolitionist movement and sparked political controversy with his speeches against the Fugitive Slave Act. Amos Adams Lawrence helped to support the anti-slavery movement by providing funds to settle Kansas as a free territory. Notable authors James Russell Lowell, Maria Lowell, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Pierpont supported the anti-slavery movement through their writings.

Nathan and Polly Johnson House
21 7th Street
The Nathan and Polly Johnson House at 21 Seventh Street, New Bedford, Massachusetts was designated as a National Historical Landmark in 2000. This site played a significant role as a station on the Underground Railroad. The 21 Seventh Street home of Nathan and Mary (Polly) was not only the first home of fugitive Frederick Douglass and his wife, after his 1838 escape from slavery. The house is documented to have housed at least one other fugitive slave and is purported to have been a haven for many others. Douglass’ intellect and temperament surely inclined him toward anti-slavery work, but Nathan Johnson and New Bedford provided him an example and opportunity to grow into one of the most effective and renowned abolitionists of his time. Frederick Douglass was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and had begun to use the surname, Johnson when he arrived in New Bedford in September of 1838 and Nathan Johnson persuaded him to choose a less common name. Nathan Johnson was reading Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott and suggested he adopt the name, Douglas(s) after the lead character in the book.

Museum of Springfield History
21 Edwards Street
Springfield was a hub of Underground Railroad activity for people escaping slavery by traveling north through the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts. Aella Greene's series of articles in the Springfield Republican newspaper, drawn from primary sources of 1900 documented some of that activity. The Springfield History Library & Archives is replete with artifacts, primary source documents, and research materials related to the issues of slavery, abolition, John Brown, the League of Gileadites, and the UGRR in western Massachusetts.

Tappan-Philbrick House
182 Walnut St, Brookline Town Of, MA, 02445
182 Walnut Street
The Tappan-Philbrick House is a large granite single-family house located at 182 Walnut Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. It is reported that it was here that William and Ellen Craft hid after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in November 1851. Samuel Philbrick was one of Brookline’s first and most active abolitionists. He was also the treasurer of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

Wayside
174 Liberty St, Concord Town Of, MA, 01742
174 Liberty Street
This building was the childhood home of Louisa May Alcott, the author of the 1868 classic Little Women. Her family included Judge Samuel Sewall, who wrote an early anti-slavery tract, "The Selling of Joseph," and her brother, Samuel J. May was a founder of The American Anti-Slavery Society and a conductor on the Underground Railroad. This site is operated as part of Minute Man National Historical Park.

Joshua Bowen Smith House
79 Norfolk Street
The Joshua Bowen Smith House is significant for its association with one of Massachusetts’s most noteworthy abolitionists. Smith, a mulatto, is believed to have arrived in Boston from Philadelphia in 1836 and quickly became involved in abolitionist activities as well as an officer in all three of Boston’s vigilance committees. Employed as a waiter at the Mount Washington House, Smith encountered notable figures, such as Charles Sumner, Francis Gould Shaw, William Lloyd Garrison, and Theodore Parker. By the late 1840’s Smith established his own successful catering business in which he employed and harbored numerous fugitives and kept a watchful eye on slave agents in Boston. Smith became a confidant of Sumner and assisted him in raising funds to erect a monument to Massachusetts 54th Regiment, as well as advising him on drafting the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He was elected to the state legislature in 1873. Smith purchased the Cambridge house in 1852 and resided there with his wife, Emeline, until his death in 1879.

An Impressive Lesson for My Children (Minuteman National Historical Park)
455 Lexington Rd, Concord Town Of, MA, 01742
455 Lexington Road
The enormous worldwide popularity of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, makes the Alcotts very eloquent spokespersons for any cause that they advocated. The living history presentation "An Impressive Lesson for My Children", connects the Alcotts personally to Abolition and the leaders of the Abolition movement and sends a powerful message to any audience. This is particularly true for young people, since the Alcott sisters were children in this house. At the Wayside, the impact, especially of the living history program, is increased by the fact that you are at the site where the family is known to have sheltered freedom seekers. To a less vivid degree, but also important, is the information conveyed on slavery and abolition at The Wayside on a tour of the house or an educational program.

Longfellow National Historic Site
105 Brattle Street
One of the strengths of Longfellow National Historic Site, the extensive archives, manuscripts and photograph collection provides a rare opportunity to view eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century American history through the eyes of multiple generations of the Longfellow, Appleton, Dana and Wadsworth families. Various family members were actively involved in or were firsthand witnesses to the Revolutionary, Barbary and Civil Wars; nineteenth century American art, theater and literary culture, and politics; world travel; and social movements such as abolition, women’s education, historic preservation and socialism. In addition, the collection illuminates the daily lives of the house’s occupants with great immediacy; outlines the history and use of objects (now in the museum collections) acquired by the Longfellow family and documents changes to the structures and grounds. Longfellow NHS is associated with the Underground Railroad through Henry W. Longfellow’s financial contributions to freedom seekers, purchase of freedom seekers and court cases involving freedom seekers.

Sergeant William H. Carney House
128 Mill Street
The house at 128 Mill Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was the home of Sergeant William H. Carney (1840-1908).Sergeant William H. Carney and his father, William H. Carney Sr., became the most well-known Norfolk fugitives in New Bedford. In 1857, William H. Carney Sr. escaped from Norfolk, Virginia and came to New Bedford.William H. Carney Jr. escaped to New Bedford in 1859.Here young Carney spent the greater part of the remainder of his life. On March 4, 1863, Carney, along with forty-six other blacks from New Bedford, enrolled in Company C of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment to take part in the Civil War. The Massachusetts 54th Regiment, instituted under Governor John A. Andrew in 1863, was the first black unit to be raised in the north. This regiment was shipped to South Carolina on May 18, 1863. Carney's action during the battle at Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863 earned him honorable recognition. He protected and displayed the flag throughout the battle after the standard bearer fell. When he returned the flag to the remaining members of his regiment he said: "Boys I only did my duty, the old flag never touched the ground." On May 23, 1900, Sergeant William H. Carney was finally recognized. He became the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Union assault on Fort Wagner. After his honorable discharge on June 30, 1864 he returned to New Bedford. He lived in the house at 128 Mill Street from 1870 until his death in 1908. New Bedford honors the memory of Carney in preserving his house.

Joseph Story House
26 Winter Street
In the pivotal case of the U.S. v. The Armistad, Story ruled for the majority in 1841. By considering the slaves to be kidnapped Africans, illegally detained and restrained, Justice Story held they were not considered as pirates or the lawful property of a slaveholder. Because the slaves had been illegally seized and transported, their actions regain their freedom by taking control of the ship were justified as self-defense in spite of the resulting death of the captain. Justice Story ordered the Africans to be freed and allowed to return to their homeland.

Hart and Mary Leavitt House
1594 Mohawk Trl, Charlemont Town Of, MA, 01339
1593 Mohawk Trail, Route 2
The nominated element is a building – the Hart and Mary Leavitt house of Charlemont, Massachusetts. Throughout its history a private home, the site was from 1840 until his death, the home of Hart Leavitt (1808 - 1881). Written history of Wilbur Seibert references private letters that indicate Hart Leavitt was an operator on the Underground Railroad, and received runaway slaves at his home, assisting their safe passage to freedom. Other members of the Leavitt family were also active in the abolition movement. Father Roger Leavitt, was a wealthy landowner, active in public service, and an ardent abolitionist. Roger Hooker Leavitt, a brother, also of Charlemont, provided a home for 5 years to Basil Dorsey, a runaway slave who came to Charlemont through abolitionist connections sometime around 1838. Another brother Joshua Leavitt of New York, was editor of the New York and then Boston based abolitionist publication, the Emancipator, and also assisted the passage of Basil Dorsey to Charlemont. The Leavitt family played a significant but by no means solitary role in the active anti-slavery movement in the Town of Charlemont and Franklin County.

Massachusetts Historical Society
1154 Boylston Street,
Over more than two centuries, the Massachusetts Historical Society has amassed more than 3,500 collections of personal, family, and institutional papers, including more than 2,200 diaries together with supporting collections of books, pamphlets, maps, newspapers, photographers, and artifacts-an essential source for the study of early America that places the story of the Underground Railroad in historical context. Founded in 1791, only a few years after the end of slavery in Massachusetts, the MHS collected and preserved contemporary materials-broadsides, flyers, pamphlets, and especially manuscript records of the lives of individuals, families, and organizations throughout the Antebellum period. Two online collections are of great interest to the Underground Railroad Network: African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts and Images of the Antislavey Movement in Massachusetts.

New Bedford Free Public Library
613 Pleasant Street
The New Bedford Free Public Library in New Bedford, MA, was established on July 20, 1852. This facility is a local history and genealogy library. The Art Room and Special Collection sections of the main library hold most of the material related to the Underground Railroad.

National Archives and Records Administration, Northeast Region Boston
380 Trapelo Road
The National Archives Northeast Region - Boston is the repository for official U.S. government historical records for the New England States. These holdings date from the founding of the early national government and contain details on the actions and decisions of government officials and include records related to slavery and the status of blacks in America. The court and customs records document the Atlantic slave trade; additional federal court records include cases related to fugitive slaves. Among these records are the famous cases of La Amistad and the Shadrack Minkins fugitive slave case. Less famous, yet of great significance are additional fugitive slave cases and customs records documenting human cargo and contemporary sentiment. The military records of the Mass 54th and 55th Volunteer (Colored) Regiments and the records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands on micofilm extend the documentation of this aspect of African American history into the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Discovering New Bedford’s Underground Railroad History (New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park) [Program]
33 William Street
An estimated 300 - 700 escaped slaves lived in New Bedford between the mid -1840s and 1860. New Bedford was attractive to escaping slaves from the south for many reasons. The whaling industry made the city both wealthy and in constant need of labor. The city was an active part of a coastal trading system that regularly traded manufactured goods for raw goods in southern ports—providing opportunities for escaping slaves to stow away amid ships’ cargoes. Quakers, who controlled the city’s political and economic life into the 1820s, had taken an early stand against slavery and helped build anti-slavery sentiment in New Bedford. The city also had a large population of color that was very involved in anti-slavery activity since at least the 1820s. Discovering New Bedford’s Underground Railroad History takes park visitors on a mile journey from New Bedford’s waterfront, through the cobblestone streets of the historic district and to the first free home of Frederick Douglass after his escape from slavery in 1838. The program explores the alluring factors that contributed to New Bedford becoming a haven for escaped slaves and uncovers some of the untold stories from our nation’s past.

Dorsey-Jones House
191 Nonotuck Street
The Basil Dorsey / Thomas H. Jones House in the Florence section of Northampton, Massachusetts, was the home of two fugitives from American slavery. The escapes of both are fully documented and were also well known in their own time. While in national terms Jones was by far the more prominent in abolitionist circles, Dorsey affiliated himself in Florence with the founders of a utopian community that opposed the slave system in word and deed and both sheltered and otherwise assisted fugitives from that system. After the community dissolved in 1846, Dorsey bought land from one of its founders and had this vernacular Greek Revival-style house built upon it. After selling the house in 1852, he remained in Florence for the rest of his life. Two years later, the wife of fugitive orator and Methodist minister Thomas H. Jones bought the house for their family while he continued on the abolitionist lecture circuit; the family remained there until 1859. No other property associated with Jones is known to survive.

William Ingersoll Bowditch House
9 Toxteth St, Brookline Town Of, MA, 02445
9 Toxteth Street
The site being nominated is a single-family house located at 9 Toxteth Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. It was built in 1844-45 as part of an early suburban development of Thomas Aspinwall Davis, a one-time mayor of Boston. The house was bought by William Ingersoll Bowditch who became a leading abolitionist in the Boston anti-slavery movement. Number 9 Toxteth was the site of local abolitionist meetings as well as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers and the son of John Brown were secreted here on their way to freedom. Bowditch helped form the Boston Vigilance Committee on October 15, 1850. Bowditch, along with his friend Philbrick, was the most avid abolitionist in Brookline. Neither voted, except for the town offices, not agreeing with the Constitution. Bowditch, unable to support the Constitution, resigned his office of United States Commissioner. Mr. Bowditch also hosted the Smith Colored School of Boston at his Toxteth house.

Roger Hooker and Keziah Leavitt House
Route 2, Academy at Charlemont
The Roger Hooker (1805 – 1855) and Keziah Leavitt site is today a building on the campus of the Academy at Charlemont. Corroborating written histories indicate the site, served for 5 years as safe haven for Basil Dorsey, a runaway slave from Maryland (and defendant in one of notorious fugitive slave cases in history). Other members of the Leavitt family were also active in the abolition movement. Father Roger Leavitt, was a wealthy landowner, active in public service, and an ardent abolitionist. Brother Hart Leavitt was an operator on the Underground Railroad, and received runaway slaves at his home, assisting their safe passage to freedom. Another brother Joshua Leavitt of New York, was editor of the New York and then Boston based abolitionist publication, the Emancipator, and also assisted the passage of Basil Dorsey to Charlemont. Documentation supports both that Basil Dorsey, his wife Louisa, and their 2 children came to the Leavitt home through abolitionist connections sometime around 1838. Though Basil’s wife Louisa (and Keziah Leavitt as well) died in November 1838, records indicate Basil Dorsey continued to live with Roger Hooker Leavitt and his next wife Eliza (sister to Keziah) until moving to Florence, Massachusetts in 1844.

Resisting for Justice: The African Meeting House and the Rescue of Shadrach Minkins (Boston African American National Historic Site)
14 Beacon Street
This hour long educational program relies on the use of role cards to reenact Boston’s response to slavery in general, and the capture of Shadrach Minkins, the first slave caught in the city after the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, in particular. Geared towards third and fifth grade students and presented in the African Meeting House, this program introduces students to the major shapers of the Underground Railroad as well as the Abolition Movement in Boston and throughout the country. Divided into three groups, the students portray Early Influences of the Abolition Movement, Operatives on the Underground Railroad, and Black Bostonians living on Beacon Hill. These three vignettes are tied together through the use of a narrative of Shadrach’s escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad, to his capture in Boston, and his dramatic courthouse rescue by local black and white abolitionists. This interactive program helps to connect students to the major themes of the Underground Railroad and the Abolition Movement in the city and stresses the crucial role of resisting for justice in our nation’s history.

Poets, Shoemakers, and Freedom Seekers (Salem Maritime National Historic Site)
160 Derby Street
Essex county in the 19th century was the home to many abolitionists who actively sought the end of slavery and took the risk of providing shelter and transportation for those runaways entering the county seeking to live as free people. Blacks and whites worked together to secretly assist freedom seekers and fought slavery publicly through formal societies, meetings, lectures and publications. Well documented areas and people involved in the UGRR in MA were identified by Professor Wilber Siebert in his 1936 book of the same name. Salem Maritime NHS staff and community members sought verification and solicitation for new information within Essex county. The information culminated in the 2005 publication which visually identified those sites extant today. Poets, Shoemakers and Freedom Seekers was created to accompany the publication. The program highlights the work of significant people and freedom seekers who traveled through Essex county.

Jackson House and Museum
527 Washington Street
The Jackson Homestead, Newton’s Museum and Historical Society, is a well-preserved 1809 Federal-style house on the National Register of Historic Places. Corroborating written reminiscences and oral tradition, preserved in the museum’s collections, provide evidence for the Homestead’s role as a station on the Underground Railroad in the mid-nineteenth century. Members of the Jackson family, including William and his brother Francis, were active participants in the abolition movement in the Boston area. The house was donated to the city of Newton in 1949 by a Jackson descendant and opened as a museum in 1950. As a nationally accredited museum today, the Homestead offers a wide range of public programs and exhibitions including interpretive ongoing and annual programs on the Underground Railroad and abolition. The Jackson Homestead is a site on the National Underground Railroad Millennium Trail and is included in the Library of Congress’ Local Legacies Project as an Underground Railroad site.

Mount Clare
1500 Washington Blvd, Baltimore, MD, 21230
1500 Washington Boulevard
Mount Clare was built over 250 years ago on a hill overlooking the Patapsco River and Baltimore, MD, by Charles Carroll, Barrister. Today it is surrounded by the 30-acre Carroll Park; but it was once the hub of an agricultural plaantation of 800 acres and one of the largest industrial complexes in America, the Baltimore Iron Works. Over 200 enslaved African Americans worked for Carroll at the Baltimore Iron Works or at the Mount Clare plantation. In the last half of the 18thc, there are at least 4 documented instances of freedom seekers escaping from these sites. MD's enslaved individuals had an uncommonly good setting for attempting escapes. For the Carrolll's enslaved workforce an escape route via Baltimore was literally at their back door, only 5 miles distant. Baltimore's location, just over 40 miles from PA induced many freedom seekers to travel there in an effort to make their way to the free states. Many othersr stayed, finding employment in the businesses and industries in the city and shelter with Baltimor's large free African American community.

Isaac Henry Wright, Sr., Farm Site/Escape of 4 men with Harriet Tubman
4042 Baker Rd, East New Market, MD, 21631
4042 Baker Road
In April 1856, Harriet Tubman arrived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, hoping to rescue her sister Rachel and Rachel‘s children. Unable to do so, Tubman was informed by the mother of another freedom seeker she had helped escape sometime before that four enslaved men laboring in Dorchester County, MD, were ready to leave with her instead. It was a long and difficult trip, with slave catchers hot on their trail. UGRR agent Sydney Gay of New York City, wrote that “Captain Tubman” had arrived safely with her charges on May 14th. The four men had come from ”the same neighborhood,” that is, “Cabin Creek” outside of East New Market along the Choptank River. Benjamin Jackson and James Coleman had both been enslaved by Isaac Henry Wright, whose plantations included some of the largest peach farms on the Eastern Shore. The third freedom seeker, Henry Hopkins, was enslaved by John Houston, also from East New Market/Secretary, and the fourth, William A. Connoway [aka Cook], was enslaved by Levin Hodson. Tubman had led them safely to New Castle, Delaware, but the relentless slave catchers eager for the high rewards for their capture slowed them down, forcing them to stay hidden for
several days. Thomas Garrett in Wilmington, DE, was able to finally forward them to William Still, UGRR agent in Philadelphia. Still noted their arrival and forwarded them onto Gay who sent them onto Syracuse. They arrived in Canada, settling among other freedom seekers they knew. The nominated site, the Kral Farm, remains intact and includes nearly about one-half of the original and larger farm estate of Isaac Henry Wright, from whom Jackson and Coleman fled.

Old Jail of St. Mary's County
11 Courthouse Drive
Built in 1858, this building was used as a jail until 1942. Today, it is the repository of St. Mary's County Historical Society. It also serves as a county visitor information center. The Jail plays a central role in the story of slavery and flights to freedom in St. Mary’s County. It was common for runaways to be held in a public jail until their owner retrieved them or they were sold for cost of care. “Some masters were accustomed to have committed to the jail by magistrates such slaves as were unruly or desirous of running away, or whom, for one reason or another, they desired to have in safe keeping.” At least five examples of runaway slaves being held in the jail can be found in the local newspaper The St. Mary’s Beacon.

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture
830 East Pratt Street
The Things Hold, Lines Connect permanent gallery at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture presents a program that features 200 years of Maryland slavery. A special emphasis is placed on the people and events related to Maryland's Underground Railroad. Its themes of survival against all odds; self-determination to reinforce commitment to one another; the importance of family bonds; and the formation and ties of communities through worship are conveyed with a provocative interplay of oral histories, imagery, music and sounds. The program's title is derived from a quote by poet Lucille Clifton in her 1976 poem entitled "Generations" -- "Things don't fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect in ways that last and last and lives become generations made out of pictures and words just kept." The emotionally charged program shows the poignant difference between those blacks who were free and those who were not. Runaways and other heroes of Maryland's Underground Railroad from throughout the state are featured in the program gallery. They include Josiah Henson, Samuel Denson, Charles Ball, William Parker, Ann Marie Weems, Thomas Smallwood, James Pennington, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

Maryland’s Network to Freedom Map and Guide
401 E Pratt Street
The Underground Railroad: Maryland's Network to Freedom is a map guide for exploring the official Network to Freedom sites, programs, and facilities throughout Maryland. The guide interprets the significance of over 30 attractions, facilities, museums, guided tours, and historic sites, providing information on how to locate and visit each site. The Underground Railroad: Maryland's Network to Freedom also defines whose dependence upon slavery was linked to a changing agricultural and maritime economy. Here, freedom seekers' experiences were much different compared to those in the Deep South. The adubdance of waterways provided both an escape route and barrier to potential fugitives. Through compelling narrative and ecocative full-color graphics, this guide answers critical questions, such as: What is the Underground Railroad and why did it exist here? Who were these ordinary people who paved the path to freedom? How did the enslaved seek and gain freedom in a border state? Where did people go once they left Maryland? How was the Chesapeake Bay used by both freedom seekers and slave catchers during the quest for freedom? Heritage travelers, scholars, teachers, and students will discover how ordinary people in a southern slaveholding community faced extraordinary challenges to help others secure their freedom.

Dorchester County Courthouse
206 High Street
The Dorchester County Courthouse, located in the port town of Cambridge, MD, was the site of several significant incidents in the story of the UGRR in Dorchester Co. In 1850, Kessiah Jolley Bowley and her 2 children escaped from the slave auction block in front of the courthouse. In 1857, free black preacher and UGRR agent Rev. Samauel Green was put on trial in the courthouse for providing a safe house for runaways, and for owning a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Later in 1858, Hugh Hazlitt was tried and convicted here for assisting enslaved Africans in escaping in violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. During the trial, Hazlitt's case received national attention and was reported in the New York Tribune on Aug. 7, 1858. The Bowleys' escape is also of national significance, for it was the first time that Harriet Tubman, a nationally known conductor on the UGRR, helped others on their flight to freedom.

Belle Vue
In August 1855, Phebe Myers, a free black spinner residing on Maryland's Eastern Shore in eastern Queen Anne's County, helped seven enslaved individuals seek freedom. Newspaper accounts state that the party included her "children and grandchildren". Their slave holder was Richard Bennett Carmichael, residing at Belle Vue near Wye Island, who had manumitted "Phebe" at the end of 1839. The fugitives were apprehended and Phebe Myers was indicted on seven counts of "harboring and assisting slaves to run away." In December 1855, in an era of increasingly harsh punishment for accomplices, Judge Philemon B. Hopper sentenced her to more than 42 years in prison - at age 52, a life sentence. Queen Anne's County leaders, including Hopper and Carmichael, successfully petitioned the Governor for her pardon in May 1856. As Judge Hopper's successor (1858), Carmichael is important in Maryland's Civil War History, a "States' Rights Democrat" summarily hauled from his bench, beaten, and imprisoned by the Union for treason. This case illustrates the complicated nature of relations among slave holders, their servants in bondage, and free African Americans. The site nominated is a mid-nineteenth century property where Carmichael and the seven fugitives resided and where Carmichael is buried.

Thornton Poole House
Glissans Mill Road
The Thornton Poole House near Linganore, Frederick Co., MD, is a significant site in the history of the UGRR for the escape of 12 members of the enslaved Aldridge family over several years in the 1850s. William Still, the famous abolitionist and UGRR conductor, recorded their story as told by two family members and a friend upon arriving in Philadelphia in 1857. The Aldridge family's story expresses the motivations for escaping from slavery, particularly the fear of being sold away from one's family and loved ones. Their story furthermore contributes to understanding the regional history of UGRR in mid-MD and the Upper South. Considering that Thornton Poole apparently did not replace the escaped persons, the Aldridge family's decision to support escapes had an important impact.

Joseph Cornish’s Escape from Gilpin’s Point
Gilpin’s Point Road and Holly Park Drive
This nomination is the story of Joseph Cornish who escaped on a vessel from Gilpin's Point, one of the busiest wharves along the Choptank River in Caroline County, Maryland. (Gilpin's Point is now a small public park with a soft landing) He stopped in Philadelphia and gave his story to William Still, the greatest recorder of slave narratives.Still offered him food and rest and sent him on to New York and then Canada.
As represented by Cornish's escape, the Choptank River was an important pathway and barrier for freedom seekers making their way from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to freedom in states to the north and Canada.The sixty-eight mile long river, from its headwaters near the Delaware border in Caroline county to the Chesapeake Bay bordering Dorchester and Talbot counties, was the site of hundreds of escape attempts - some successful, others unsuccessful in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.Using their maritime skills, relying on the aid of other mariners, or secreting themselves aboard vessels sailing along the river, freedom seekers used a variety of resources to utilize the river as their means of escape from enslavement.

Camp Stanton, USCT
South Side Route 231
In August 1863, Camp Stanton was established in Benedict, MD, for the purposes of recruiting and training African American men for the Union Army. The 7th, 9th, 19th and 30th Colored Infantries were formed and trained at Camp Stanton. Existing muster and bounty rolls for the 7th Regiment reveal name, former owner, date of enrollment and the place of origin for the soldiers. The site is now owned by the Maryland Department of Resources. Current interpretation includes an African American heritage paddling trail along the Patuxent River. Information is available via the internet at www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/aapaxstanton

Roedown Farm
3856 Wayson Rd, Davidsonville, MD, 21035
3856 Wayson Road
Roedown Farm in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, is the birthplace and site of escape of William Parker. After his escape from enslavement, William Parker became famous as the leader of the Christiana Resistance of 1851 in Pennsylvania. Parker was born in the status of bondsman to William Brogden. His mother was a field hand and died when he was young. Parker escaped when he was about 17 years old.

Arthur Leverton Farm Site
3424 Gallagher Road
Arthur W. Leverton, a recently documented agent of the Underground Railroad, owned this property from 1848 until 1859. His farm was critical to what appears to have been a large refuge for fugitives from slavery - a target of 1,400 contiguous acres of land owned by Quakers and free blacks in the Preston area, one of whom was Arthur's father, Jacob.

Catoctin Center for Regional Studies
7932 Opossumtown Pike, Frederick, MD, 21702
7932 Opossumtown Pike
The Catoctin Center for Regional Studies researches the history of Mid-Maryland and the surrounding region. Several projects of the Center focus on Underground Railroad issues, including collecting copies of archival material, researching Freedmens [sic] Bureau activities in the region, field examination of area African-American churches/UGRR connections, researching the life of James W.C. Pennington, and sponsoring a conference with several UGRR-related papers.

Northampton Slave Quarters and Archaeological Park
Lake Overlook Drive
In 1673, Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, granted a 1000-acre tract of land to Thomas Sprigg. Named Northampton, this Prince George's County, Maryland, property was the home of the Sprigg Family and their servants and enslaved African Americans for nearly 200 years. Numerous descendants of slaves and tenants from Northamption still reside in Prince George's County, Maryland. Six clans can link their families to a common ancestor, Elizabeth Hawkins, who lived at Northampton during the 1800's. Northampton is associated with the Underground Railroad due to runaway ads appearing in two different Washington, D.C., newspapers. Osborn Sprigg, Jr., great-grandson to Thomas Sprigg, placed multiple runaway ads in The Centinel of Liberty for both "Charles" and "Bob" in 1800. Later, Samuel Sprigg, former Governor of Maryland and nephew to Osborn Sprigg, Jr., placed runaway ads in the Daily National Intelligencer for "Billy" and Clem" in 1815, "...Clem and his wife Sophy..." from 1817 to 1819, "Tom" and "Joe" in 1820, and "William" in 1836.

Port Tobacco Courthouse
Chapel Point Rd, Port Tobacco, MD, 20677
Chapel Point Road
Settled in 1634, Port Tobacco was once Maryland's second largest seaport. This was the site of the first county seat before it moved to the town of La Plata. This reconstructed courthouse is the trial site of two African Americans who were arrested for aiding in the flight of more than 30 armed freedom seekers from Southern Maryland in 1845. This building is a reconstruction of the county's second courthouse, built in 1819, which was destroyed by fire in 1892. The museum contains exhibits on tobacco and Civil War.

Experience Harriet Tubman and the UGRR by Sea II
4303 Bucktown Road
Experience Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad by Sea offers visitors the opportunity to experience and learn about the life of Harriet Tubman and historical details of the Underground Railroad on the very landscapes where these events happened and where the people lived, specifically along the river landscapes of the Transquaking River near Bucktown and Aireys in Dorchester County, Maryland.

William Chaplin Arrest Site
900 Jesup Blair Dr, Silver Spring, MD, 20910
900 Jessup Blair Drive
On August 8, 1850, a hired carriage was forcibley stopped in the middle of the Georgetown Pike (Georgia Avenue) at the DC-Maryland border by a Sheriff's posse from Washington, D.C. There was a gun fight. The carriage, driven by William Chaplin, was carrying two men attempting to escape from enslavement respectively owned by two Southern Congressmen. Chaplin was arrested and the bondsmen recovered. William Chaplin was an Underground Railroad operative who had come to DC in 1845. He was associated with the Liberty party and the Albany Vigilance Committee. He is known to have aided African Americans, both free and enslaved, in legal endeavors and in escaping to freedom. Since there was originally some dispute over whether the arrest took place in DC or in Maryland, Chaplin was imprisoned in Washington for six weeks and released on $6000 bond. He was subsequently imprisoned in Rockville, Maryland, for 13 weeks and released on $19,000 bond. Chaplin left the area, forfeiting the bond, and never came to trial. The exact site of the arrest has been ascertained by the descriptions in the National Intelligencer article, the "Appeal" by the Chaplin Committee, and a visit to the site.

Catoctin Iron Furnace and Manor House Ruins
14039 Catoctin Hollow Rd, Thurmont, MD, 21788
14039 Catoctin Hollow Road
The Catoctin Iron Furnace represents a case of freedom seekers connected to industrial slavery in Maryland. The Johnson brothers built the Furnace and Manor House in the late 1770s, and began making iron in 1776. At that time, the Johnson brothers -- James, Thomas, Roger, and Baker, were the largest owners of enslaved persons in Frederick County, MD, and employed both additional enslaved labor and freemen as necessary to fill production orders. There is evidence of enslaved labor until at least 1848, and several of these workers were buried in a graveyard that was relocated due to construction of US Rt. 15 in the early 1970s. Period newspaper advertisements provide evidence of at least one freedom seeker in 1780, and of a kidnapping of a freeman's son by a Caucasian man in the 1800's. After the Johnsons retired from the iron industry, the Catoctin Iron Furnace went through several owners and technological changes and continued to operate until 1903. Today, the only remains of the facility are a large inoperable charcoal-fired stone furnace called "Isabella," a recreated casting shed, a large retaining wall, and the ruins of the Furnace Master's manor house.

Point Lookout State Park
11175 Point Lookout Rd, Scotland, MD, 20687
11175 Point Lookout Road
Point Lookout State Park is the location of 4 significant sites related to the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The first site is the location of a Civil War Hospital, Hammond Hospital. Hammond's nurses and doctors assisted with the flight of several MD bondsmen who were not protected by the Emancipation Proclamation. Abolitionist Abigail Hopper Gibbons protected and smuggled several slaves to freedom from here. The second site is the location of the contraband camp just outside the prison. Here thousands of runaway African Americans from VA took refuge in MD under the protection of Federal authorities who were not required to return them to their masters across the Potomac River. The third site is the location of the Prisoner of War Camp for Confederates where units of the USCT served as guards during the war. The irony of African Americans guarding their former masters was not lost on the Confederate prisoners and caused much unrest in the prison. The fourth site is a viewshed of Point Lookout Creek, where on April 15, 1848, a ship named The Pearl carrying 77 freedom seekers stopped to wait out a storm and as a consequence, the runaways were caught.

Southern Maryland Studies Center
8730 Mitchell Road
The College of Southern Maryland established the Southern Maryland Studies Center (SMSC) in 1976 in order to provide a central location for research on the historically important region of Southern Maryland. Students, faculty and staff, historians, genealogists, and the general public use SMSC's resources to study the culture and development of Calvert, Charles, St. Mary's and the southern areas of Anne Arundel and Prince George's Counties. Researchers will find state and federal census records, newspapers, colonial records, church records, and local and state records on microfilm to the early 20th century. The manuscript collections contain records of organizations, individuals and families from the 18th century to the present and provide insights into the economic, social, and political currents that shaped this region. The collection of print materials includes books, newspapers, photographs, slides and maps. Our oral history collection is comprised of over 300 interviews with people from all walks of life.

Mount Calvert Historical and Archaeological Park
16302 MT Calvert Rd, Upper Marlboro, MD, 20772
16302 Mt Calvert Road
Mount Calvert Historical and Archaeological Park, located along the Patuxent River in Upper Marlborough in Prince George's County, MD, is a 106-acre public park owned and administered by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. A late eighteenth century brick house and twentieth century barn are the only standing structures on the property. The park includes 76 acres of a tobacco plantation named Mount Calvert, depending on the labor of enslaved African Americans from the 1770s to the end of the Civil War. The plantation was owned by a series of planters, including John Brown and heirs (1774-1812), John Brookes (1835-1858), and Samuel Berry (1859-1871). Africans and African-Americans lived and worked at Mount Calvert from the late seventeenth century through the early twentieth century.

Belair Mansion
12207 Tulip Grove Drive
The Belair Mansion is the ca. 1745 Georgian brick plantation house of Maryland's colonial governor Samuel Ogle and his wife Anne Tasker Ogle. Over a century and a quarter of Ogles and Taskers made this their home, concluding in 1871. Inventories reveal that at least 50 bondsmen were at Belair at any period of time, and list names, ages, and sometimes occupation. We learn of individuals such as "Negro Pompey 56" worth 10 pounds in 1775, or "Cser, 25,hired to Mr Buchanan" and "Phyllis, too old to be worth anything" in 1815 or "Peggy & infant, infirm" for $40.75 and "Hercules, a carpenter" in 1844. Glimpses into the relationships of the owners ("Negores [sic] who have alliances at Belair....may be sold with wife and husband") contrast with slaves choosing their own destinies. In 1744 Governor Ogle's "Negro Joe...his cook" went off on a boat to Philadelphia. Shoemaker Tom was in 1775 "probably concealed...by some white people who make too familiar with my slaves." Liberated by soldiers in 1814, another "Tom" departed Belair with the British troops. "Dennis" with good teeth and whiskers ran off in 1852. This history of humans bound and humans seeking their freedom is told in the exhibit "African American Slaves at Belair."

Berry Farm
6411 Oxon Hill Road
TAt the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers in Prince George's County, Maryland, the Berry family cultivated crops on land purchased from the Addisons and the DeButts. Regardless of ownership, the back-breaking labor was done by enslaved workers. The Berry Farm (1308 acres) is gone, but the Berry fields still exist as part of Oxon Cove Park (234 acres) operated by the National Park Service. NPS was given responsibility for the area in 1967 and has operated a demonstration farm to educate the public. Wherever slavery exists, there will also be attempted flights to freedom. On the Berry farm, at least one person is known to have escaped. On December 5, 1840, Thomas Berry place an advertisement in the Daily National Intelligencer requesting information and/or the return of an enslaved person named Jacob Shaw. A second ad was placed by John Bayne (a neighboring farmer) seeking the return of Samuel Tyler, also an enslaved person who had fled at the same time as Shaw. Probably Shaw and Tyler fled together. Whether these men returned to slavery is not known. Given the location on the border of the District of Columbia, it was possible to escape and find shelter in the free black community of Washington, DC.

Underground Railroad Experience Trail Hike
16501 Norwood Rd, Sandy Spring, MD, 20860
16501 Norwood Road
The Rural Legacy: UGRR Experience is a 1.5 mile trail to be used as a self-guided hike through woods and fields that would recreate, at least in part, the experience of escaping on UGRR. The trail begins at a historic brick house built by a Quaker in 1800. The site has ample parking and is publicly owned. There is a unique stone barn near the house that will be a visitor center for the Montgomery County UGRR/Quaker Heritage Cluster. The trail ends at a stream that was used by farms on the outskirts of a Quaker town settled in the 1720s and named for the spring. As much as possible, the trail is made to resemble a trail in the early 1800s with native plants, natural surfaces, a replica wooden bridge over a creek, and no sign of modern life. The terrain includes woodlands, a steep descent to a creek, and a cultivated field. The trail is interpreted with a kiosk at the trailhead, modest signage, tour guides, and a handout. The trail is not handicapped-accessible, but is intended for use by all ages.

Riley House (Josiah Henson Park)
11420 Old Georgetown Rd, Rockville, MD, 20852
11420 Old Georgetown Road
The Riley House/Uncle Tom's Cabin is a historic resource of national and international significance because of its association with Josiah Henson, whose memoirs inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe's landmark novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The Riley tobacco farm was where Henson lived and worked as a enslaved African American from 1795 to 1830. The existing building is the 18th century Riley home with a log kitchen wing. Henson specifically describes this kitchen wing and his experience of sleeping in this room in his memoirs. Many of his experiences of living as a slave on the Riley property are vividly depicted in his memoirs and recreated in Stowe's novel. Henson eventually escaped to Canada, where he established a "fugitive slave" colony and became a speaker and writer. The impact of Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" cannot be underestimated. Published in 1852, it broke all sales records of the time and sold over half a million copies by 1857. It inspired and enflamed the abolitionist movement in the mid-19th Century and many believe it helped to propel the nation toward civil war.

Best Farm/L'Hermitage
4801 Urbana Pike
The Best Farm is a component of Monocacy National Battlefield, a major National Park Service Civil War battlefield site, located south of the city of Frederick in Frederick County, Maryland. The Best Farm is named for the tenant family who occupied it before and during the Civil War; however, it was once part of a 748-acre plantation known as L'Hermitage, which was established by the Vincendieres, a family of French planters from the Caribbean. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries L'Hermitage was home to the second-largest enslaved population in Frederick County, and documents indicate that the owners instituted a harsh form of slavery. Even after the Vincendieres sold the property, slavery continued to be practiced here. Given the inhumanity of slavery, historic research indicates that at L'Hermitage and the Best Farm, freedom seekers exercised personal agency by attempting to escape. The National Park Service has undertaken extensive historical and archeological studies, and as a result L'Hermitage is well-documented through land records, wills, newspaper advertisements, lawsuits, and census records. During the Vincendieres' tenure (50-90 bondsmen), there is documentation of runaway slaves. The names of the escaping men and dates of the runaway advertisements are: Phil (1795) and Jerry (1795). During the Best family's residence on the same site, there is a runaway advertisement for Lewis Owens (1850).

Finding a Way to Freedom Driving Tour
2 Rose Hill Drrive
Finding A Way To Freedom: The Underground Railroad in Dorchester and Caroline Counties in the 1850s, is a 105 mile self-guided driving tour, which takes visitors on a journey through nationally significant stories and landscapes associated with the life of the great Underground Railroad conductor, Harriet Tubman, and places associated with the Underground movement in Dorchester and Caroline counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Finding a Way to Freedom guides people to exhibits, homes and home sites, meeting houses, mills, courthouses, roads, churches, wharves, waterways, fields, forests, and other significant landscapes that relate to and illustrate the real life stories of the region’s own specific Underground Railroad, including the people who used it, operated it, and the those who sought to destroy it in the decade leading up to the Civil War. The tour guides visitors through a variety of natural environments that were both barriers and pathways to freedom. Through well documented stories and sites, the Finding A Way to Freedom tour helps visitors learn about the URR, Harriet Tubman, resistance to slavery, and African American history in the region, and discover how ordinary people in a southern slaveholding community faced extraordinary challenges to help others secure their freedom

Darnall’s Chance House Museum
14800 Governor Oden Bowie Dr, Upper Marlboro, MD, 20772
14800 Governor Oden Bowie Drive
Darnall’s Chance was opened to the public as a historic house museum in 1988 and is owned by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. The house was built in 1742 by James Wardrop, a Scottish immigrant, who amassed a fortune as a merchant and entrepreneur in the bustling 18th century port-town of Upper Marlborough, Maryland. Wardrop’s 20-acre residential complex included a substantial brick dwelling house and outbuildings, orchards, livestock and an ornamental garden. Throughout its history, the site has served as the town-home of many prominent tobacco merchants.
Darnall’s Chance is significant to Underground Railroad history because the site depended on the labor of enslaved African Americans for more than a century. Through runaway slave advertisements, historians have been able to identify eight enslaved individuals who ran away from Darnall’s Chance. John Hodges who owned Darnall’s Chance from 1799 until 1825 placed two runaway slave advertisements for a man named William and his wife Nancy who ran away from Darnall’s Chance in 1820. Horatio Scott who owned the house from 1832 until 1857 placed fourteen advertisements in the local newspapers calling for the capture of five individuals who ran away from Darnall’s Chance: Basil Duppin, Leander, Camilla Dent, Louisa and John Dent. Mr. Edward Grafton Washington Hall who purchased the house from his father-in-law Horatio Scott owned Darnall’s Chance from 1857 until 1899. He, too, placed an advertisement for the return of John Kettle in 1860.

Choptank River
The Choptank River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland is bordered by three counties: Dorchester, Caroline, and Talbot. This sixty-eight mile river served as a route and a barrier to freedom during the antebellum period. With its headwaters near the Delaware border, freedom seekers from the region could travel by boat or follow its banks northeast and be within fifty miles of the Pennsylvania line and freedom. Using their own maritime skills, relying on the aid of other mariners, or secreting themselves aboard vessels sailing along the river, freedom seekers used a variety of resources to utilize the river as their means of escape from slavery.

Frederick Douglass Freedom and Heritage Trail
The Frederick Douglass Heritage Trail and Underground Tour of Baltimore City is a guided tour through downtown Baltimore, east/west Baltimore and Fells Point Baltimore. The tour includes sites on Baltimore’s “Trail of Tears” including Slave jails, Underground railroad stations, sites associated with Baltimore abolitionists, the freedom movement and sites associated with Frederick Douglass who became an escapee and station master on the Underground Railroad. The tour includes interpretations, reenactments, character portrayals, lectures and stops at sites on the Baltimore Underground Railroad.

Adventures of Harriet Tubman and UGRR in Dorchester County
Adventures of Harriet Tubman and the UGRR in Dorchester County, Maryland step-on-guide tour guides people to exhibits, homes and home sites, meeting houses, mills, courthouses, roads, churches, wharves, waterways, fields, forests, and other significant landscapes that relate to and illustrate the real life stories of the region's own specific Underground Railroad, including the people who used it, operated it, and the those who sought to destroy it in the decade leading up to the Civil War.

In Their Steps
29 Courthouse Square
In Their Steps, a self-guided walking tour of sites in Rockville, Maryland, associated with the Underground Railroad (UGRR), tells the story of Rockville’s role as an active hub on a Southern route of the UGRR. As the county seat, Rockville is significant to the UGRR because of its geographical location, its mid-19th century demographic mix of free blacks and slaves, preservation of relevant sites, and the experiences of past residents who stood on various sides of enslavement issues. The tour begins at the 1891 Red Brick Courthouse, location of three previous county courthouses and jails, and the center of the slavery experience in Rockville. From there, the tour visits the homes of slaveholders who lost slaves to the UGRR, the stories of whom were chronicled by Philadelphia stationmaster William Still. Also included is the Robb’s Tavern site, where Josiah Henson, escaped slave turned abolitionist, was first brought to Rockville. In addition to stories of The Pearl Affair, and the real Uncle Tom’s Cabin told through local churches, burial grounds, museums and archives, our guides convey the story of lesser-known paths to freedom such as abduction, manumission, colonization, and escaped slaves who bought the freedom of family members.

Rockland
9030 Sharpsburg Pike, Fairplay, MD, 21733
9030 Sharpsburg Pike
Jim Pembroke's story, "The Fugitive Blacksmith," is one of the great slave narratives of American history. His autobiography has been called one of the ten most important slave narratives. In his narrative Pennington describes his early life on the Rockland estate and his escape from slavery in Maryland. Published in 1849, it went through three editions in eleven months, selling over 6000 copies. After his escape from his owner's Rockland estate in Washington Co., MD, at age 21, Pembroke changed his name to James William Charles Pennington, and, against all odds, became one of the most distinguished and respected nineteenth-century African American leaders. He became a minister in Presbyterian churches in New York and Hartford, was elected a delegate to several international abolition conventions, wrote one of the first histories of Africans in America in 1841, lectured widely, led the struggle to desegregate New York City's public transit system, fought for the rights of blacks to vote, and remained active in the Underground Railroad. In 1849, the University of Heidelberg awarded Pennington a Doctor of Divinity in honor of his achievements.

Maryland State Archives
350 Rowe Boulevard
The Maryland State Archives is the repository for government records of permanent value for the state, counties, and municipalities of Maryland. Among its government records and Special Collections (private, corporate, religious records and newspapers) are the original source materials invaluable to the understanding of the UGRR in this border state. The legal documents, newspapers, and church records stored here are essential original source materials recording freedom seekers and the people who helped them in this land where Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman once lived. The nineteenth century government records are also necessary to document the "peculiar institution" from which the freedom seekers fled. As a public research facility, with educational and outreach programs and a substantial presence as a research resource on the world wide web, the Maryland State Archives can become a key regional facility in the Network to Freedom.

Ferry Hil (NPS, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park)
16500 Shepherdstown Pike, Sharpsburg, MD, 21782
16500 Shepherdstown Pike
Ferry Hill Plantation, part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, is situated along the Potomac River and the canal between Sharpsburg, Maryland and Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Its owners never enslaved large numbers of African Americans -- the maximum was 18 in 1839 at the death of Colonel John Blackford. Enslaved labor, however, was frequently augmented with free white and black workers or hired enslaved people. Those enslaved individuals living at Ferry Hill had frequent contact with free and enslaved kin living elsewhere. In the 1820s and 1830s the river and canal were major corridors of transportation, even for freedom seekers. The family owning the site in those decades records in their journals two captures of runaways who were taken to the Hagerstown Jail. For one set of 5 runaways, the captor received a bounty of $200.

Mouth of Swan Creek, Escape Site
13551 Fort Washington Rd, Fort Washington, MD, 20744
13551 Fort Washington Road
Administered by the National Park Service, Fort Washington Park, the home of Fort Washington, is located south of the District of Columbia (DC) in Prince George's County, Maryland. The fort exists to defend the nearby waterways. Part of the landscape is the water nearby. Visible from Fort Washington, there is a site off Diggs Point at the Mouth of Swann Creek relevant to the Underground Railroad. A mass escape of enslaved African Americans occurred in early September 1814. They escape to a British ship moored there which had come down the Potomac River from occupied Alexandria, Virginia. Nearby, Fort Washington had just been blown up by the commander to avoid falling into the hands of the British. It was near the site from which the freedom seekers left.
During the War of 1812 the British successfully attacked Washington. In order to undermine the local economy, a British Proclamation offered freedom to enslaved African Americans. The escape of African Americans to the British near Fort Washington is documented by depositions sworn in the 1820s by plantation owners from Prince George's County, seeking compensation from the British. None of the freedom seekers were recaptured. One went to Novia Scotia and three to Bermuda.

Rural Legacy Trail: UGRR Experience
8787 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, MD, 20910
8787 Georgia Avenue
The Rural Legacy: UGRR Experience is a 1.5 mile trail to be used as a self-guided hike through woods and fields that would recreate, at least in part, the experience of escaping on UGRR. The trail begins at a historic brick house built by a Quaker in 1800. The site has ample parking and is publicly owned. There is a unique stone barn near the house that will be a visitor center for the Montgomery County UGRR/Quaker Heritage Cluster. The trail ends at a stream that was used by farms on the outskirts of a Quaker town settled in the 1720s and named for the spring. As much as possible, the trail is made to resemble a trail in the early 1800s with native plants, natural surfaces, a replica wooden bridge over a creek, and no sign of modern life. The terrain includes woodlands, a steep descent to a creek, and a cultivated field. The trail is interpreted with a kiosk at the trailhead, modest signage, tour guides, and a handout. The trail is not handicapped-accessible, but is intended for use by all ages.

Elizabeth Keckly Burial Site
7101 Sheriff Road Largo
On May 26, 2010, a ceremony was held at National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland (MD), unveiling a memorial headstone marking the grave of Elizabeth Keckly. While Mrs. Keckly is best known as the seamstress/confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln and author of Behind the Scenes, her largely forgotten work on behalf of the newly emancipated slaves deserves recognition. As the Civil War progressed, many of these former bondsmen, also known as contrabands, sought refuge in the nation's capital, often arriving with little more than the clothing on their backs.
Some mistakenly believed the government would feed and clothe them as their former masters had done. Unfortunately, the government was slow to adopt a policy for helping the newly arrived freedmen, who were in desperate need of basic necessities. Elizabeth Keckly, realizing their plight, devoted herself to raising funds and collecting donations for their benefit. In 1862, she organized the Contraband Relief Association (CRA) at Union Bethel AME Church. Mrs. Keckly founded and served as the first president of the group of forty volunteers.
The CRA and similar societies helped expose the need for more government involvement in caring for the contrabands and helped set the standard for providing aid and sustenance to the former slaves.

Heuston Burying Ground
4 Crooker Rd, Brunswick Town Of, ME, 04011
4 Crooker Road
Heuston Burying Ground in Brunswick, Maine, began in 1829 as a traditional rural family burying ground when mid-coast Maine African American community leaders, Francis and Mahitable Heuston, set aside a piece of their farm as the final resting place of their daughter, Pamelia. For the next one hundred thirty-five years Heuston friends and family in the African American community were buried there. Some, like Francis and Mahitable, were conductors in the Underground Railroad.
One UGRR passenger was Clara Battease, who in 1850 escaped slavery with the aid of the mid-coast African American community and was hidden in the Heuston home. She gave birth to daughter Emma one month later. Both because of the rural nature of the community and the need to protect one another's origins, documentation for those interred in the cemetery is incomplete. Family records, however, support that Emma was laid to rest in Heuston Burying Ground when she died in 1871 at age 21. The last documented burial was of Francis amd Mahitable's great-grandson, Austin Hopkins, who died in 1954.
There are no black churches, schools or fraternal organizations in Bath or Brunswick, making Heuston Burying Ground the only visible monument to the area's former African American community.

Abyssinian Meeting House
75 Newbury Street
The Abyssinian Meeting House (1828) in Portland, Maine, is the historical, religious, educational and cultural center of Portland’s 19th century African American population. It is the earliest meeting house associated with a black population in Maine and the third oldest extant African American meeting house in New England. The Abyssinian Congregation is closely associated with the Underground Railroad and with local abolitionist activity prior to and during the Civil War. Because of its easy access by rail and sea, Portland developed as one of the northernmost hubs of the Underground Railroad system, the last stop before legal freedom. When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed slave owners and agents to track down escaped slaves in the north and return them to slavery, black and white activists in Portland provided safe houses and refuge for and helped organize escape routes to England and Canada. The ministers, leaders and members of the Abyssinian Church actively participated in concealing, supplying, and transporting runaway slaves, as recounted in the narratives of former slaves. Although modified by its conversion to apartments in the early 20th century, the Abyssinian Meeting House survives in its original location overlooking the port. The 1828 building is currently being restored to its historic appearance.

Free Soil Underground Railroad Sightseeing Bus Tour
18031 Fuller Street
Due to its geographical location near Canada, Michigan territory was a much desired destination for fugitive slaves seeking freedom. Quakers, who were opposed to slavery, also found the territory hospitable. The Underground Railroad network in Cass County, Michigan was operated by a close knit community of Quakers, who provided assistance to fugitives in route to Canada as well as refuge to fugitives who wanted to settle in Cass County. Many fugitives remained in Cass County and joined with free African American settlers to establish vibrant rural black communities modeled after Quaker communities. The black settlements in Cass County were established long before the mass exodus of blacks from the South to urban cities in the North after the Civil War. The stories of the Quaker abolitionists and the fugitive and free black settlers persist in legends and local history in Cass County today. The Free Soil Sightseeing Bus Tour commemorates this history and the legacies of this ante-bellum interracial collaboration.

Laura Smith Haviland Commemorative Drinking Fountain
100 E Church Street
The nominated object is a commemorative drinking fountain consisting of a life size sculpture of one of Michigan's leading citizens--Laura Smith Haviland. Dressed in her Quaker bonnet, holding a copy of her autobiography "A Woman's Life Work" in her right hand, she smiles gently down at those who come to drink. Bronze plaques on the base relate her heroic deeds. Haviland is remembered for her work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. She and her husband are credited with founding the first integrated school in Michigan. Haviland was an out spoken advocate for African Americans both in Michigan and nationally. The drinking fountain was dedicated on June 24, 1909 by the residents of Adrian. Funds were raised from a variety of community sources including Haviland's

Jonathan Walker Grave and Marker
1100 N. Main Street
The tours of sites in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti areas illuminate the role of citizens in helping men and women escape to freedom and in eliminating the institution of slavery. In Ann Arbor, visitors see the founding site of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society (1836) and the place where the Liberty Party’s Signal of Liberty newspaper was printed. Close by is the home of Reverend Guy Beckley who edited the anti-slavery newspaper and admitted to sheltering escaping slaves. His house is listed in the NPS Network to Freedom Program. Along the Chicago to Detroit road several men conspired to hide escaping slaves and carry them to Canada. The story of African American Asher Aray helping a group of 27 to Canada was recently uncovered and is revealed during the tour. The tours give a human face to those who worked individually and collectively to escape slavery. The carefully researched tour sites are presented by professional guides with a hope that visitors will have a more comprehensive understanding of the role of Washtenaw County citizens in opposing slavery and emancipating enslaved African Americans. Tours are offered June-August and by arrangement.

W.W. Harwood Farm
6356 W Michigan Avenue
Three Underground Railroad agents lived along what was known as the Chicago-Detroit Turnpike. William Webb Harwood and Asher Aray were named as conductors by Fitch Reed in a letter to Dr. Wilbur Siebert. Reed described how Asher Aray hid and transported to Detroit a group of escaped slaves traveling with John Fairfield in 1853. The account is documented by Laura Haviland and Edward Preston. Harwood Farm has remained in the family since 1848. Harwood donated land for a Wesleyan church and cemetery. His family and the Arays, who were African American, were buried at the back of the farmstead in Harwood Cemetery.

Caroline Quarlls: A Family Legacy of Freedom
18435 Ohio Street
The QWH Project is driven by direct descendants of Caroline Quarrels Watkins and other emancipated families of the UGRR, people whose lives have directly benefited from the journeys made so long ago.

Journey To Freedom Underground Railroad Tours
1100 N Main Street
The tours of sites in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti areas illuminate the role of citizens in helping men and women escape to freedom and in eliminating the institution of slavery. In Ann Arbor, visitors see the founding site of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society (1836) and the place where the Liberty Party’s Signal of Liberty newspaper was printed. Close by is the home of Reverend Guy Beckley who edited the anti-slavery newspaper and admitted to sheltering escaping slaves. His house is listed in the NPS Network to Freedom Program. Along the Chicago to Detroit road several men conspired to hide escaping slaves and carry them to Canada. The story of African American Asher Aray helping a group of 27 to Canada was recently uncovered and is revealed during the tour. The tours give a human face to those who worked individually and collectively to escape slavery. The carefully researched tour sites are presented by professional guides with a hope that visitors will have a more comprehensive understanding of the role of Washtenaw County citizens in opposing slavery and emancipating enslaved African Americans. Tours are offered June-August and by arrangement.

John Lowery Burial Site at Lodi Cemetery
2700-3498 Saline-Ann Arbor Road
At a crossroads called Nutting's Corner, Lodi Cemetery is the final resting place of Captain John Lowry and his wife, Sylvia. Captain John Lowry's famous safe house, a quarter-mile northwest of Lodi Cemetery, burned down in the 1900s and a subdivision masks the significance of the historic site. Captain Lowry publicly declared his hatred of slavery and promoted his farm as a place of safety. Lowry participated in a network helping people escape to Canada.

George DeBaptiste House
441 E. Jefferson
George deBaptiste, a freeborn African American, made substantial and well-documented contributions to Underground Railroad and antislavery activities in Kentucky, Indiana, and Mighigan. Beginning as early as 1837, deBaptiste challenged state and federal laws and the racism of Southern slaveholders and northern whites, to ensure the freedom and dignity of all African Americans. deBaptiste's actions were documented in antislavery publications such as the Signal of Liberty, the Provincial Freeman, and the Detroit Daily Advertiser and Tribune and by Levi Coffin.

Adam Crosswhite Marker
Lincoln St & E Michigan Ave, Marshall, MI, 49068
Lincoln Street and Michigan Avenue
This site marks the Marshall home of Adam and Sarah Crosswhite where Kentuckians attempted to recapture six members of the Crosswhite family. During the 1840s, Marshall residents expressed strong antislavery sentiments through the press, political organizations, and community resistance to slavery. In addition to hosting a meeting of the Michigan Antislavery Society in 1842, Marshall residents helped create one of Michigans' most notable responses to slavery in 1847. Adam and Sarah Crosswhite and their four children escaped from slavery and the Carroll County, Kentucky farm of Francis Giltner in August 1843. The Crosswhites settled in Marshall and helped establish the growing African American community there. In 1847, Giltner representatives attempt to recapture the Crosswhites in Marshall resulted in a trial that captured the attention of many and garnered extensive press coverage. The jury decided the people of Marshall had violated the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and the court ordered payment to the Kentuckians. This marker shows a step on that road to freedom.

Ypsilanti Archives
220 North Huron Street
The Ypsilanti Historical Museum Fletcher-White Archives has a collection of published and unpublished materials that highlight the importance of Ypsilanti and southeast Michigan in the Underground Railroad. The Ypsilanti Historical Society, est. 1961, opened a museum and archives in a historic 1860 house that is a stop on the NTF-listed Underground Railroad (UGRR) "Journey to Freedom Tours." In the museum's refurbished (elevator-accessible) basement, the Fletcher-White Archives offers general primary source materials such as historical maps, city directories and county atlases and dedicates half its file space to the Albert P. Marshall [Eastern Michigan University Professor] Black History Collection. The Archives' Family files house original letters, deeds, photographs and papers, including those of documented UGRR participants such as Aray, Preston and Harwood [see NPS Network to Freedom listed W. W. Harwood Farmstead, Saline]. The Archives strives to provide broad public access with a searchable online collections database; a University of Michigan partnership to digitize its 5,000 photographs; publication of quarterly newsletter "The Gleanings," featuring historical articles and reminiscences; and links to historical and genealogical organizations.

Flight to Freedom at Historic First Congregational Church of Detroit
33 E Forest Avenue
The element being nominated for inclusion in the Network to Freedom is entitled the Underground Railroad Living Experience. Its theme is the preservation of the universal right of freedom through the unified efforts of a caring, courageous community. It is an experiential tour that is a part of the Living Museum of the Historic First Congregational Church of Detroit, which prior to moving to its present location in 1891, was located on Fort and Wayne streets in downtown Detroit, and church records describe as one to the stations of the UGRR. As a Program Partner of the Detroit 300th Anniversary Celebration in the year 2001, the Church develop a tour in 6000 square feet of its lower level which simulates an Underground Railroad escape. The one hour "escape" tours, which take place in the year 1856, begin with the participant/slaves receiving a slave "shackle" and them being led by a Conductor on a 1000 mile escape from a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana through alligator-infested swamps and deep dense forests, over the Ohio River, through Indiana, Michigan, and finally over the Detroit River to freedom in Canada. Along the way, they encounter cast members portraying other runaway slaves, slave catchers, Quaker safe house keepers, a Congregational Minister, and a host of others. "Escaping slave" participants describe the experience as both enlightening and heart-wrenching.

Underground Railroad Monument (Battle Creek)
Battle Creek Linear Park between Capital Avenue, and N. Division Street
The Underground Railroad monument celebrates this important national movement by visually depicting the African American and white “conductors” who helped the fugitive slaves escape bondage and the men, women and children who risked their lives to reach freedom. The monumental bronze sculpture shows Harriet Tubman leading a tired band of runaways from the cover of a dark forest. Tubman, known as the “Black Moses,” is one of the Underground Railroad’s most enduring figures. On the other side of the sculpture Erastus Hussey and his wife, Sarah, help the fugitives into a safe hiding place. The Husseys were Battle Creek Quaker abolitionists who risked financial ruin and imprisonment while harboring escaping slaves. The Husseys never met Harriet Tubman. But their service and sacrifice typifies the brave men and women who traveled on, and operated, the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad monument is intended to remind us of these past achievements and of the ongoing struggle to preserve human rights for all.

Dr. Nathan Thomas House
613 E Cass Street
The site was home to Dr. Nathan Thomas, first physician in Kalamazoo County. The Thomas family resided in the home from 1835, when it was built, to 1867, when it was replaced by a new home. Well known activists, Pamela and Dr. Nathan Thomas who lived in Schoolcraft, claimed to help 1000-1500 African Americans who escaped from slavery. In the 1890s, both Pamela and Nathan reported, not only their own stories, but accounted for at least 30 men in communities such as Vandalia, Jackson, Battle Creek, Climax, Ann Arbor, Marshall, and Detroit who assisted African Americans escaping slavery. In addition to those who aided African Americans, the Thomas' detailed the history and structure of this important network.

Stephen Bogue Commemorative Marker
20283 Michigan 60
The Stephen Bogue Underground Railroad marker commemorates the Underground Railroad (UGRR) network that thrived on the local Cass County landscape. This area holds the key to the interesting past of countless African Americans such as Perry Sanford, who fled the American South in search of freedom. The trials and triumph felt by the local Quaker community as they participated in UGRR activities is also commemorated at this site. Stephen Bogue and his family provided jobs, financial assistance, homes, and protection to men, women, and children who came to Young's Prairie, on their journey to freedom. This large boulder marker is located adjacent to the original Stephen Bogue home and commemorates the UGRR activities that took place at the home, the surrounding landscape and in events that spanned from Kentucky, through Cass, Calhoun, and Wayne counties.

Isaac Bailey Burial Site at Oak Hill Cemetery
Eastern Ave SE & Hall St SE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49507
Eastern Ave SE and Hall Street SE
This is Grave site of Isaac Bailey, Civil War veteran who escaped slavery from Essex County, VA in 1852. Isaac was assisted in his flight by Underground Railroad operatives through Ohio, Michigan and to Canada and freedom. Isaac fought in the Civil War in the 102nd US Colored Infantry Company A. He lived to be 105 years old.

Michigan Freedom Trails Commission
In 1998, Public Act 409 established the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission (MFTC) and directed it to preserve, protect and promote the legacy of the Underground Railroad in Michigan. In 2003, the Commission presented its mission: "The Michigan Freedom Trail Commission encourages, coordinates and supports work that makes the history of the Underground Railroad a vital part of Michigan's civic discourse, its educational resources and its cultural tourism product." Commissioners, appointed by the Governor of Michigan, serve on committees within the organization to accomplish this mission. Over the past ten years, the MFTC has sponsored successful conferences, presentations, and research training. Across the state, citizens initiated archaeological digs, exhibits, lectures, and site and program listings. In 2011, the MFTC advised Adventure Cycling Association for a new tour, assisted the Charles Wright Museum in developing an online encyclopedia and helped fund an international Detroit River UGRR Conference. The Commission works within the state, regionally and nationally, and has a vibrant relationship with Canadian organizations to promote the legacy of the Underground Railroad in Michigan.

McCoy Cabin Site at Starkweather Farm
1266 N Huron River Dr, Ypsilanti, MI, 48197
1266 Huron River Drive
In the late 1850s, African American Underground Railroad operators Millie and George McCoy lived on the Starkweather Farm in Ypsilanti. The McCoy cabin, no longer standing, was the couple's home upon their return to the United States. Sometime before 1839 with her emancipated husband, Millie escaped bondage in Louisville, Kentucky, traveling the Underground Railroad through Ohio eventually landing in Canada. In Colchester Ontario, the McCoys raised their children (including famed inventor Elijah McCoy), and in the late 1850s moved to the Starkweather farm and began operations on the Underground Railroad there. Underground Railroad networks from Ohio and western states intersected in Ypsilanti, then radiated out to crossing points along the Detroit River.
The evidence of the McCoys' Underground Railroad activities comes from daughter, Anna McCoy, fourth of twelve children. In an interview by Professor Mary Goddard of Eastern Michigan University (1913), Anna recalled specific names and incidents neither published, nor known. She remembered her mother cooking and sending the children to bed early and her father, George McCoy, departing with hidden cargo in his tobacco wagon. Though the McCoy's cabin is gone, the original 1844 Greek-Revival Starkweather house is a strong physical reminder of the farm during the period of the McCoys' residence and their Underground Railroad activities. The house is a stop on the Journey to Freedom Tour (NTF Program). Guides describe how Millie and George McCoy risked their freedom while helping others escape slavery.

Guy Beckley House
1425 Pontiac Trail
The Guy Beckley House is significant as an anti-slavery center and station on the Underground Railroad from 1842, when Beckley move onto the property, until his death in 1847. In those brief years, Beckley worked tirelessly to sway public opinion through sermons, lectures, articles and participation in political reforms.

International UGRR Heritage Program
14144 Riverview Street
The International UGRR Heritage Program is an interpretive program. The goals of the IUHP are to document, commemorate and make accessible the international UGRR heritage shared by Michigan and Ontario by developing interpretive programs. Example interpretive programs include the IUHP brochure and guide.

Nathan Power Burial Site
Gill Road about 6/10 of a mile south of Grand River Ave, between Cortland and State Streets
Established in 1832 and located in Farmington, Oakland County, Michigan is a small unassuming local historical site called the Quaker Cemetery and/or Quaker Burial Grounds, which is the final resting place of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor/agent Nathan Power (19 April 1801 - 20 January 1874). Under the guidance and spiritual instruction of his father Arthur Power, founder of Farmington, Nathan grew steadfast in the Quaker faith, and fighting against all odds dedicated himself to abolishing slavery in America. Farmington Michigan's first and oldest permanent Quaker settlement was a safe haven for freedom-seekers. Located approximately 17 miles northwest of Detroit, MI, Farmington was used as an alternative route on the UGRR when it was deemed too difficult for fugitives to cross the Detroit River to Canada when there was an abundant amount of slave-catchers hanging out on the shoreline. Farmington was a pivot point used by fugitives to move to other safe-havens through Oakland and Macomb counties. They would eventually exit Michigan further north at Port Huron, St. Clair County, MI. Nathan led the charge and answered the call for moving freedom-seekers in Oakland County. He dedicated his life to the cause of freedom, justice and equality for African Americans.

Old Courthouse/Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
11 N 4th Street
St. Louis’ Old Courthouse was built between 1839 and 1862. It was a public forum as well as a courthouse. Slaves were auctioned from its steps in estate settlements, while one man's suit for freedom helped plunge the country into Civil War. In the lower west courtroom one of the most important cases ever tried in the United States began. In 1847 and again in 1850, a slave named Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for, and were granted, their freedom. Appeals to higher courts by their owner took their freedom away, and led to the momentous Supreme Court decision of 1857, which upheld the ruling that they should remain slaves, and declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional. The Dred Scott Decision hastened the start of the Civil War. It is also the most famous of thousands of civil suits launched by slaves throughout the United States in the antebellum period to try to gain their freedom through the action of the courts. As such it represents another avenue toward freedom for slaves other than manumission or flight. The Old Courthouse stands only two blocks from the Gateway Arch and contains restored courtrooms, museum exhibits on the Dred Scott Decision, historical dioramas, and the headquarters of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Ranger-led tours are available at scheduled times, as are public programs on civil rights and slavery. Mock trials highlight the struggles of Dred and Harriet Scott for their freedom as well as lesser-known cases like that of Lucy Delaney, a 12 year old girl who sued for her freedom three years before the Scotts, or Caroline Williams, who challenged St. Louis’ segregation policies on public transportation in 1869.

Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing
28 E. Grand
In the early hours of May 21, 1855, a party of enslaved Africans boarded a skiff on the Mississippi riverfront north of St. Louis. Their goal was freedom; their immediate destination, Illinois, the free state across the river. Newspapers articles published over the next five days indicate that the freedom-seekers were met on the Illinois shore by police officers and owners. Freeman, one of the organizers on the Illinois side, died of the wounds he received that night; another organizer, Mary Meachum, widow of the pastor of the First African Baptist Church of St. Louis, was arrested; Esther, one of the freedom-seekers, was sold "down river." A bicyclist pausing at the spot today looks out on a scene only slightly altered from that lit by the lanterns that night. To the south, a rusting railway bridge replaces the ferry landing, but the site itself is vacant as it was then, largely untouched by the industrial development the bridge would bring. Its location on the river side of a pedestrian and bicycle trail assures that it will remain insulated from the industrial area that lies behind the levee. The 9-acre site is well-suited for re-enactments or other celebrations of the Freedom Crossing.

Robert A. Brown House (a.k.a. Wayside Rest)
23916 S Prettyman Rd, Harrisonville, MO, 64701
23916 Prettyman Road
During the Civil War, the Robert A(llison) Brown House near Harrisonville, Missouri was the site of a raid by Union Soldiers in January, 1862. Members of the 7th Kansas Calvary took several of those enslaved by Brown as contraband. Brown, who owned some fifty slaves, was one of the largest slave owners in Cass County; however, in 1861 he had moved many of them to Texas. As a result, when the raid took place there were only two enslaved women, one male and several children present. Those remaining were taken as contrabands into Kansas.
The house, grounds, and slave quarters that comprised the original property still remain. The red brick house in Classic Revival style was built in 1850 by Brown’s slaves and survives with minimal alteration. The slave quarters are a one story, faithfully restored red brick building measuring 18 x 72 feet. Of special interest are graphic designs hidden underneath the mantle in the third room. The patterns were recognized by restoration experts from MO DNR as West-African designs.
The property, a private residence, is still owned by direct Brown descendants and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.1 Tours of the home can be arranged by contacting the owner through the Cass County Historical Society.

Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site (Fort Africa)
19100 S Highway 215, Dadeville, MO, 65635
19100 South Highway 215
Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site preserves and interprets the Toothman Farmstead (christened "Fort Africa" by the black soldiers who occupied the site) and interprets the nationally significant battle that took place at Island Mound. The African American soldiers who fought at Island Mound were members of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry. The site’s connection to the Underground Railroad stems from the fact that many of the soldiers who comprised the First Kansas Colored were former Missouri Slaves who had escaped into Kansas and freedom. In October of 1862, several months before the Emancipation Proclamation, these African American soldiers marched into Bates County with orders to clear out the band of southern sympathizing guerrillas who had gathered there. Fort Africa, where they camped, is significant as the base of operations for the First Kansas Colored. The Battle of Island Mound took place about a mile south of Fort Africa. It was at the Battle of Island Mound that black soldiers engaged in combat for the first time in the Civil War. The bravery shown by these black men and their white officers received national publicity and helped to pave the way for the acceptance of African Americans into the U.S. army.

Forks of the Road Slave Market
St Catherine St & Liberty Rd, Natchez, MS, 39120
St Catherine Street and Liberty Road
Forks Juncture allows the Network to address largely untold stories of slavery and the Underground Railroad in the Deep South, and their connection to the same in the Upper Old South. The Juncture is situated in the heart of the southern Underground Railroad routes shown on Charles Blockson’s map. It contained Deep South’s "2nd largest" enslavement market and was the destination terminus of major and minor enslavement dealers from Virginia, Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. It was the land gateway to the Old Southwest. The Juncture’s Old Washington Road carried the migrant/coffle trails from Pennsylvania and Virginia; Liberty Road carried trails from Georgia and the Carolinas; St. Catherine Street carried land routes up from Florida and New Orleans and Mississippi River routes that landed at Natchez Under the Hill. These trails and river routes were the used as the "Overground Railroad" of the internal U.S. slave trade through which enslaved people were sold "down the river" into the Deep South. This trafficking in enslaved people was one motivation for freedom seekers in the Upper South to escape. The Forks of the Road site is connected with Franklin/Armfield, the founder of the Alexandria and Natchez Markets, and with other dealers. Forks of the Road was also the site of an encampment of self-emancipating "Colored Troops" at Fort McPherson.

Roanoke Island Freedom Colony (Fort Raleigh National Historic Site)
1401 National Park Dr, Manteo, NC, 27954
1401 National Park Drive
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is located on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. In 1862, under the command of General Ambrose E. Burnside, Union forces took control of the Outer Banks with the battle of Roanoke Island, and used the captured land to provide protection and freedom for runaways. Roanoke Island soon became known as a place of refuge for those who sought protection of the Union Army. Although some freedom seekers continued their journey northward, many of the refugees remained on the island. The number of "contraband" grew to exceed available housing, and to remedy this siutation General John G. Foster appointed Reverend Horace James, an army chaplain from Massachusetts, to establish a camp for runaways. This camp--Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island--came to serve as a model for future colonies, such as the one established in New Bern, North Carolina.

Old Town of Halifax
25 St. David Street
The antebellum-era town of Halifax, NC, was a major destination for freedom seekers. Although the Roanoke River was clearly an UGRR waterway route, the river is not the only reason for escape activity to and from Halifax. Halifax had one of the largest free Black communities in North Carolina, had a large skilled class of enslaved artisans, and existed in close proximity to an actively, abolitionist Quaker population. Based on the number of runaway slave ads indicating the town of Halifax as a final destination, one can conclude that Halifax provided a safe refuge for freedom seekers. Approximately 59 runaway slave advertisements from 1791 to 1840 were posted for 70 freedom seekers running to the town of Halifax. Slave owners specified in the runaway ads that slaves ran to the town of Halifax for several reasons, as listed: having a trade, being known in Halifax; attempting to pass as free; visiting a friend or relative; being hidden by someone in Halifax; having been caught once before in Halifax; etc. The UGRR in Halifax clearly represents the confluence of many communities, slave and free, along with the geographic identifiers of Halifax's border river, the Roanoke.

Roanoke Island Freedom Colony Memorial Garden
Old County Rd & Airport Rd, Manteo, NC, 27954
Old County Road and Airport Road
Between 1862 and 1867, approximately 3,000 slaves sought the protection of the Union army. In May 1863, they established a permanent colony. Slaves, who perished from wounds, illnesses, and diseases, were buried in mass graves within the grounds now designated as Memorial Garden, as were many freedmen who went on to establish residency on Roanoke Island.

Pasquotank River
The Pasquotank River runs between Pasquotank and Camden Counties in northeast North Carolina. The river flows past Elizabeth City to the Albemarle Sound. The Albemarle Sound runs into the Atlantic Ocean. The Great Dismal Swamp Canal, completed in 1805, connects the Cheaspeake Bay in Virginia via the Elizabeth River and the Albermarle Sound via the Pasquotank River. During the antebellum period in northeast North Carolina, rivers,canals, and sounds were not only essential for commerce and shipping, but played an important role in assisting enslaved African Americans to freedom via vessels and ships on route to northern states, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Colonial Park
Broad Street, along Edenton Bay Waterfront
The Edenton, NC waterfront served as a departure point for the Maritime Underground Railroad. This network was developed in North Carolina by African-American watermen who were able to arrange passage to northern states for fugitive slaves through their knowledge and expertise in maritime activities. One well-documented example is Harriet Jacob's account of her 1842 escape from Edenton by ship. Her escape was arranged by a waterman named Peter. Jacobs describes in "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself", the arrangements Peter made in advance, how plans to transport her to a waiting ship were carried out, her fear of being found out, and her thankfulness when disembarking in Philadelphia that her friend Peter had correctly judged the ship captain's character. This example is not only of one individual's escape to freedom, but also of the network that existed making that escape possible. Jacobs' autobiograhpy was published in 1861 with names and places changed. In 1987, the actual names of characters were authenticated and found to have been residents of Edenton, NC.

Henry Sr. and Dorothy Copeland Burial Sites
1987 NC Highway 561 Rich Square
This house burned in 1975, Henry and Dorothy Copeland's burial sites are being nominated. This cemetery site itself is significant as it contains the graves of other Quakers who were said to be associated with the UGRR. All were members of Rich Square Monthly Meeting in Rich Square, NC. On Henry Copeland's stone are the words: "The path of the Just is as the shining Light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." And on his wife, Dorothy's stone: "She hath done all she could."

Somerset Place
2572 Lake Shore Road
Some Somerset Place freedom seekers chose suicide over enslavement, others attempted murder, and still others expressed system hostility and frustration by burning their owner's property tot he ground. Nineteen people ran away for atotal of twenty-eight times with most suffering a myriad of sadly predictable retaliatory consequences: recapture, brutal punishment or being sold. When their bondage ended in 1865, however, 221 ex-slaves embraced all of freedom's promises by walking away foreever from everything their hands had created at Somerset Place. For them finally, there was, "no such thing to the next best thing to freedom."

Friends Historical Collection, Guilford College
5800 W Friendly Ave, Greensboro, NC, 27410
5800 West Friendly Avenue
Publications relating to Quaker anti-slavery efforts in general and the UGRR specifically are comprehensively acquired and maed available. Archival materials include the original record of North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends and constitutent meetings and the minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society. These minutes document legally recognized anti-slavery efforts of indidivual Quakers who wer also involved with the UGRR. Papers and artifacts of North Carolina Quaker families, such ad the Mendenhalls and Copelands, known to be active supporters of freedom are core components of the manuscript collections.

Great Dismal Swamp
2356 Us Highway 17 N, South Mills, NC, 27976
2356 Highway 17 N South Mills, NC 27976 and 3100 Desert Road Suffolk, VA 23434
This huge area is jointly owned. US Fish and Wildlife manages over 111,000 acres stretching from Suffolk and Chesapeake, VA, to Camden, Pasqotan, and Gates Counties, NC as the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The State of NC manages 14,700 acres as Great Dismal Swamp State Park. US Army Corps of Engineers manages Dismal Swamp Canal, along Rte. 17 in VA and NC. NC DOT runs the Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center, and Elizabeth City State University manages 600 acres. There are also private owners. The application is jointly sponsored by the 4 mentioned owners.

Hotel De’ Afrique Monument
1401 National Park Dr, Manteo, NC, 27954
1401 National Park Drive
In August of 1861, Union forces defeated Confederate batteries at Hatteras Inlet and at Forts Clark and Hatteras. Word of this victory spread quickly and prompted large numbers of enslaved people to escape from the mainland and Roanoke Island to freedom on Hatteras Island. Responsibility for sheltering and feeding these former enslaved people fell on the Union forces. Hotel De'Afrique was part of that provision. Hundreds of runaways arrived and in exchange for unloading supply vessels received food and housing. Many of these freedom seekers were able to provide strategic information regarding Confederate positions. This information led to Union victories. Hotel De'Afrique was the first contraband camp to be established by the military in North Carolina, therefore providing the first safe haven for freedom seekers in the state.
There were two sites for Hotel De'Afrique on Forts Clark and Hatteras. They have both since disappeared due to erosion and flooding. A monument was established to tell the story in April 2012.
The Hotel De'Afrique Monument is located at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a national park service site in Hatteras, North Carolina.

Neuse River
Enslaved African Americans escaping to visit relatives on antoher plantation or in another town was most important, and one of the mains reasons for escape. The significance of the family unit and the concept of community are dominant in the ads for the Neuse River and its contributing tributaries, and a majority of these runaway ads posted are for family members visiting each other, hiding each other until flight could safely continue, running to another plantation to take a loved one along for the attempted escape, 'lying-out' near the edge of their plantation or another plantation for extended periods of time, and enslaved and free black people hiding freedom seekers on their plantations.

Orange Street Landing on Cape Fear
302 Willard Street
One of the slaves, William Benjamin Gould, kep tthe only known Civil War diary of a black soldier who was former slave. His great-grandson, Stanford University professor William B. Gould IV, has published "Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor."

Pathway to Freedom
1 Drama Road
"Pathway to Freedom" is presented each summer during the months of June, July, and August at the Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre in Snow Camp, North Carolina. Snow Camp was settled in 1749 by a small group of Quakers from the Pennsylvania area. "Pathway to Freedom" is a dramatic live performance with more than 55 professional actors ranging from 7 to 80 years of age. The venue known as historical outdoor drama is presented in a 400-seat open amphitheatre. "Pathway to Freedom" is the only outdoor drama in North Carolina depicting the Underground Railroad.

Roanoke River
The Roanoke River represents both fishing and tobacco industries on the river, freedom seekers attempting several escapes, stealing and manning their owner's vessels, running to childhood plantations, and visiting relatives. The common denominators in the majority of the escapes on the Roanoke, Neuse, and Pasquotank rivers is that enslaved people needed and wanted to be with their families, wanted freedom, and attempted repeated escapes regardless of the consequences.

Mayhew Cabin
2012 4th Corso, Nebraska City, NE, 68410
2012 4th Corso
The Mayhew Cabin had a real role in Nebraska's Underground Railroad as Freedom Seekers moved quickly through Nebraska City, across the Missouri River, into the free-state of Iowa, and ultimately to real freedom in Canada. Freedom Seekers stopped at the cabin several times. E.F. Mayhew, son of Allen and Barbara, recalled one such incident in a 1925 letter to N.C. Abbott, superintendent of Nebraska School for the Blind. Mayhew states, "John Henri Kagi [sic] brought 14 negroes (to the Mayhew Cabin) for breakfast one morning. It was at this time that the officers and some men from Missouri came to the house after him (John Kagy) although my father told them he was upstairs, they were afraid to go after him knowing he was armed." John was the brother-in-law of Mayhew, John Brown's adjutant-general, and died at 24-years of age at Harper's Ferry. The original Mayhew cabin is located at 2012 4th Corso in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Allen B. and wife, Barbara (Kagy) Mayhew constructed their cabin home with square hand-hewn logs from native cottonwood trees. The cuts from the smoothing ax are still plainly visible on the logs today. The 14 x 16 feet cabin is furnished to represent the late 1850s.

Alexander Majors’ House
516 North 14th Street
The Alexander Majors residence in Nebraska City, Nebraska was the site of the escape of six slaves in 1860. Despite slavery being prohibited in the Nebraska Territory, Alexander Majors moved his family and six enslaved persons to Nebraska City, Nebraska from Kansas City, Missouri in 1858. He purchased sixteen to twenty blocks in the Prairie City Addition of Nebraska City. Here Majors established the headquarters for the Russell, Majors, Waddell Freighting Company. Majors also built his home in the Prairie City Addition at 516 N 14th Street. After living in Nebraska City for two years, Majors' six slaves escaped from his home on the Underground Railroad. The escape of the slaves was reported in the June 30, 1860 edition of the Nebraska City News and a reward of $1000 was offered for the return of the slaves, but they were never recovered.

Barbara Ann Kagey Mayhew Bradway Burial Site
County Road 70, Nebraska City, NE, 68410
70th and Road
The Camp Creek Cemetery is the final resting place of Barbara Ann Kagy Mayhew Bradway, who was involved in the Underground Railroad in Nebraska. It is located six miles south and three miles east of Nebraska City in Otoe County. Camp Creek Cemetery was founded in1866, when a pioneer of the area, George F. Lee, donated one acre of land for its creation. The cemetery was named Camp Creek Cemetery after the stream that ran nearby. Barbara Mayhew Bradway was the sister of John H. Kagi, a vital part of the Underground Railroad in Nebraska. John Kagi was John Brown‟s trusted friend and was a part of the famous raid on Harper‟s Ferry. It is well documented that Barbara Bradway and her first husband, Allen Mayhew, assisted John Kagi and John Brown when they were transporting twelve African Americans along the Underground Railroad. The Mayhews provided refuge and food to the freedom seekers at their cabin in Nebraska City, which is currently listed on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and the National Register of Historic Places.

Nebraska’s Winding Road to Statehood: In the Footsteps of Barbara Mayhew, a Female Settler
6919 R Road
In a first-person costumed portrayal, the story of Barbara Ann Kagey Mayhew Bradway's life as an early settler of the Nebraska Territory is told. Many of the vexing issues of the day are recalled, such as slavery, the disputed route of the transcontinental railroad, and Nebraska statehood, as viewed through the lens of one of the first female settlers in the Nebraska Territory. Her story has numerous references to the issue of the Underground Railroad in the Territory. Specifically the program includes why the Kansas-Nebraska Act was so controversial, particularly its provision for the use of popular sovereignty with regards to the slavery issue. More personal topics that are explained in this program include Barbara‟s interactions with her brother, John Kagi (John opted to spell his last name in a more phonetically manner), who was John Brown‟s “second in command,” John Kagi‟s death at Harper‟s Ferry, and the role that the Mayhew Cabin, including Barbara herself, played in the effort to aide fugitive slaves coming up from the Kansas Territory. Finally the program explains how the issue of slavery impacted the transition
of Nebraska from a territory to a state, all from a female settler‟s perspective.

Nuckolls House
Corner of 5th and Main (Central Avenue)
The site of the Nebraska House, a former hotel completed in 1857 and located in Brownville, Nebraska, was associated with an escape in which a bloody shootout between slave catchers and freedom seekers occurred. In the fall of 1857, three freedom seekers escaped from Platte County, Missouri. While traveling from Kansas and into the Territory of Nebraska, the freedom seekers were spotted a few miles south of the town of Brownville.Hoping to make some money catching runaway slaves, four men, J.R. Davis, Thomas Williams, Archie Handley and William Myers pursued the three freedom seekers. When the two parties encountered one another a violent shootout broke out.In result, an unnamed freedom seeker was shot in the arm and Myers mortally wounded. The other two freedom seekers escaped, while the injured one was held at the Nebraska House, and put into the hands of deputy sheriff, Ben Thompson. While in the custody of Thompson, the freedom seeker was protected from a mob of pro slavery sympathizers that wanted to kill him for the murder of a white man. The freedom seeker was charged with murder, however, the charges were eventually dropped because it was determined that it was not he, but one of the other two freedom seekers who had shot Myers. After his release from the Nemaha County Jail, the wounded freedom seeker was returned to slavery in Missouri.

Ruth Cox Adams Burial Site at Wyuka Cemetery
3600 O Street
Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska is the final resting place of freedom seeker, Ruth Cox Adams who was born in 1818 on the Eastern Shore in Talbot County, Maryland. Ruth always dreamed of escaping slavery, and one day she did, successfully making her escape from Maryland to New York. While in the North, she met Frederick Douglass, a fellow freedom seeker who by then was a famous abolitionist who took a liking to Ruth. He claimed her to be his long lost sister, looking at how they were born around the same area and that they both vaguely remembered each other. For a long time, Ruth lived with Frederick Douglass and took care of his children and wife while he was away in other countries. Ruth later married and had kids. She kept in touch with Frederick Douglass through letters for the rest of her life. In later life, Ruth moved with her daughter and son-in-law to Nebraska where she lived the remainder of her life.

Harrison Johnson Burial Site at Wyuka Funeral Home and Cemetry
3600 O Street
The Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska, is burial site of Harrison Johnson who was a freedom seeker and Union soldier during the Civil War. Harrison Johnson was enslaved in Arkansas until he sought his freedom in 1864. After escaping, Johnson joined with the Nebraska’s First Calvary (formerly Infantry) while they were stationed in Batesville, Arkansas. Johnson began his time in the cavalry as an undercook for company “H” which was a majority white company, and was even a part of a memorable fire-fight with a tribe of American Indians. After serving during the war, Johnson made his way to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he married Margaret Collins and had a son, John Johnson, who later became a popular photographer in the mid 20th century. Johnson died on May 22, 1900 from enteritis,1 a complication from typhoid fever, and was laid to rest in Wyuka Cemetery.

John Jefferson McWilliams Burial at Wyuka Funeral Home and Cemetery
3600 O Street
Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska, is the burial site of Reverend John Jefferson McWilliams a freedom seeker from Missouri. McWilliams was born enslaved in Madison County, Kentucky, in 1843. He and his parents were sold to a slave owner in Missouri when McWilliams was an infant. At the age of 10, McWilliams was sold for the last time to a man in Buchanan County, Missouri. In 1863, McWilliams made the brave decision to escape from slavery and fled to Kansas. On his way to Kansas, McWilliams went to St. Joseph, Missouri, and received aid from Union recruiters. On July 12th, 1863, McWilliams enlisted in the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry in Elwood, Kansas. He served with Union army until the end of the Civil War in 1865. After the war, McWilliams married Sarah Jay Stanton, who also had escaped slavery, on December 25th, 1868. The McWilliams family finally settled in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1886. McWilliams and his wife became ordained ministers and founded Lincoln’s first integrated church, the Third Christian Church, now known as the Christ Temple Mission Church. McWilliams died on March 20th, 1917 in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was buried in Civil War Veteran’s Circle of the Wyuka Cemetery.

Nebraska House Site
Corner of Water Street and Steam Boat Trace Trail
The site of the Nebraska House, a former hotel completed in 1857 and located in Brownville, Nebraska, was associated with an escape in which a bloody shootout between slave catchers and freedom seekers occurred. In the fall of 1857, three freedom seekers escaped from Platte County, Missouri. While traveling from Kansas and into the Territory of Nebraska, the freedom seekers were spotted a few miles south of the town of Brownville. Hoping to make some money catching runaway slaves, four men, J.R. Davis, Thomas Williams, Archie Handley and William Myers pursued the three freedom seekers. When the two parties encountered one another a violent shootout broke out. In result, an unnamed freedom seeker was shot in the arm and Myers mortally wounded. The other two freedom seekers escaped, while the injured one was held at the Nebraska House, and put into the hands of deputy sheriff, Ben Thompson. While in the custody of Thompson, the freedom seeker was protected from a mob of pro slavery sympathizers that wanted to kill him for the murder of a white man. The freedom seeker was charged with murder, however, the charges were eventually dropped because it was determined that it was not he, but one of the other two freedom seekers who had shot Myers. After his release from the Nemaha County Jail, the wounded freedom seeker was returned to slavery in Missouri.

Lewis Washington Burial Site at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery
The Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Omaha, Nebraska, established in 1885, is the final resting place of Lewis Washington, freedom seeker, abolitionist and Underground Railroad activist. In 1842, Lewis Washington escaped with the assistance of the famous abolitionist Charles Torrey, while being hired out in Washington D.C.Washington arrived in New York and met another abolitionist, Abel Brown.In the years following, Washington participated in the Underground Railroad and lectured throughout New York while in the company of Abel Brown. Washington left New York in 1847 and lectured as a member of the Liberty Party against slavery in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. He eventually settled in Wisconsin and lived there as a small farmer until he moved to Nebraska with his family in 1880.Lewis Washington died in Omaha on August 18, 1898.
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, located at 7909 Mormon Bridge Road, Omaha, Nebraska 68152, is open to the public at designated times.There is a large entrance to the cemetery on the west side next to the Mormon Bridge road, an office for information, and electronic maps on the cemeteries website that allows one to locate burial sites more efficiently.

Cartland House
48 Cartland Road
The Cartland site is significant both for the insight it offers into abolitionists and the UGRR; and for preserving the voice of one man who escaped from slavery. Records associated with the site dispel the assumption of abolitionism in New Hampshire as mere rhetoric. Moses Cartland was one of New Hampshire's premier rhetorical antislavery activists, but he took action as well. Cartland records provide documentation of the life of Oliver Gilbert and the Cartland's aid to other freedom seekers. Gilbert stayed at the site during the risky years following the Fugitive Slave Law. He escaped ca.1848 from Maryland, traveled through Pennsylvania to Boston. Helped in 1851 by William C. Nell in Boston, Gilbert visited the Cartland site ca.1852. He cooked for the household that included boarding students for Moses Cartland's school. Later in New York, he lectured on the slave hunt in Boston; was accused of thievery and chastised by Nell; and worked in the tourist industry in Saratoga Springs. Gilbert settled in Philadelphia where he taught music. His correspondence with the Cartland family opens a window into the life of a man who survived with the aid of black and white abolitionists and his own will to freedom.

Abigail and Elizabeth Goodwin House
47 Market Street
This house was the residence of Abigail and Elizabeth Goodwin, two members of the abolitionist movement and participants in the Underground Railroad. Abigail was thrown out of the Orthodox Quaker Meeting in Salem for joining a group of radical Quakers fighting for the total abolition of slavery. Abigail later became involved with William Still of the Vigilant Committee of the Philadelphia Branch of the Underground Railroad. By 1830s she was a well-known abolitionist. Due in part to her efforts many slaves living in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia were aware of this region as a safe haven for runaways. She Urged Quaker friends in the Salem area to donate food, clothing, and money to give to runaway slaves. She gave food, clothing and money to the runaways and continually solicited these items from neighbors and friends. A contemporary of Goodwin wrote, “Abby denied herself even the necessary apparel and few beggars came to our doors whose garments were so worn, forlorn, and patched-up as Abby’s. She also made clothing for runways and wrote, “I should like to know if the fugitives are mostly large…I want to know in regard to the clothes that I intend making…They ought to be fitted out for Canada with strong, warm clothing in cold weather, and their sad fate alleviated as much as can be.” She took a personal interest in individual slaves, even going so far as to purchase slaves and set them free, a practice that was not sanctioned by the abolitionist organizations she belonged. Goodwin wrote, “I don’t like buying them, or giving money to the slave-holders either; but this seems to be a peculiar case, can be had so cheap, and so many young ones that would be separated from their parents.” In 1872, noted abolitionist leader, William Still published his book “The Underground Railroad.” In a section devoted to the story of Abigail Goodwin, Still wrote, “Abigail Goodwin, of Salem, N.J. was one of the rare, true friends to the Underground Rail Road, whose labors entitle her name to be mentioned in terms of very high praise.” The current owner of the house on Market Street is a direct decendent of the Goodwin family.

William Still meets Peter Gist
22 Birch Road
The story is unique. It is not about what separates us, but about humanity, our connections and the hope that binds us together. The story of a black abolitionist, William Still is one such story. His network of anti-slave sympathizers helped his efforts. His journals recorded all those who came through his charge in a book published in 1872 entitled The Underground Railroad. When William interviewed Peter, the former slave of Nathaniel Gist, he quickly recognized his story and realized that this was his long-lost brother. The worlds of these men, William, Nathaniel and Peter were different, yet the Underground Railroad brought them together in an inspiring way. Without William's mentioning of Peter's slave name, Gist and the many victories of the human network in his UGRR book, this UGRR power point presentation of hope and faith would have been unlikely. My maiden name is "Gist".

Harriet’s Return
15 Trigo Road
HARRIET'S RETURN is an award winning theatrical production written and performed by playwright, actress, producer and educator Karen Jones Meadows. This unique production chronicles the private and public life of famed Underground Railroad conductor, spiritual icon and revolutionary, Harriet Tubman, whose nine-decade life still influences the consciousness of people around the world. Told as a deeply personal journey, Harriet embraces her audience and moves them to laughter, tears and a desire to realize their personal power. The play takes the audience from Harriet's childhood to her final days as she weaves her story, recalling more than thirty colorful characters who take you from contemporary America into the depths of her soul, the psyche of a nation and a call to action. Detailed American and Underground Railroad history is experienced as Harriet confronts enslavement, family issues, escape, marriages, the UGRR challenges, Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow. She interacts with historical figures such as William Still and John Brown. Harriet's Return has a successful record, with productions in over 100 theatrical and community venues, including a fund-raising event at the Carrier Theatre, for the 30th Anniversity Pilgrimage Weekend to the historic landmark Harriet Tubman home. Harriet's Return crosses age and cultural classifications, and has universal appeal, as did Harriet Tubman. Frequently there are Q & A or scholarly discussions after performances. Sometimes performances are followed by an ancestral party/celebration, making Harriet's Return an extraordinary event.

James Canning and Lydia Fuller House
98 West Genesee Street
In 1838, James Canning Fuller was secretary of the new Skaneateles Anti-Slavery Society, which sent anti-slavery petitions to Congress and adopted a resolution calling for immediate emancipation. In 1839, Fuller seconded an anti-slavery resolution not, he said, “as a member of the Societies Friends [Society of Friends] but as a MAN.” In October of that year, the Colored American noted that he had been appointed by the New York State Anti-Slavery Society as a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention to be held in London in 1840. In 1841, the Fullers hosted a family they had purchased from slavery. Also in 1841, James C. Fuller contributed $800 to purchase the Dawn Community near Chatham, Ontario, set up as a haven for freedom seekers, and he served on its first Board of Trustees. In 1843, Martha and David Wright sent a freedom seeker to the Fullers from Auburn. In 1851, after James C. Fuller’s death, Lydia Fuller hosted Rev. Jermain Loguen when he fled Syracuse after the rescue of William “Jerry” Henry. When he returned to Syracuse in 1852, Loguen again stayed with Lydia Fuller.

William and Frances Seward House
33 South Street
Seward House is a historic house museum interpreting four generations of Miller and Seward family members. William Seward distinguished himself as an abolitionist during his two terms as New York governor (1839-1843), twelve years as US senator (1849-1861) and eight years as US secretary of state (1861-1869)to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

Asa Wig
3392 NYS Route 69
The Asa and Caroline Wing House is an extremely well-documented way station on the Freedom Trail in Central New York State; the house retains integrity of setting, location, feeling and association. Wing (1815-54) was a regionally recognized abolitionist lecturer and organizer in central New York. His original lecture notes and diary are available for study, in addition to newspaper accounts, various obituaries, testimonials from Gerrit Smith and Frederick Douglas, and historical accounts written by several descendants.
Many other citizens were involved in this freedom conspiracy and research on the Underground Railroad is continuing.

George and Rebecca Barnes House
930 James Street
Meetings took place in the home to determine the best routes for freedom seekers to take once they arrived in Syracuse. The home was also the site of many meetings to plan the anti-slavery convention held in Syracuse in 1854.

Orson Ames House
3339 Main Street
On the evening of October 5, 1851, Orson and Amy Ames sheltered the escaped slave William “Jerry” Henry, in their home in Mexico, Oswego County, New York. The next morning the Mexico vigilance committee moved the fugitive away from the center of the village to Asa Beebe’s barn in Toad Hollow. After two weeks in hiding there the committee brought him twelve miles into the City of Oswego where he embarked for Canada. Jerry Henry’s widely publicized escape from a Syracuse jail and his successful flight through Upstate New York directly challenged the federal government’s ability to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. One hundred and fifty years later, the Orson Ames House, one of several locations where Henry received shelter, is the only property which remains to mark his celebrated race to freedom.

Oswego Market House
Water Street
The Oswego Market House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, lies on the west side of the Oswego River between Water Street and the water. It is a massive brick and stone Federal styled building formerly used as a market place and seat of village and city government. Today, it houses several small businesses: bait shop, tavern, etc,
In 1850 local abolitionists hosted the Liberty Party’s annual political convention in the building. Gerrit Smith received the nomination for the presidency of the United States, while Samuel R. Ward, a fugitive from slavery, was nominated for the vice-presidency. The Market House is notable because of its prestige and vote-pulling power. It was the first time in the country’s history that a black had been nominated to the highest office in the land.

Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims
75 Hicks Street
Laypersons gathered at Plymouth Church in 1847 and called as their first minister the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. In early years, Henry C. Bowen, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lewis Tappan were in the congregation. They and others had such a wide range of activities related to the Underground Railroad that it was not an overstatement for an early historian of the church to assert that the church was "the Grand Central Depot of the Underground Railroad." They helped fund the New York State Vigilance Committee which delivered fugitives from slavery to the church as an Underground Railroad station. They purchased the freedom of persons who had been captured when fleeing slavery or who were seeking freedom. In some of these purchases of freedom, Rev Beecher performed mock slave auctions to communicate the horrors of the purchase and sale of human beings. At a time when many northern churches were reluctant to take a stand against slavery, the congregation and minister opposed the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and, when it passed, opposed its enforcement. Through her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe introduced Americans to stories of bondage and also of escapes through the Underground Railroad.

Rouses Point Pier
50 Montgomery St, Rouses Point, NY, 12979
50 Montgomery Street 9
Lake Champlain’s Rouses Point’s Pier was the most important station on the Champlain Line of the Underground Railroad which encompassed the geographical corridor between Albany and Troy and Canada’s Richelieu River. Located a mile below the international border, the bustling 100 foot dock and train depot was a landing for Lake Champlain steamboats and trains from New York City and Boston. Self emancipated men, women and children continued north on trains to Montreal or by rail to Ogdensburg, New York, where steamboats took them to refugee settlements in Canada West. For example, Maryland runaway Charlotte Gilchrist entered Canada on a train from the Champlain Valley in 1854. Two years later, Vermonters helped a fugitive evade his former master and a U.S. marshall and put him on a freight train bound for Canada. A man identified only as “Bill” was forwarded from Massachusetts to Vermont in 1859 with a note that he was not to be sent through Rouses Point because he might be seen and captured. In the winter of 1861, Mrs. Lavinia Bell escaped from Texas to Rouses Point where a Canadian Underground Railroad agent paid her fare to Montreal. Thus, Rouses Point’s Pier became a major transfer station where fugitives from slavery boarded trains for their final destinations in Upper and Lower Canada.

Samuel and Elizabeth Cuyler House Site
Samuel C. Cuyler (1808-1872), Elizabeth Julia Cuyler, and son Ledyard Cuyler, descendents of major Dutch families in New York, kept the most important Underground Railroad station on Lake Ontario's shore between Oswego and Rochester, in Pultneyville, New York. The Cuylers sent freedom seekers to Canada on steamboats operated by a relative, Captain Horatio Nelson Throop, aided by small boats sailed by Ledyard and an African American called "Black Bob." In 1838, Samuel championed the right of black abolitionist Samuel R. Ward to speak. Believing that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were antislavery documents, Cuyler supported the Liberty Party in 1840 and the Free Soil Party in 1848. In 1855, he was elected to the New York State Senate as a Republican. For seven years, he served as U.S. Customs Collector in Pultneyville. Evidence for the Cuylers' UGRR work includes letters, contemporary articles, accounts in Wayne county local histories and an oral history from Ledyard Cuyler in 1907.

Second Street Cemetery
317 East Church Street
The Second Street Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Elmira, New York. It was designed by an abolitionist, Francis Hall. Buried in the Second Street Cemetery are individuals/people who were involved in Elmira's Underground Railroad and abolitionist activities. They include John Selover, Riggs Watrous, Sandy Brandt, and George Jones. Elmira is located just across the New York/Pennsylvania state line and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. John W. Jones, formerly enslaved, was the sexton of this cemetery. John W. Jones was a major conductor of the Underground Railroad in Elmira and assisted over 800 runaways to freedom.

Slocum and Hannah Howland House
1781 Sherwood Road
Home of Quakers Slocum and Hannah Howland, this house was one of the most active Underground Railroad way stations in central New York, receiving freedom seekers from the Fussells in southeastern Pennsylvania. Howland was economically prosperous, owning a general store, port facilities on Cayuga Lake, and tenant houses. He helped freedom seekers escape to Canada and also helped at least four African American families settle locally. He sold land in Sherwood to Herman and Hannah Phillips and their four children, who came from Maryland in 1843. Thomas Hart (who carried a written pass, still extant, to Howland in 1840) settled nearby in Aurora. Jerome Grieger (who reported his birthplace variously as South Carolina, Spain, and unknown) worked for Howland at his docks on Cayuga Lake. And Richard and Mary Gaskin lived on a local farm. Richard Gaskin later joined the North Street Quaker meeting with the Howlands. Howland worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society. His only daughter, Emily Howland, taught at Mytilla Miner’s school for African Americans in Washington, D.C., and, with Slocum’s help, established schools in Virginia for freed people of color.

Solomon Northup Day
Solomon Northup was born a free man in Minerva, NY, July 1808. Solomon was a literate man who worked on the Champlain Canal. While working as a cabbie and violinist in Saratoga Springs, he was abducted, held in a slave pen in Washington, DC, and sold into slavery in Louisiana for 12 years before regaining his freedom. Citizens of Saratoga and surrounding areas were instrumental in arranging for Solomon's release in 1853 and return to Saratoga. Mr. Northup published his autobiography Twelve Years A Slave in 1853 about his ordeal. It is believed he traveled throughout the region selling his book and speaking out against slavery and was himself an abolitionist. Although Mr. Northup sought to bring his captors to trial, they were never prosecuted and he mysteriously disappeared. To date, his burial site has not been identified and it is not known whether or not he was killed, re-captured or died of natural causes. The city of Saratoga Springs has installed a marker near his capture site and since 1999,there has been an annual Solomon Northup Day recognized by the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association. These annual educational programs have focused on New York's African American history of the Underground Railroad.

Starr Clark Tin Shop
Starr Clark and his wife, Harriet Loomis Clark, operated a depot on the underground railroad in the Village of Mexico, Oswego County, New York from late 1832 until the Civil War. The Clarkes welcomed fugitive slaves, provided housing for them either in the Tin Shop, their own home, or in the homes of other antislavery families, arranged schedules for forwarding "the goods", and provided transportation to the next station (west to Oswego, or down the lake to Port Ontario, Cape Vincents, Sacketts Harbor, or points north).
Evidence to support the Clarks’ antislavery position is found in signed petitions, minutes of the Oswego County Antislavery Society, correspondence with other abolitionists, the published account of the fugitive "George", obituaries, and accounts written by direct descendants.

Edwin W. Clarke House
80 East Mohawk Street
Edwin W. and Charlotte Clarke built this large brick Italianate residence in Oswego’s historic Oak Hill section in 1857. Well-known abolitionists, they constructed what appears to be a hidden room or hiding place for slaves in the basement. Situated behind the furnace, one small window opens under the front steps, a 5" x 8" passthrough permits food exchange, and a low door permits actual entrance into the "hidey hole".
While Clarke’s interests ranged from history to law to horticulture, his anti-slavery activities must have absorbed most of his time. He attended numerous anti-slavery meetings, signed petitions, distributed anti-slavery tracts, and wrote letters the editor, attempted, at one point, to rescue a female slave off a canal boat. Clarke died in 1884 and was buried in Riverside Cemetery, Company Route 57; his grave marker reads: "Just fearless humane…He gave the best of his years and powers to the relief of the oppressed and to the aid and succous (sic) of slaves escaping from bondage, having in all he did the effective sympathy and cooperation of his devoted wife."

Cayuga County Courthouse
152 Genesee Street
As one of only two remaining courthouses in New York State in which trials relating to the successful 1851 rescue of freedom seeker William "Jerry" Henry were held, the Cayuga County Courthouse is one of the few surviving civic structures that reflects the struggle between the federal government's attempt to impose the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and public sentiment in opposition to this law in New York State. In 1846, the Cayuga County Courthouse was also the site of the precedent-setting trial of African American Wiliam Freeman, charged with murder and defended by William Henry Seward on the basis of insanity. Finally, the Cayuga County Courthouse has a 1913 plaque dedicated to Harriet Tubman. This 1836 Greek Revival structure maintains superior architectural integrity and stands today as a vibrant example of living history as it continues its role as Cayuga County's Supreme and County Court.

Griffith and Elizabeth Cooper House
5825 South Ave, Williamson Town Of, NY, 14589
5825 South Avenue (Route 21)
Griffith M. Cooper (1791-1864) and his wife Elizabeth Hodgson Cooper (1790-1873) kept a major Underground Railroad station near Lake Ontario in central New York State. Evidence for the Cooper's Underground Railroad work includes 1)a strong family tradition; 2) a letter that Cooper wrote to Frederick Douglass in 1852, reporting that "three emigrants, from the South, via Rochester, left our port for Queen Victoria's dominions, the 19th inst., at 8:00pm";3) a brief account in the 1877 History of Wayne County, New York; 4) an 1895 newspaper account at the time of Frederick Douglass' death, linking Cooper and Douglass as fellow UGRR workers; and 5) an 1898 account by someone who worked with Cooper on the UGRR. The Coopers were Quakers. Griffith's UGRR activity was connected to his work with the American Anti-slavery Society, the Western New York Anti-slavery Society and the Genesee Yearly Meetings of Friends.

North Star Underground Railroad Museum Programs
1131 Mace Chasm Road
The North Star Underground Railroad Museum celebrates the history of the Champlain Line of the Underground as it relates to seven northeastern New York Counties, Vermont and the Canadian Provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The theme of our museum's exhibits is Lake Champlain: Gateway to Freedom. We provide tours, offer lectures, present dramatic readings and hold workshops for children and adults. We develop outdoor interpretive panels. We bring to light little known stories of Africans and African Americans who were enslaved and freed in our region or followed the Champlain Line of the Underground Railroad to New York, Vermont or Canada. We honor the men and women who aided them. Many of our stories can be found on our website www.norhcountryundergroundrailroad.com Prior to the opening of our museum in May of 2011, Underground Railroad route maps did not include the Champlain Line. Our exhibits and programs have literally put the Champlain Line on the map.

Woodlawn Cemetery
1200 Walnut Street Elmira
Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, NY, is the final resting place for many freedom seekers, abolitionists, Union Soldiers, and Underground Railroad workers. John W. Jones was the superintendent of Woodlawn Cemetery and he was a former slave and a conductor of the Underground Railroad in Elmira, NY. He also buried 3,000 Confederate soldiers who died at the Elmira Prison Camp during the Civil war. Others buried at Woodlawn are Elizabeth Adams (also known as Lear Green), Henry Washington, Daniel Webster, John Washington, Jervis Langdon (Mark Twain's father-in-law), Judge Ariel Thurston, Governor Lucius Robinson and his brother John, Francis Hall and Simeon Benjamin.

Harriet Tubman House
180 South Street
The Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, New York, adopted home of Harriet Tubman (1812-1913), was for many years an asylum for the needy, the oppressed and unfortunate, irrespective of nationality. Her formal residency at this site begins around 1858. Harriet Tubman led her parents out of slavery to a growing black community in St. Catherine, Ontario. The severe Canadian winters were too much for her aged parents to bear and the Auburn site was also safe from slave- kidnappers. Tubman resided here with her parents, other relatives, and many sojourners on the freedom trail. Harriet Tubman acquired the initial 7+ acres for $1200.00 from William Seward , a fellow abolitionist. In 1895, Tubman acquired an adjacent property to the north for the purpose of establishing a home for the aged. This property was deeded to the A.M.E. Zion Church in 1903. Her residence and the original 7+ acres was willed to her surviving descendants in 1913. A year later, this property was sold to a local family. In 1990, the A.M.E. Zion Church acquired the property. Harriet Tubman spent over fifty years in Auburn, surviving many of her fellow abolitionists. Unlike many engaged in the abolition cause, Tubman remained committed to social activism and was concerned with the welfare of fellow former enslaved persons. Her residence often served as a way station for escaping slaves in route to Canada.

Harriet Tubman Burial Site at Fort Hill Cemetery
19 Fort Street
Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) was one of the most important Americans associated with the Underground Railroad. After her own escape from slavery in 1849, Tubman returned to Maryland at least thirteen times to help about seventy people to freedom. People called her the Moses of her people, and she became an icon of the Underground Railroad, In 1859, she purchased land in Auburn, New York, from William Henry and Frances Seward. Except for her service as spy, nurse, and scout during the Civil War, she lived there, creating a haven for family and friends and a home for the elderly until her death on March 10, 1913. She was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery near her nephew, her nephew's wife, and her second husband, Nelson Davis, under a large cedar tree. Her original gravestone was replaced in 1937 by the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs. Today, her grave remains a place of pilgrimage.

Hamilton and Rhoda Littlefield House
44 East Oneida Street
The significance of the Hamilton and Rhoda Littlefield House is in its use as a refuge for runaway slaves during the pre-Civil War era. Throughout his life in Oswego, Hamilton B. Littlefield was closely allied with Gerrit Smith and Smith’s land agent, John B. Edwards. This alliance supported not only Littlefield’s business activities but also his involvement with abolitionism and the Freedom Trail.
Documentation for the use of Littlefield’s house as a way station comes from three sources: a letter from Edwards to Smith; and oral tradition collected in the early 20th century and delivered in a DAR speech; and an oral tradition passed through the family of the minister of Edwards’ church. Because Edwards’ letter is a primary source, written by a person directly involved at the time of the events, the documentation for the Littlefield House as an Underground Railroad site is excellent. Though some exterior changes are evident, the house retains integrity of location, setting, feeling and association.

Gerrit Smith Estate
5304 Oxbow Road
This estate was the lifetime home and office of Gerrit Smith (1797-1874). He helped hundreds of African Americans escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad. Stop by the visitor center before you start your tour of the estate, and watch a short orientation video.

Matilda Joslyn Gage House
210 E Genesee St, Fayetteville, NY, 13066
210 E. Genesee Street
Matilda Joslyn Gage, her husband Henry, and their four children lived here in the Erie Canal village of Fayetteville, near Syracuse. The Gages were abolitionists and offered their home as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Buckhout-Jones Building
5-13 West Bridge Street
Abram Buckout (1813-1884) owned the west half of the Buckout-Jones Building from 1852 until 1868. The son of Buckout’s business partner described Abrahm as an "ardent abolitionist but (he) was very careful not to disclose the fact as it might reacts on his business and family." The two partners secreted slaves in the Buckout barn on West Fifth Street Road. The barn is now gone, although the Buckout residence still stands.
Charles Smith, a former slave from Baltimore, Maryland, was a barber and tenant in the Buckout-Jones Building in 1857. He was a committed abolitionist, and an outspoken opponent of discrimination in all forms. Grant signed petitions, joined the City of Oswego Vigilance Committee, and enrolled his children in public schools despite discrimination from teachers and parents of white children.
Owner Abram Buckout and tenants Charles Smith and Tudor E. Grant worked in this building, provided aid for fugitive slaves, and supported the cause of abolition.

Underground Railroad Heritage Trail
P.O. Box 219
The Underground Railroad Heritage Trail is a program of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and was established to preserve, promote and celebrate New York's rich Underground Railroad and anti-slavery heritage. The Program is a comprehensive 'portal' of designated authentic historic sites and interpretive centers associated with UGRR and anti-slavery activity in New York. The Program focuses on developing sites inside and out by addressing a range of needs - preservation support to protect and restore the historic resource, interpretive planning/development to ensure a high quality educational experience and strategic planning/capital campaign assistance to ensure a healthy, stable organization is firmly in control of museum operations. The components of this Program when combined as a whole will ensure that visitors will receive a compelling and accurate historical experience.

Brooklyn Historical Society
Pierrepont Street
The Brooklyn Historical Society's (BHS) collections include significant original archival materials that are essential to the story of abolition and underground railroad in Brooklyn. These include the papers of Henry Ward Beecher, a huge collection of slave papers: sermons (pro and con), lectures, and newspaper clippings from the 1840s through the 1860s, artifacts such as Henry Ward Beecher's pulpit chair, and extensive collection of early photographs, including early daguerreotypes and stereo cards. BHS' archives contains materials on related sites in Brooklyn such as Weeksville, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, and Plymouth Church/Church of the Pilgrims records from the 1850s - 1950s. BHS also has had land conveyances from the 19th century and earlier that would list property transactions, especially for private residences that may have been part of the Underground Railroad. Additionally, the BHS collection of maps and street atlases will also provide excellent images for use in the mapping of local historic sites and in the interpretive exhibitions.

Waterloo Library and Historical Society
31 East Williams Street
The Waterloo Library and Historical Society, built in 1880, was the first public library in the state to be built specifically as a library, museum and lecture hall and is the oldest library building in the state that has had continuous use. Attached to the library building is the Terwilliger Museum of local history, where a research area, with reference materials, is designated. Across the yard is the National Memorial Day Museum and it is here that the archival collections of the society is kept. The archival collection of the Waterloo Historical Society was a source of primary documentation for "Survey of Sites Related to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism and African American Life."

Tudor E. Grant: From Fugitive Slave to Oswego Businessman
135 East Third Street
Tudor E. Grant: From Fugitive Slave to Oswego Businessman is a Social Studies lesson developed by the Oswego County Historical Society for 4th graders of the county. Using primary sources from the archives of the Richardson-Bates House Museum, the museum educator travels to local schools to teach the lesson. Students become acquainted with census records, directories, newspaper articles, anti-slavery petitions, and city maps. They gain an understanding of concepts such as slavery, abolition, UGRR and the federal law.

Thomas Elliott and Ann Marie Stewart Elliott House
31 Richardson Avenue
Thomas Elliott and Ann Marie Stewart Elliott, married in 1864, represent two important Underground Railroad families and stories. Ann Marie Stewart was likely a niece of Harriet Tubman. Thomas Elliott was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland. In 1857, Elliott escaped with seven others using instructions given to them by Harriet Tubman. With a price of $3000.00 on their heads, they were betrayed into the hands of the sheriff of Dover, Delaware. They escaped by throwing hot coals into the sheriff’s own apartment, jumping out of a twelve-foot high window and leaping over a wall. They made their way to Thomas Garrett in Wilmington, Del., who sent them to William Still in Philadelphia. This dramatic escape story earned them the nickname of the “Dover Eight.” Elliott later joined John Brown in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, but did not go to Harper’s Ferry. This house, built in 1868, is also important as a likely example of an African American vernacular architecture form, based conceptually on twelve-foot measurements rather than the 16-18 foot widths more common to Anglo-American vernacular buildings.

Thomas and Elizabeth James House
52 State Street
Thomas James was born in slavery, migrated to Canada, and then returned to settle in Seneca Falls, New York, where he became a barber and wealthy landowner. In the 1850 federal census, he listed his birthplace as "unknown," with a 13-year-old daughter born in Canada. In 1863, two newspaper articles noted that he was a "fugitive slave" who owned $12-15 thousand dollars of real estate in Seneca Falls, including a new brick business block. "He has shown that although he belongs to the down-trodden race he can take care of himself, and we think no one will deny that he has rights which white men are bound to respect, Judge Taney to the contrary notwithstanding." At his death in 1867, executors of his will noted that ""Elizabeth James, his widow, and the said Thomas James had no other relatives known to the deponents or either of them, he having formerly been a slave and made, during his lifetime, diligent enquiry for his relatives without effect." As a barber, Thomas James cut the hair of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1852, as part of Stanton's campaign for health reform.

1816 Farmington Quaker [Friends] Meetinghouse
160 County Road 8, Farmington, NY, 14425
160 County Route 8
This 1816 Farmington Quaker meetinghouse, possibly the oldest Quaker meetinghouse still standing west of the colonial settlement line, home of Farmington Quarterly Meeting and, after 1834, Genesee Yearly Meeting (Hicksite), represents the importance of Quakers and of Farmington, New York, as a key node in the Underground Railroad network nationally. Underground Railroad people associated with this meetinghouse included freedom seeker Austin Steward, who quite likely helped build this meetinghouse; Darius Comstock, President of the Ontario Manumission Society; Pliny Sexton, Griffith M. Cooper, and Elias and Susan Doty, members of this meeting who kept UGRR safe houses; Quaker minister Lucretia Mott; educator Myrtilla Miner, and the M'Clintock, Post, Anthony, Fish, and DeGarmo families, members of Farmington Quarterly Meeting who organized the Congregational Friends at this meetinghouse in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke here. Other UGRR people associated with this meetinghouse or the Orthodox meetinghouse across the road (no longer standing) included members of the Smith, Hathaway, and Wilbur families and freedom seekers Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Charles Remond, Richard Valentine, and Mary and Emily Edmondson. Farmington UGRR people were linked to a major UGRR network operated by William Chaplin in

New York Underground Railroad Public History Conferences
The annual UGRR Public History Conferences organized by UGRR History Project of the Capital Region, Inc., in collaboration with supporting community groups, gather together multi-age, diverse audiences to celebrate and preserve in public memory researched information abou the UGRR movement and its participants, with an emphasis on bringing forward newly researched information and relating the historic information to us today.

Utica Rescue at Judge Hayden's Law Office
96-98 Genesee Street
On Dec 29, 1836, county constables brought two African American men, Harry Bird and George, to the Utica Law Offices of Oneida County Judge Chester Hayden. Hayden was about to release them to two Virginia slave-catchers, but white abolitionists Spencer Kellogg and Alvan Stewart argued that the captives deserved a legal hearing. Judge Hayden agreed and ordered the slave-catchers and the fugitives to remain in a back room of his office building until his return from duties at the county courthouse. During Hayden's absence from his office, a crowd gathered around the building, many of whom were African Americans, broke into the office and freed the two men.

Murphy Orchards
2402 McClew Road
Farmstead in the Town of Newfane, New York, owned by Charles and Libby McCLew in 1850. Extensive, long-standing local folklore identifies the McClews as "station masters" of the Underground Railroad. The farmstead remains virtually unchanged, and is still a privately-owned working farm enterprise. All grounds and facilities are open year round to the public. Guided Underground Railroad tours and presentations have been developed and conducted for over ten years. Tours include walking trails through a 30-acre "wilderness" area on the farm which has been dedicated to this purpose. Hopkins Creek, which flows through the property, is believed to have been an important geographic feature used to navigate towards other safe havens and ultimately to Canada. A10x12-foot chamber under the barn (probably built as a cistern) is believed to have been used as a hiding place by people escaping from slavery for many years. The entrance to the chamber and all interpretive displays are accessible for viewing to all visitors. Underground Railroad reenactments have been conducted and filmed on site, and segments have been shown throughout New York State by PBS Television and will be distributed this year by the State University of New York to all public and private schools in New York State. An archeological study of the site is in progress, concentrating on the significance of cultural material uncovered parallel with the period of the Underground Railroad, and on collected folklore and oral history from the local community indicting the use of the farm as an Underground Railroad "station." Public displays have been developed, are continually expanded, and will incorporate exhibits of archeological methods, artifacts and of the significance of cultural anthropological studies and oral traditions to historical research of the Underground Railroad.

North Street Meeting House
2960 Brick Church Road
Constructed between March and December 1834, the North Street Meetinghouse was, said Emily Howland, one of the Orthodox Friends who attended it wrote, “a storm center for reformers.” African American members included Gidean Wainwright, nephew of Paul Cuffee, who joined before this building was constructed, and probably Richard Gaskin, born in Virginia, who arrived in 1864. European American abolitionist members of this meeting included the Slocum and Hannah Howland family, David and Edna Thomas, Isaac and Susan Jacobs, Susannah Marriott, and Joseph and Sarah Tallcott. In November 1837, the Cayuga County Anti-Slavery Society held one of its first meetings here (having been refused space in the Presbyterian Church in Aurora). “The meeting was well attended principally by the Friends who are numerous in this quarter and quite generally abolitionists,” reported the Friend of Man, newspaper of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. In 1843, Garrisonian abolitionist Abby Kelley spoke here, as part of her tour of New York State. In 1850, the meeting helped raise bail money for William Chaplin, jailed in Maryland for attempting to rescue people from slavery. The meeting also raised money to give Chaplin an inscribed silver pitcher. During the Civil War, a women’s sewing circle made clothes for freed people. Harriet Hunt, one of the earliest woman physicians in the U.S. gave a lecture here.

First Baptist Church of Elmira
121 West Church Street
John W. Jones was a runaway slave from Leesburg, Virginia and he made Elmira his permanent home. After he secured his freedom, he became the main "agent" of the Underground Railroad in Elmira. Mr. Jones sheltered runaway slaves at his home on Church Street while he made arrangements for their safe passage to Canada. Mr. Jones' home was located next to the Elmira First Baptist Church where he was employed as the church sexton. In 1890, a new church was built and the church purchased Mr. Jones' home. The home was torn down to allow room for expansion. With the help of some of the most prominent citizens of Elmira, John W. Jones helped over 800 individuals in their flight to freedom. Some of the prominent individuals who assisted Mr. Jones were, Jervis Langdon, (Mark Twain's father-in-law), Simeon Benjamin, (founder and first president of the board of Elmira College), Reverened Thomas K. Beecher, (borhter of Harriet Beecher Stowe), and Ariel S. Thurston, a prominent judge.

M'Clintock House
14 E Williams Street
This was the residence of Quaker pharmacist Thomas M'Clintock and his wife Mary Ann from 1836 to 1856. On July 16, 1848, this house was the location where the Declaration of Sentiments, resolutions, and speeches were drawn up for the subsequent First Women's Rights Convention.

Cayuga County Historian's Office
157 Genesee Street
The CCHO houses over four hundred local history books as well as pamphlets of area abolitionists and freedom seekers. CCHO has also compiled a collection of obituaries from area citizens affiliated with the UGRR and in many instances pursued supplementary information connected to their lives, including deed searches, church attendance, and census records. This information provides CCHO with a better sense of how African Americans were employed, their place of birth, their personal affiliations, and ultimately, their proximity to Underground Railroad activities.

Seymour Library
176-78 Genesee Street
The Mary Van Sickle Wait History Room provides its patrons with one of the finest contemporary collections of material related to the Underground Railroad in Cayuga County. Recent publications on the life of Harriet Tubman exist alongside primary resources on life in nineteenth-century Auburn, New York. The 2004-2005 survey conducted by the city of Auburn and Historical New York Research Associates has provided the facility with countless property listings and census records of individuals living in Auburn, New York who escaped slavery to find asylum in Central New York. These records become living history when interpreted alongside maps of the region and biographies of influential members of the Underground Railroad movement. Resources at the Mary Van Sickle Wait History Room are tactile means by which visitors can recreate the cultural atmosphere of the Underground Railroad Movement and understand its broader implications on nineteenth-century American life.

Howland Stone Store Museum
2956 New York 34B
As the hub of Slocum Howland’s widespread business dealings (which included tenant houses, farms, commercial operations, and warehouses and mills along lakefronts on Cayuga Lake at Levanna and Lake Ontario at Oswego), this store was also the center of Howland’s extensive Underground Railroad network. Well-documented cases of freedom seekers associated with Slocum Howland include Thomas and James Hart (1840) and the Hannah and Herman Phillips family (1843). A rare Underground Railroad pass survives, carried by Thomas and James Hart on their trip from Maryland. Other possible freedom seekers assisted by Slocum Howland include Jerome (Rome) Griger (Greger, Groger). and the Richard and Mary Gaskin family. Beginning in 1857, Slocum Howland’s daughter, Emily Howland, worked in a school kept by Myrtilla Miner for African American girls in Washington, D.C.. During and after the Civil War, she worked in Freedmen’s Schools in the South, and she and her father established and supported black schools in Virginia throughout the nineteenth century.

Sandy Ground Historical Society
1538 Woodrow Rd, Staten Island, NY, 10312
1538 Woodrow Road
The Sandy Ground Historical Society was formed in 1979 to preserve the history and physical surroundings of the Sandy Ground Community and also to maintain and promote the legacy of the community, as it is an important part of American History. The community was made up of newly freed slaves from the New York metropolitan area and later joined by freedman who had been working many years in the oyster industry in the waters around Delmar Peninsula. Laws restricting their livelihood and their freedom forced them to leave the Maryland/Virginia area and settle in Sandy Ground, a station on the Underground Railroad. The Museum continuously promotes the community's culture and heritage through lectures, exhibits, arts, and music.

United States Colored Troops Institute at Hartwick College
1 Hartwick College Dr, Oneonta, NY, 13820
1 Hartwick College Drive
The United States Colored Troops Institute for Local History and Family Research was established at USCTI Logo Hartwick College in 1998 as an educational membership organization to promote and encourage research, preservation and remembrance about the United States Colored Troops.

Mexico Museum
5319 Jefferson Street
The Mexico Museum lies within the Mexico Village Historic District, Mexico (Oswego County), New York. The building is owned and maintained by the Town of Mexico, while the museum is operated by the Mexico Historical Society. The collection, in general, reflects life in Mexico from 1800 to the present. Materials related to the abolition movement include letters, diaries, photographs, cemetery records, petitions, scrapbooks and newspaper files.

Park Church
208 West Gray Street
In 1846, forty-one members of the First Presbyterian Church of Elmira asked for letters of dismissal for the purpose of forming a new church. This separation from the church resulted over the issue of slavery. These forty-one members were prominent citizens of the area and ardent abolitionists. Under the by-laws of the new church, slavery was forbidden. After the church was established, a fugitive slave, George Jones was hired as the sexton of the church. George Jones was the half-brother of John W. Jones, the main conductor of the Underground Railroad in Elmira, New York.

Stephen and Harriet Myers House
194 Livingston Avenue
The building now known as 194 Livingston Avenue in the Arbor Hill section of Albany, Albany County, New York, is significant as the one-time office of the Vigilance Committee of Albany, the key Underground Railroad group in the City of Albany. It is one of many locations for this office but it is the only surviving site. The site is listed on the New York State and National Register of Historic Buildings. This committee was active from the early 1840s into the 1850s and assisted hundreds of fugitives from slavery to escape through Albany on their way to freedom in the northern United States and Canada. In addition, 194 Livingston is significant as the home of Stephen and Harriet Myers and their family. Stephen Myers was principal agent for the Vigilance Committee during the 1850s and one of the most significant figures in Albany's Underground Railroad history that had actively assisted escaped slaves for nearly 30 years, beginning in 1831. Myers lived in the house during the period when he was "Superintendent" for the Vigilance Committee and maintained the group's office in the building at the same time.

Bristol Hill Church (First Congregational Church and Society of Volney)
3199 New York 3
This church was founded in 1812 and built between 1832 and 1835, by a congregation of African-Americans and European Americans, who stood united against the existence of slavery. In 1843, the congregation adopted a resolution vowing to "use all proper means in our power" to free slaves.

Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor's Underground Railroad Program
1 Delaware Avenue
The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor's UGRR program serves as an umbrella support network for all of the UGRR Network to Freedom sites within and near the corridor providing marketing, promotional support and direct assistance for programming and training. This additional recognition and branding of unique UGRR Network to Freedom sites within the corridor will tie them to a larger Erie Canalway Network and provide a network of interpretive opportunities for the cultural and heritage traveler. The story of the UGRR is intimately tied to the Erie Canalway. While the canal is well known as a transportation marvel of the 1800s and for the economic growth it brought to New York, it also served as a critical mode of transportation for people and ideas, including the integral role as a pathway or destination for freedom seekers.

David and Martha Wright House Site
192 Genesee Street
Martha Wright, sister of Lucretia Mott, is best known as a woman’s rights advocate, one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls woman’s rights convention in 1848, but she was also an Underground Railroad supporter, part of the network affiliated with William H. and Frances Seward, Gerrit Smith, and Harriet Tubman in central New York. In letters to family members in 1843, 1857, and 1860, Wright presented detailed documentation of three Underground Railroad events she participated in, including her work in providing assistance for the seven people that Harriet Tubman rescued on her last trip into Maryland in 1860.

Hunt House
401 E Main Street
Information obtained from close family members maintain that the Hunt House was used as a refuge for freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad. The Hunts offered their home as “a comfortable lodging place to many a colored person and to groups of them who were being helped under cover of darkness to freedom a few miles to the north.” The Hunt House, built by Richard P. Hunt in 1829, is most famous as the gathering place of five women, who, in 1848, created the call to the first women’s rights convention. However, there is more history to the house and its earliest inhabitants, for many individuals that were devoted to the women’s rights movement were also committed to the antislavery movement. With Sarah M’Clintock and Jane Master Hunt, Richard P. Hunt’s third and fourth wives, strong familial, spiritual, and social bonds were created with Quaker abolitionist families, the M’Clintocks and the Truman-Underhills. The M’Clintocks, the Hunts, and the Truman-Underhill families were all active in various antislavery and social betterment activities. These families helped to form various antislavery societies, created and/or signed numerous antislavery petitions, and helped to plan or attended antislavery conventions.

Joshua W. and Samantha Wright House
61 Bridge Street
Born in Maryland about 1814, Joshua W. Wright came to Seneca Falls in the early 1840s as a freedom seeker. Like Thomas James, another freedom seeker who settled in Seneca Falls, Wright became a prosperous barber and active abolitionist. He owned several pieces of property and served for many years as trustee of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, an antislavery church that hosted the nation’s first woman’s rights convention. He and his first wife Samantha lived in this house from 1853 to 1858. He died in 1882 and is buried with other Wesleyan Church members in Spring Brook Cemetery, Seneca Falls.

Herman and Hannah Phillips House
300 State Route 34B
In 1843, Herman and Hannah Phillips walked with their four children from slavery in Maryland to Sherwood, New York. There, sponsored by Quaker storeowner Slocum Howland, they found work and a home. Recognized by a former Maryland neighbor who visited Sherwood in the late 1850s, the Phillips family fled to Canada. They soon returned to Sherwood, however, and in 1854, they bought land from Slocum Howland. They moved this house (built before 1837) to this spot about 1855, and here they raised their eight children. Three sons served in the Civil War. The house remained in the family until 1913, when Rose E. and Estella Phillips, daughter-in-law and granddaughter of Hannah and Herman, sold it to Isabel Howland, granddaughter of Slocum Howland. Estella Phillips remained in Sherwood, a friend, and employee of Isabel Howland, until Isabel’s death in 1942, when Estella moved to Fitch Avenue in Auburn. Herman, Hannah, and several of their children are buried in the Sherwood cemetery, across the road from their house, Relatives of this family still remain in the area. Primary source documentation for this family is extensive through letters and diaries kept by Emily Howland, daughter of Slocum Howland.

New York Historical Society
170 Central Park
The New-York Historical Society (N-YHS), with its extraordinary collection of documents, art and artifacts relating to the history of the Underground Railroad and its antecedents in New York, including the Manumission Society and the Vigilance Committee of New York, is a natural facility for the housing, display and interpretation of the Underground Railroad's history. The N-YHS was one of the very few institutions collecting during the height of the Underground Railroad movement from the 1830s to 1860s and even earlier during the existence of prototypes such as the Manumission Society. Our materials are unique and broad-ranging, incomparable sources for the study of slavery, resistance, abolition and flight.The N-YHS' Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture, located on the 4th floor of our Central Park West headquarters, houses a permanent exhibition relating to slavery in New York and the Underground Railroad's history, with a virtual exhibition tour, text panels and original art and artifacts from the N-YHS' collection. Elsewhere in the Center are several hundred relevant artifacts and paintings—including portraits of Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith and other Underground Railroad leaders—that can always be seen by the public.

National Archives and Records Administration, Northeast Region New York
201 Varick Street
The National Archives and Records Administration, Northeast Region, New York City, is the repository for official U.S. government historical records for the states of New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The holdings date from the 1680s to the 1990s and cover significant events in our nation's history and contain details on the actions and decisions of government officials and the public in confronting the issue of slavery and the status of blacks in America. Court and Customs records document the Atlantic Slave Trade, including the international slave trade. Other federal court records include cases related to fugitive slaves, who fled from Maryland (1830s-1850s), and Civil War prize case files that include papers confiscated during the war from blockade runners, including several slave manifests and slave bills of sale.

Mount Hope Cemetery
1133 Mount Hope Avenue
Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY is the final resting place of abolitionists and figures associated with the UGRR. Due to its location, waterways and close proximity to Canada, Rochester became a bustling hub of UGRR activity. Many fugitives were ushered through Rochester on the path to freedom, and some chose to make Rochester their home, including Reverend Thomas James, Georgiana Sims, Charlotte Bristol, and William Thomas. Austin Steward lived in Rochester for a time, leaving 3 infant children in the cemetery. Many citizens of Rochester operated stations, including George Avery, John Kedzie, Samuel Porter, Henry Quinby, David Richardson, David Stanley and the families of Asa Anthony, Daniel Anthony, Elias DeGarmo, Lester Dolley, Samuel D. Porter, and Issac Post. William Falls, Edward Williams and Jacob Morris helped the cause by soliciting funds to aid escaping slaves. Susan B. Anthony and Henry Selden were acquainted with John Brown, and aided the cause after the failed Harper’s Ferry raid. Frederick Douglass belongs in any and all of these categories, as he spent a great portion of his adult life in Rochester, raising his family, publishing his paper, aiding fugitives and fighting the injustice of human bondage.

Moses Viney Burial Site at Vale Cemetery
907 State Street
Resting within the boundaries of the African-American Ancestral Burial Ground at Vale Cemetery is local legend Moses Viney. In 1840, Viney fled enslavement in Talbot County, Maryland, to seek freedom in the North. His journey with two other runaways brought him across the Choptank River to Delaware,[1] from Philadelphia to New York City, up the Hudson River to Troy, and finally, on to his adopted home of Schenectady, New York. Most notably, Viney was given aid and direction by Underground Railroad affiliates at the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.[2] After reaching relative safety within Schenectady's borders, Viney came under the employment of Union College President Eliphalet Nott. Through Nott's support, Viney sought asylum in Canada, while local officials successfully negotiated his emancipation. As a result of these combined efforts, Moses Viney was granted his right to freedom, and lived to become a beloved figure by college affiliates and the resident community.

Onondaga Historical Association Museum and Research Center
305 Montgomery Street
The Onondaga Historical Association Museum (OHA) is the primary history agency for the greater Syracuse, New York community. OHA opened a professionally researched and designed permanent multi-media exhibit in September of 2003 entitled, Freedom Bound: The Story of Syracuse & The Underground Railroad. Both the broad context and particular stories of local Underground Railroad actions are interpreted through period graphics, original artifacts, and a “sound & light” object theater presentation. Adjacent to the exhibit is the museum auditorium which also now features a 23-minute video entitled, The Jerry Rescue: Syracuse Defies the Fugitive Slave Law. Through a combination of live drama with historical images, this production interprets the 1851 rescue in Syracuse of a fugitive slave named William “Jerry” Henry, one of the most famous public actions of the Underground Railroad in the nation at the time. The OHA is now recognized as the focus for public interpretation of Syracuse’s Underground Railroad story. Although primary documentation of Underground Railroad activities is always limited, OHA’s collection also includes various church records, individual letters, numerous period newspaper articles and other first person accounts that both attest to local Underground Railroad activity or help provide vital clues and connections for further research.

Louis Napoleon House Site
1538 Woodrow Rd, Staten Island, NY, 10312
1538 Woodrow Road
The Sandy Ground Historical Society has identified Louis Napoleon as an extraordinary and noteworthy member of the New York antislavery movement and as an "agent" of the Underground Railroad who lived and died in the Sandy Ground Community on Bloomingdale Rd. Since the house on Bloomingdale Road has been demolished, the Sandy Ground Historical Society is nominating the Site of the Louis Napoleon Home.
Mr. Napoleon was a true fighter for freedom seekers and had a remarkable career as an agent of the Underground Railroad that spanned more than fifty years.Mr. Napoleon was believed to have assisted upwards of three thousand self emancipators obtain their freedom and initiated two major
New York court cases for the emancipation of slaves.
Shortly after the Civil War Mr. Napoleon and his wife Elizabeth moved to Sandy Ground where they remained until their deaths in 1881 and 1905 respectively.

Black Rock Ferry
1170 Niagara Street
Broderick Park was the location of the Black Rock ferry, a major transportation link across the Niagara River between Buffalo, New York and Fort Erie, Canada. The ferry operated continuously from the Broderick Park location from 1825 until the service was discontinued in the middle of the 20th century. Buffalo's destiny as important national transportation hub was sealed when it was chosen for the terminus of the Erie Canal in the 1820s. Through the 19th century Buffalo grew to become a busy inland port and a railroad center. The area around Black Rock ferry contained the busy Erie Canal, Black Rock Harbor, and other waterfront activities. The dock where the ferry landed and departed for nearby Canada was used as an Underground Railroad station from at least the 1830s until the Civil War. Fugitive slaves took the ferry and other boats from the Broderick Park location across the river to Canada and freedom. Many historians have pointed to the ferry location as a vital link in the Underground Railroad and numerous well-documented fugitive slave accounts describing the ferry location attest to its importance.

John B. and Lydia Edwards House
144 East Third Street
As Gerrit Smith’s land agent, friend and fellow abolitionist, John B. Edwards shaped Oswego’s eonomic and cultural development for over sixty years. For at least sixteen of those years he was a key helper on the Freedom Trail, arranging passage across Lake Ontario for fugitive slaves on the very least part of their journey to Canada. Documentation for use of the Edwards’ house as a stop on the Underground Railroad is remarkable, both for its detail and for the long time span it covers. The original Edwards letters to Smith which relate these underground activities are located in Bird Library, Syracuse University.
Edwards purchased the house in 1836, tow years after it was built, and owned it until his death in 1895. Greek Revival in style, the two-story building exhibits a gable end orientation to the street, post and beam construction, and a foundation of cut field stone. The modillions beneath the eaves are seen rarely in Oswego County. Before the Civil War, at the time of its greatest historic significance, the house was surrounded by open fields. After the war Edwards sold the adjoining parcels of Lot 108, Block 139; today the Edwards House sets on a 33’ wide lot, surrounded by homes situated on similar small plots.
Fortunately, the John B. and Lydia Edwards House retains its original form on its original site, and a feeling and association related to its historic period. Were they to return today, the Edwards family would surely recognize the house as their own.

Jervis Langdon House
413 Lake Street
Jervis Langdon is better known as Mark Twain's father-in-law than he is for being an abolitionist and an active participant in the Underground Railroad. From 1847 until 1860, a most crucial time of the Underground Railroad period, Jervis Langdon and his family lived in a house on East Union. Jervis Langdon was a self-made millionaire and one of the central figures in the Underground Railroad in Chemung County. He not only provided funding, he also provided lodging and was active in anti-slavery activities in the county. This site is significant because it is the only existing Langdon home. The last home he lived in from 1860 until his death in 1870 is very well known. It was a grand mansion on Main Street in Elmira, New York and it took up a whole city block, from Church Street to First Street. In this home, Olivia Langdon married Samuel Clemens, (Mark Twain). Unfortunately, this mansion was torn down in 1939 and later replaced by a shopping plaza named Langdon Plaza.

Awaakaba Riverstroll
181 Royleston Road
Riverstroll is one of several multi-layered tours developed by AKWAABA: the Heritage Associates, a non-profit corporation. AKWAABA members are storytellers, teachers, parents, an historian, a poet, a musician, all longtime Rochester residents seeking to preserve and perpetuate the legacy bequeathed by 19th century freedom advocates. Riverstroll takes visitors on a guided tour of sites associated with freedom and the Underground Railroad. The tour begins at Main Street, at the river, where the hamlet, Rochesterville began in the early 1800s. Visitors then take a short ride to another locale, where other segments of the freedom trail unfolded. Along the way visitors will hear and learn about Austin Steward, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. There is also a stop at Mt. hope Cemetery where many of these freedom advocates are buried.

Oswego School District Public Library
120 East Second Street
In 1853, Gerrit Smith, an abolitionist, and a businessman, donated funds to establish the Oswego City Library. The stipulation of the gift was that the privileges of the library should be conferred upon all persons without regard to race, color, or condition, and that his name not be associated with the library. On April 15, 1854, by act of the New York State Legislature, the library was incorporated. The library was completed in 1855.

Richardson-Bates House Museum
135 E. 3rd Street
The collections of this museum, owned and operated by the Oswego County Historical Society, reflect all aspects of the history of Oswego County, New York. Several items, such as letters, poster paintings, photographs, and books pertain to the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad in the area.

Many Roads to Freedom, Rochester Public Library
115 South Avenue
The Rochester NY public library, especially the Local History Division, (RPL-LHD), is a primary history agency for the greater Rochester NY community. RPL-LHD opened and provided a professionally researched and designed permanent online exhibit in September 2007 entitled, “Many Roads to Freedom”. Both the broad context and particular stories of local Underground Railroad actions are shown in digitized copies of primary source documents, period graphics, local newspapers which deal with the subject, and various items used for teaching document based questions in the NY state social studies curriculum. These include newspapers, speeches, abolitionist writings, songs, portraits, biographies, and a folio of abolitionist manuscript items. This online exhibit has been presented to numerous groups of teachers by the division's staff, and also it has been presented to statewide conventions of libraries, historical agencies, and archivists. The RPL-LHD is now recognized as a de facto history center for the region, especially with the online availability of these materials. Other materials regarding the Underground Railroad collections include manuscript items relating to Frederick Douglass’ life in Rochester, Frederick Douglass’ newspapers ( both in microfilm and digital format), microfilmed copies of his scrapbooks, and one of a kind images of underground railroad stops.

Bloomingburg Presbyterian Church
27 Wayne Street
The Bloomingburg Presbyterian Church was the center of both anti-slavery and Underground Railroad activity in the village of Bloomingburg, Fayette County, Ohio. The physical structure served as a meeting place of stalwart abolitionists, while the congregation of worshipers included a number of Underground Railroad operatives, several of whom were prominent in the church’s leadership. This included the church’s pastor, Rev. William Dickey, and church trustees and elders William Ustick, James Stewart, and Dr. Gillespie. Letters to Wilbur Siebert from several contemporary local men confirm these men’s association with the Underground Railroad. Sometime prior to 1856, the Bloomingburg Presbyterian Church was acted by an anti-slavery mob for the perceived involvement of the congregation. Today the congregation still worships in the original building, and is proud of the church’s strong heritage respecting social justice.

Howard Family Farm
Road overlook opposite 23891 West River Road, on the south side between Bridge Street and Monroe Str
Road overlook opposite 23891 West River Road, on the south side between Bridge Street and Monroe Street
The address is located on a public portion of the original Gilead (Grand Rapids, Ohio) homestead of the Thomas Howard and Edward Howard families. Edward and his son Dresden were early conductors on the UGRR in this area of Northwest Ohio. The original log cabin (built as temporary shelter in 1822-1823) and the first permanent stone house dwelling (built 1823-1824) are no longer extant, having long since been dismantled. The third Howard residence at this site, a two-story five colonnaded tavern known as the "Howard House" (built in 1823) was moved approximately four miles east, to 21171 West River Road in Grand Rapids, Ohio in 1932.

Lindale Baptist Church and Cemetery
3052 State Route 132
This was the church of Andrew Coombs, Jr., abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor in Lindale, Clermont County, Ohio. It is located on St. Rt. 132, which was used as a route on the Underground Railroad from New Richmond. It was used by John Rankin to transport fugitives from Ripley to Levi Coffin in Cincinnati. Andrew Coombs, Jr. is buried in the church cemetery.

Thomas Morris, U.S. Senator, Burial Site
321 N Main Street
Buried in the Old Settlers Cemetery, Morris was the only anti-slavery spokesman in the U.S. Senate from 1836-39. He ran as Vice-President on the Liberty Party Ticket in 1844. He, along with John Jolliffe and Owen Fishback, defended Reverend John B. Mahan, in 1834. Mahan was accused of assisting a slave to freedom.

Forge for Freedom (John Parker House)
330 N Front Street
The Forge for Freedom is a public presentation that has used the life of John P. Parker to educate and inspire diverse audiences in Southwestern Ohio since 1994.

Clermont County Courthouse
This site commemorates John Jollifee, Clermont County Prosecuting Attorney from 1833-37, for his efforts as an anti-slavery attorney. His first case involved defending John Mahan, Amos and John Pettyjohn for criminal riot involving a fugitive slave. Jollifee was involved in seventeen other cases defending fugitive slaves including Margret Garner.

Union Township Library
The Union Township Public Library, est. 1915, has a unique collection of materials both published and unpublished geared towards illustrating the importance of Ripley, Ohio and surrounding areas in the Underground Railroad (UGRR) movement. The library's mission is to provide access to materials ranging from letters and unpublished manuscripts to modern publications on the UGRR history. From a fragile notebook listing contributors that financially assisted in the defense of John B. Mahan's 1838 felony trial to a 2011 publication of Grape Vine Dispatch: The Voice of Antislavery Messages by Caroline Miller, the collection attempts to provide researchers with both broad and detailed views of this area's history of UGRR participants and activities. The newspaper collection contains runs of local papers from 1821-1865 that give excellent accounts of local UGRR activity and abolitionist points of view. Our local history collection brings to one location many of the diverse resources that researchers require when studying Ohio and Kentucky UGRR participation. In the shadow of John Rankin's house, one of the prominent stations on the UGRR line, the library is primed to be the logical location for research materials, and has a director and board that actively support the continuing growth of the collection.

Smith Library of Regional History
15 South College Avenue
Established in 1981, The Smith Library of Regional History is a division of the Lane Public Libraries and is the premiere regional history library in Butler County, Ohio. Its holdings include books, newspapers, maps, photographs, manuscripts, archives, and oral histories as well as copies or transcripts of county records for Butler County and some surrounding counties. The collection time period covers the late 1700s to the present with emphasis on the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Despite the general scarcity of evidence for Underground Railroad study, the Smith Library has information on routes through Butler County that led to stops in Preble County to the immediate north and to nearby counties in Indiana. Underground Railroad oral histories within Oxford’s African American community led to the discovery of substantiating information in deeds, maps, and other documents in the Smith Library.
Some representative examples of the Smith Library’s contribution to Underground Railroad study include providing information for students’ school projects, local newspaper articles, a state NAACP conference, a regional history presentation, a national journal article, and more.
For more information about visiting the library and hours of operation, please visit: http://lanepl.org/smith.html

Putnam Presbyterian Church
467 Woodlawn Ave, Springfield, OH, 45504
467 Woodlawn Avenue
Built in 1835, the brick Greek Revival Building in Zanesville, OH, is home to the Putnam Presbyterian Church. Although now part of Zanesville, the Church was the major religious center of the Putnam's abolitionist community. Its members actively supported the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad. In fact it was the radical anti-slavery beliefs of the members that led to the church's founding. At one time, the members had attended the Zanesville Presbyterian Church, but when they found that their more radical anti-slavery beliefs were not embraced, they decided to start their own church.
The UGRR activity of other members is well documented in the Siebert Collection, county histories, and personal reminisces. Oral history indicates that the church might have been used to shelter freedom seekers, but so far this has not been corroborated.
The church, which still has an active congregation, was recognized for its involvement in the Underground Railroad on the National Register as part of the Putnam Historic District and by Ohio's Friends of Freedom Society.

Pleasant Hill Cemetery
5274 Wilson Road
Pleasant Hill Cemetery (AKA Rushville Cemetery), a rural cemetery located in Fairfield County, Ohio, contains burials significant to the history of the UGRR. The cemetery is the burial place of Joe Selby, a freedom seeker who died in nearby Rushville, Ohio.Selby's flight to freedom ended in the village of Rushville when he died while in the care of Dr. Simon Hyde, a local physician and abolitionist, who is also buried in the cemetery.Hyde was an early pioneer of Fairfield County, Ohio and provided medical care to an untold number of freedom seekers that passed through the area. In 1856, Selby's story was immortalized in the song Darling Nelly Gray. The song was written by Benjamin Hanby, son of Hyde's co-conspirator in Underground Railroad activities, Reverend William Hanby of the United Brethern Church.
Other burials in the cemetery include four to six other fugitive slaves buried in unmarked graves and members of the Hanby family.
The still active cemetery is open to the public from dawn to dusk daily. It is located on Basore Road (south of the village of Rushville, OH.Off US Route 22, just east of Ohio Route 664).Range 17, Township 17, Section 17. This cemetery should not be confused with nearby West Rushville Cemetery located on the west side of the village of West Rushville, Ohio.

Oberlin College Archives
420 Mudd Center 148 West College Street
The Oberlin College Archives, established in 1966, seeks nomination to be included in the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.Considered one of the most notable stops on the Underground Railroad, Oberlin, Ohio is central in understanding the history of the United States during the period leading up to the Civil War. The Oberlin College Archives holds primary resources, such as correspondence and photographs, documenting Oberlin's significant role in the fight against the institution of slavery.
By way of example, antislavery supporters influenced the decision by the Oberlin Collegiate Institute (name changed to Oberlin College in 1850) Board of Trustees to admit African American students in 1835.The minutes of the Board provide documentation for this critical period in Oberlin's History.Other materials document the famous Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case, a pivotal event in Oberlin's involvement in the Underground Railroad.
The Oberlin College Library and Special Collections also contain monographs, printed matter, manuscripts, and artifacts relating to Oberlin's and the nation's antislavery activity, includingmaterials related to university graduates and former students who either supported the work of or participated in the Underground Railroad across the country, as freedom seekers and/or those who provided assistance.
For information about the library's collections and visitor information, please visit: www.oberlin.edu/archive

King Family Cemetery
Delta
The King Cemetery in Delta, Ohio memorializes Rev. William King, founder of hte historic Elgin Settlement (North Buxton), Ontario, a major destination point for freedom seekers escaping enslavement in the US. Although Rev. King is not buried in the cemetery, a nineteenth century memorial stone was placed there by family members. It reads "Sacred to the Memory of Wm.King. For the Sake of his family, William permitted his earthly remains to lye [sic] in a foreign land." The cemetery represents a small portion of the original 640 King homestead in Delta, where Rev. King and fifteen formerly enslaved individuals (who he had manumitted) over-wintered on their way to Ontario where they established the Elgin Settlement.

John King Farm
949 State Route 109
The John King Farm just outside of Delta, Ohio served as an UGRR station from 1838 until the end of the Civil War. It was located on one of the overland routes to the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. The King farm station lay along the route through the Black Swamp. The King farm was linked to stations near the Michigan border. From the King farm, freedom seekers traveled to the Eicher station east of Delta, Ohio and on to either Sylvania or Perrysburg.

Old Calvary Methodist Church
The community of Washington Township, including State Senator Doughty Utter, met at the Calvary Methodist Church on November 4, 1842, to protest the kidnapping of Fanny Wigglesworth and her four children by William Moore and William Middleton. A committee was organized and resolutions were issued demanding the return of the family. The event precipitated Robert Fee’s involvement in the Underground Railroad. This site was chosen to commemorate the kidnapping of the Wigglesworth’s since the actual site of their home is inaccessible.

Hudson Library and Historical Society
96 Library Street
The Hudson Library and Historical Society is a primary research facility in Northeastern Ohio for regional and local Hudson area history, including a sizable collection relative to famed abolitionist, John Brown and the Underground Railroad.
In the summer of 1832, Western Reserve College and the community of Hudson, Ohio was torn asunder by the abolition versus colonization debate. This debate was especially heated and precipitated the removal of the college administration. It also caused a split in the Hudson Congregatonal Church, which fostered the birth of the Free Congregational Church of Hudson, Ohio with John Brown's father, Owen Brown, leading the newly formed church. Hudson's history as an abolitionist town was further bolstered as several nationally known advocates such as Frederick Douglass often came to Hudson to speak or visit with the Brown family.
Hudson's extensive collection also includes various church records, property records, individual letters, abolitionist tracts, numerous period newspapers and other first person accounts that both attest to local Underground Railroad activity or help provide vital clues and connections for further research. Hudson also cherishes documents donated by Brown family descendants and collections from other abolitionists such as Beriah Green and Elizur Wright Jr.

Williamsburg Cemetery
The Williamsburg, Ohio, Cemetery contains the burial sites of three Underground Railroad operatives: Charles Huber, Dr. L. T. Pease and Samuel Peterson.

Dr. William E. Thompson House
213 East Plane Street
This building was the home and office of Dr. William E. Thompson. Dr. Thompson was, as a teenager, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, taking fugitives from Bethel to the Elklick area of Clermont County near Williamsburg, Ohio.

Gus West Site/Abolition Lane
The homestead of the free African American August West provided an effective hideaway for fugitive slaves during that institution’s existence and then was the center of a small African-American community along what was known as Abolition Road, in Fayette County, Ohio. The location of the home in Perry Township placed it near the town of Greenfield, which was heavily involved in the Underground Railroad. Within a very tight radius of the house lived four documented Underground Railroad operatives: Alexander Beatty, William Templeton, Ebenezer McElroy, and William Smith, all interrelated by marriage and all Presbyterians. West’s story is being researched through the efforts of the Research History Class of Washington Senior High School, Washington Court House, Ohio, which is researching census records, tax records, deeds, and other documents, in an attempt to corroborate the oral traditions passed down to West family descendants, as well as the current property owners. It is appropriate to mark the West property in commemoration of the racial cooperation necessary for the success of the Underground Railroad.

Felicity Weslyan Church
This church was formed as an anti-slavery church in 1847. It grew to 200 members by 1858. A number of its members were involved in the Underground Railroad.

A.A. Guthrie House
405 Woodlawn Avenue
Built in 1830, the federal style house located in Putnam, Ohio (now Zanesville) was home to Albert Austin (A.A) Guthrie, who was described as being "among the bravest and most fearless conductors" on the Underground Railroad [1] For example, in one incident Guthrie assisted sixteen freedom seekers in their journey out of slavery.[2] Born in Washington County, Ohio on January 9, 1803, Guthrie came to the Putnam at the age of thirteen. He along with his brothers, George and Stephen, became active members of the abolitionist movement and participants in the Underground Railroad. He was known as an "an efficient and successful anti-slavery lecturer, in this and adjoining counties" and "among the earliest and most ardent advocates of immediate emancipation, when almost the entire sentiment of the community on the slavery question was against him."[3]
The house, an example of Putnam Antebellum architecture, underwent extensive alterations after the Civil War. The house is listed on the National Register as part of Zanesville's Putnam Historic District for "… the significant role that Putnam residents and institutions played in the Ohio debate about the abolition of slavery and the activity of sheltering fugitive slaves in the years prior to the Civil War."[4] The house is currently a private residence.

Dr. L.T. Pease House
180 Gay Street
This site was the homesite of Dr. L. T. Pease and his wife, Nancy Fee. Dr. Pease was the assistant "stationmaster" at Williamsburg. He assumed the role of "stationmaster" in 1854, when Charles Huber died. Nancy Fee's father and brother were active conductors.

Charles B. Huber House
975 West Main Street
This site was the home of Charles "Boss" B. Huber who was the Williamsburg, Ohio stationmaster of the Underground Railroad until his death in 1854.

Dr. William Thompson Boyhood House
137 South Main Street
This site is the location of the boyhood home of Dr. William E. Thompson, who as a teenager, acted as a conductor guiding fugitives from Bethel to Williamsburg. He also shot hounds tracking the fugitives. Dr. Thompson’s adult home and burial site have previously been accepted into the Network to Freedom.

Col. William Hubbard House
1603 Walnut Boulevard
The Hubbard House (c. 1840s), built in Greek Revival architectural style and located in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio, was the home of abolitionist and Underground Railroad station-master Col. William Hubbard (a.k.a. Deacon William Hubbard), a well-known businessman in the community, who was active in establishing several anti-slavery societies within the county. Described as a northern terminus of the Underground Railroad, his house served as one of the last stops that individuals escaping slavery reached had before being ferried over to Canada. The house was also known as “Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard” and “The Great Emporium.” Today the house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places,1 is home to the Hubbard House Underground Railroad Museum with displays devoted to recreating how the house looked in William Hubbard's time, as well as displays for the Civil War and local history.

George and Sarah Gutherie House
521 Woodlawn Avenue
Built in 1842 in Putnam, Ohio (now Zanesville), the temple-form Greek Revival house was the residence of prosperous merchant George Guthrie and his wife, Sarah and a station on the Underground Railroad.1 George was a founding member and later served as a trustee of the Putnam Presbyterian Church, which was strongly linked to the abolitionist and Underground Railroad movements and is currently listed in the Network to Freedom. It is document that George and Sarah, working in concert with George’s brothers Austin (whose home is also listed in the Network to Freedom) and Stephen, along with members of the African American community, participated in Underground Railroad activities.2
The two-story building with a two-story portico supported by four Tuscan columns is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of Zanesville’s Putnam Historic District. The house is currently a private residence.

Office of the Philanthropist Newspaper
Lot 33 B & C, 100 Block of Willow Sreet
This site marks the office of The Philanthropist Newspaper published by James G. Birney. The Philanthropist was an outspoken opponent of slavery and the official paper of the Ohio Anti-slavery Society. It was threatened with destruction numerous times during the four months it was published in New Richmond. The citizens of New Richmond formed a vigilance committee to patrol the streets to protect the office when it was threatened by outsiders. The paper moved to Cincinnati in April 1836. The office and presses were destroyed on July 30, 1836. The paper opened again shortly afterward.

Fugitive's Path—Escape on the Underground Railroad
2686 Oak Hill Road
A Fugitive's Path—Escape on the Underground Railroad is a 90-minute interactive program designed to give participants a first hand look many of the things runaway slaves encountered on their bid for freedom. Participants role play the part of a fugitive slave and during the program they meet slave hunters, Quakers, abolitionists, free blacks and others. The program gives participants insight into the issues surrounding slavery and the life of a fugitive slave in the year 1852.

James and Sophia Clemens Farm
467 Stingley Road
The Clemens Farmstead is one of the few remaining structures of Longtown AKA the Greenville Negro Settlement. Mr. Clemens (1781-1870 founded the settlement, officially bought the land there in 1818 and lived in the settlement until his death. It is estimated that the house was built between 1822 and 1857. According to William Siebert in his manuscript The Underground Railroad, Longtown was a stop in the Underground Railroad. In Siebert’s interview with Col. David Putnam of Palestine August 13, 1898 Mr. Putnam states “At the Greenville Negro settlement was another station. The Clemens and the Alexander’s were the leaders in the movement there. These were Negro families.” The Clemens are listed as Darke County operators in Appendix E (Directory of the Names of Underground Railroad Operators) in Wilbert H. Sierbert’s The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. Also in the manuscript is a letter from Jno. Reily Knox dated on August 7, 1884 to Professor Siebert Mr. Knox that states “The hunters visited Greenville, and after consultation with a certain law firm, they went in the night to the colored settlement and searched several cabins.” In a 1981 letter from Mrs. Kenton Dye of Winchester Indiana to Mrs. Toni Seller the Director of the Garest Museum, Mrs. Kenton writes that she talked to Maze Clemens a descendant of James Clemens. He stated to her that “His grandfather escorted runaway slaves from Newport (now Fountain City, Indiana) to Longtown where they were hidden all day before being transported to Paulding, Ohio, where it was assumed they were safe.”

Nelson T. Gant House
1845 W Main Street
The Nelson T. Gant Homestead is the home of a former slave who seized opportunities to rise above his past and become a man of great wealth. A highly respected citizen of Zanesville, he was known for his giving nature and gentle demeanor. The house is one of the few homes of former slaves still standing in Muskingum County. There is strong oral tradition that Mr. Gant also did his part in freeing his brothers and sisters by riding them in his wagon, his known support and friendship with fellow Abolitionist. Noted local historian Norris Sneider in his "Y-Bridge City" in his Chapter on Slavery attested that there were about 622 people of color living in Muskingum County at the time and they all assisted in helping on the Underground Railroad. Mr. Gant was a member of a church that was founded on social issues and whose platform was the abolishment of slavery. His affiliations and association with known abolitionist support the oral tradition behind his involvement. This house is a beacon representing what you can achieve despite your humble beginnings. It has been recognized for its significance by Friends of Freedom Society, Ohio Department of Transportation, and National Road Alliance.

Sugar Tree Wesleyan Church Cemetery
This site is the location of the Sugar Tree Wesleyan Church (since demolished) attended by the following people involved with the Underground Railroad: James Bunton, G. P. Riley, Benjamin Rice, Richard Mace, Isaac H. Brown and Lewis Pettijohn. It contains the burial site of Isaac H. Brown.

Robert E. Fee Burial Site
U.S. Route 52
This is the burial site of Robert E. Fee, a member of Clermont County’s most prominent Underground Railroad family. His father Thomas, brother Thomas, sister Nancy and cousins in nearby Felicity are documented conductors. Robert married Catherine Ebersole, sister of Underground Railroad conductor Jacob Ebersole. He became the agent of Vincent Wigglesworth whose family was kidnapped and enslaved. Fee traveled twice to Missouri in two unsuccessful attempts to gain the family’s freedom. He became involved in the Underground Railroad. His home was frequently surrounded by slave hunters. He was indicted by Pendleton County, Kentucky, for slave stealing. Fee’s homesite has previously been accepted into the network.

Bunker Hill House
Brick building built in the 1830’s in Fairhaven, Ohio. The building is one of Ohio’s most intact representations of “pike town” architecture closely associated with pre-Civil War, horse powered turnpike transportation and lodging. The building served a multitude of uses in the 19th century including: hotel, restaurant, tavern, stagecoach stop, general store, post office, station on the Underground Railroad and home to Gabriel “Old Gabe” Smith, a former slave and conductor on the Underground Railroad. The building is located on five acres on the banks of the Four Mile Creek and adjacent to the old Hamilton-Fairhaven-Richmond Turnpike. This turnpike, built in the 1830’s-1840’s, was the major route between Cincinnati and Richmond, Indiana, when the Northwest Territory was being settled and was a well known route on the Underground Railroad between Cincinnati and Fountain City, Indiana, where Levi Coffin, President of the Underground Railroad, lived for many years. Runaway slaves would travel up the Four Mile Creek and enter the back of the Bunker Hill Tavern for refuge as they journeyed toward Canada and freedom.

Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Monument
Martin Luther King, Jr., Park, East Vine Street
The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Monument is significant to the Underground Railroad because it symbolizes local refusal to permit freedom seeker John Price to be returned to those trying to take him back to enslavement in Kentucky. John Price had lived and worked in Oberlin, and as soon as news spread that he had been captured, black and white Oberlinians and Wellingtonians sprang to his successful rescue. Those indicted for helping in the rescue were tried in Cleveland. John Price was led to freedom by several Oberlinians, and arrived in Canada.

Beecher Family House
2950 Gilbert Avenue
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House was the hone of the Beecher family from the 1830s to 1850. Lyman Beecher, a nationally renowned minister, was the first president of Lane Theological Seminary and was supportive of anti-slavery measures. His daughter, Harriet, who came to Cincinnati with her family to live and teach, heard many stories about the UGRR from abolitionists like Rev. John Rankin, John Van Zandt, and Levi Coffin. She was living in Cincinnati when mobs attached and detroyed the anti-slavery printing press of James Birney, and she was influenced by activist students at Lane Seminary and local abolitionist leaders William Lloyd Garrison and Salmon P. Chase who litigated many fugitive slave cases. At one point, she helped her husband transport a fugitive slave along the UGRR north out of town. These and other experiences in Cincinnati inspired her to write her famous and controversial novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which described the UGRR in sharper, more personal terms than ever before and exposed slavery's evils to an audience who had previously been unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the atrocities inflicted by this "peculiar institution."

Clermont County Trail Tour
This is a tour of approximately 25 sites in Clermont County which were associated with the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movement. The sites include churches, homesites, event locations and burials. The tour is based upon the research resulting from the Clermont County Underground Railroad Research Project. Connections between Clermont, Pendleton and Bracken Counties in Kentucky and Brown and Clinton Counties in Ohio, are cited where appropriate. Tours are conducted by Gary L. Knepp. Historical Director of the Clermont County Convention and Visitors Bureau (and Oloye Adeyemon) on handicapped accessible vehicles.

Tate Township Cemetery
146 S East Street
This cemetery contains the burial sites of four individuals involved with the Clermont County Underground Railroad: Benjamin Rice; Reverend Silas Chase, M.D.; Richard J. Mace; Dr. William E. Thompson.

John Rankin House
6152 Rankin Road
The Rankin House was an important stop on the Underground Railroad in southern Ohio through which many slaves escaped from the South to freedom. A Presbyterian minister and educator, John Rankin devoted much of his life to the antislavery movement. In 1826 he published his antislavery book, Letters on American Slavery. In 1834 he founded the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in Zanesville. From 1822 to 1863 Rankin and family, with their Brown County neighbors, sheltered more than 2,000 slaves escaping to freedom, with as many as twelve escapees being hidden at one time in the Rankin home that sits atop the village of Ripley with a magnificent view of the Ohio River. The house, a National Historic Landmark, served as the Rankin family residence from 1828 to 1863, and contains Rankin memorabilia.

Experience the Underground Railroad (Cuyahoga Valley National Park)
15610 Vaughn Road
Experience the Underground Railroad is a partnership program between Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP) and the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad (CVSR) that engages visitors in an interactive program in the role of escaping slaves. Throughout the program they meet first-person characters who provide a glimpse of the 1850s, hear a variety of opinions regarding slavery in Northeast Ohio, and experience the difficulties and dangers faced by escaping slaves.

Charles B. Huber Farm
975 W Main Street
This site was the farm owned by Charles B. Huber, the station master of Williamsburg, Ohio, until his heath in 1854. In addition to secreting fugitives at his home, Huber hid them in the hay barn and cornshocks at his farm located on the outskirts of Williamsburg.

Haines House
186 W Market Street
The Grant and Haines families were active Abolitionists and members of the Western Anti-Slavery Society. Abolitionist meetings were held on their 126-acres farm and national Abolitionist figures were guests in their home. Ridgeway Haines served on the planning committee for the W.A.S Annual Meeting several times in the 1850s, and was a friend to other documented Underground Railroad station conductors. Family stories and post-war articles indicate that the Haines House was also a station on the Underground Railroad.

Westwood Cemetery
455 Morgan Street
The Westwood Cemetery in Oberlin, OH, is significantly associated with the Underground Railroad, because of burials there of individuals who helped with the rescue of freedom seeker James Price in 1859 whom slave catchers tried to take from Oberlin back to Kentucky. Also Mary Edmonson, one of those attempting to flee slavery on the ship the Pearl in Washington, D.C., in 1848, died in Oberlin while she was working her way through the Oberlin Prep Division, and was buried in the cemetery. There is a new monument to replace the stone removed for a runaway child who died at age four while in Oberlin, OH.

Underground Railroad and Its Connection to the Ohio Valley
206 High Street
The objective of the "Underground Railroad and its Connection to the Ohio Valley" program is to educate the general public with the emphasis on youth. Our program, which is taken to the public, includes the use of hands on materials contained in the "Traveling Trunk." We are committed to increasing public knowledge of the Underground Railroad, the lives of countless freedom seekers that fought and struggled in order to escape slavery in the south by crossing the Ohio River particularly in the area of Wheeling, Virginia, and the abolitionists who were relentless in their condemnation of slavery.

Oberlin Heritage Center
73 S Professor Street
The Oberlin Heritage Center/O.H.I.O. is a complex of historic sites that offers tours, educational programs and special events throughout the year that present Oberlin history to the public. The organization offers an annual Living History Open House with living history performers telling the story of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue (1858). The tour presents information on the history of abolition and the Underground Railroad in the community and includes the home of abolitionist James Monroe and the one room schoolhouse where African American and Caucasian children studied together in open defiance of Ohio’s Black Laws. The organization offers periodic programs and exhibits on topics related to the Underground Railroad. For example, in 2004, there will be a February program on A Children’s View of the Underground Railroad and the organization is co-sponsoring a re-enactment of the Lane Debates entitled The Lane Debates: The Making of Radical Abolition and the Oberlin Commitment to Racial Egalitarianism. Previous speakers have included James Horton of George Washington University (who presented a series of lectures on the Underground Railroad in conjunction with an exhibition from the Gilder Lehrman Institute entitled Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America in September 2000), William and Aimee Lee Cheek of San Diego State University (on John Mercer Langston; 1998) and various scholars in conjunction with Threads of Freedom: The Underground Railroad Story through Quilts exhibition and symposium in summer 2001 including Sharon Patton, now director of the National Museum of African American Art at the Smithsonian.

On the Trail To Freedom in Lorain County, Ohio
8025 Leavitt Road
The Underground Railroad Tour—“On the Trail To Freedom” – is designed to show participants that Lorain County, Ohio, particularly the community of Oberlin, played a significant role in the abolitionist movement of the pre-Civil War era and included Stations 98, 99, and 100 on the Underground Railroad. Many freedom seekers passed through Lorain County in their search for the “Promised Land” in Canada until about 1861. Lorain County provided a direct route to Lake Erie, as the northern part of the county borders Lake Erie’s central basin. However, rather than move on to Canada, many of these freedom seekers felt so safe in the little town of Oberlin that they decided to stay. They lived out their lives in peace among the safe confines of the town, some becoming anti-slavery activists and others being educated at Oberlin College. Because of the commitment of Oberlin’s abolitionists, no freedom seekers were ever caught in the town and returned to bondage. This tour is the only program of its kind that celebrates Oberlin’s proud heritage, with stops at all the major locations that represent the city’s many contributions to abolitionism and the Underground Railroad.

New Richmond Waterfront
Front Street
The Village of New Richmond was an early center of abolitionist activity, hosting the first anti-slavery society in the county. The area bordering the Ohio River was involved in Underground Railroad activity. A slave named Joe, from Louisville, Kentucky, was “shipped” to the village in a box and eventually on to Canada. The villagers freed Lee Roy Lee from slave hunters at this site during the Civil War.

Hanby House
160 W Main Street
The 1846 Hanby House was an UGRR station in Westerville, Ohio, run by the United Bethren Bishop William Hanby and his son Benjamin R. Hanby. Bishop Hanby was outspoken about his dislike of the Fugitive Slave Act and was involved with the UGRR for 20 years before mving his family to Westerville. Here, Hanby joined with other abolitionists, turning the hayloft in his barn into a station for escaping slaves. Son Benjamin assisted in these efforts and was inspired to write "Darling Nelly Gray," a haunting song telling the true story of an escaped slave who died trying to reach Canada and earn money to purchase the freedom of his sweetheart, Nelly Gray. Popular before the Civil War, it stirred anti-slavery sentiment and was referred to as the "Uncle Tom's Cabin of Song." It was sung around campfires on both sides of the war, Confederates revising the words.

Will Sleet House
Harrison Ave, (Lot 128)
This vacant lot No. 128, currently owned by the village of Felicity, was once the homesite of Will Sleet. Sleet was a free black from Kentucky. Sleet was a friend of fugitive Peter Stokes. Stokes mentions Sleet in his narrative as having assisted Stokes and his family escape to Canada.

Putnam Stone Academy
115 Jefferson Street
The Stone Academy, the only public building in Ohio from the early 1800s still standing, was constructed in 1808 to serve as Ohio's statehouse. Even more significant, is that the building served as the center of the abolitionist movement (formerly Springfield) which in Putnam was heavily intertwined with the UGRR. Putnam was settled primarily by anti-slavery New Englanders while most who settled across the river in Zanesville were pro-slavery Virginians. In 1840, the building was converted to a private residence and, according to oral tradition, was used as a station on the UGRR.

Robert E. Fee House
Water Street, Lot 100 A
This was the homesite of Robert E. Fee, a member of Clermont County’s most prominent Underground Railroad family. His father Thomas, brother Thomas, sister Nancy and cousins in nearby Felicity are documented conductors. Robert married Catherine Ebersole, sister of Underground railroad conductor Jacob Ebersole. He became the agent of Vincent Wigglesworth whose family was kidnapped and enslaved. Fee traveled twice to Missouri in two unsuccessful attempts to gain the family’s freedom. He became involved in the Underground Railroad. His home was frequently surrounded by slave hunters. He was indicted by Pendleton County, Kentucky, for slave stealing.

John P. Parker House
300 N Front Street
The John P. Parker house in Ripley, Ohio was the home of a formerly enslaved African who purchased his freedom and became a crusader to abolish slavery with his courageous work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. With only one documented exception, Parker did not hide freedom seekers at his Front Street property, but he lived and worked there at his iron foundry, starting as early as 1853. Rather than playing a role as an abolitionist speaker or activist in anti-slavery societies, Parker is significant for his unflagging and often heroic efforts to rescue freedom seekers from across the Ohio River, frequently returning to Kentucky to lead freedom seekers to safety. Parker’s story is recorded in an autobiography His Promised Land. In addition to his work with the Underground Railroad, Parker is important as an inventor who earned three patents in the 19th century. His restored home is a National Historic Landmark and an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures.

Spring Hill Historic House
1401 Spring Hill Ln NE, Massillon, OH, 44646
1401 Spring Hill Lane NE
As the United States expanded westward from its roots along the Atlantic, settlers in Ohio became pioneers not only of the frontier. They also were at the fore of lofty ambitions such as the abolition of slavery and the Underground Railroad. Indispensable to the burgeoning movement opposing slavery were Quakers such as Thomas and Charity Rotch whose home, Spring Hill, became a station on the Underground Railroad. George Duncan, a fugitive slave who came to know freedom by way of Spring Hill, wrote to Thomas Rotch following his delivery to northern Ohio. “I arrived safe in Bainbridge Geauga County,” he advised, “where I put up … and I am treated extremely well by the people.” Primary sources such as Duncan’s letter (part of the Rotch-Wales collection at the Massillon Public Library) testify to the involvement of the Rotch homestead in the Underground Railroad during its nascent stage of development. A place where confrontation between abolitionist and slave hunter once transpired, Spring Hill now is a home on the National Register of Historic Places and also is recognized by the Friends of Freedom Society and the Ohio Underground Railroad Association as an Underground Railroad site.

Clermont County Underground Public Education Program
This program is a community education program which has been conveyed to the public through a variety of media. The most extensive medium has been a public lecture series about Clermont County and the Underground Railroad. A series of articles on various topics have been written—the first was published in June 2001. A cable access program has been produced and broadcast about Moscow, Ohio, and its Underground Railroad connection. Four more programs—one about each Underground Railroad Center—are planned.

Voices of Freedom
6105 Hamilton Ave, Cincinnati, OH, 45224
6105 Hamilton Avenue
The first Still Family members came over from Africa crowded into the cargo hold of slave ships with hundreds of other Africans. Slave traders imprisoned the Africans, took them from their homes and brought them to America to be sold and enslaved. Although families were separated, parents managed to pass down the stories to their children or other African children through the generations. Thus the legacy of the Still family has been preserved through these oral traditions as well as the written accounts of William Still who is considered by many to the "The Father of the Underground Railroad." Voices of Freedom is a living history which focuses on the Still family’s prominent role in the Underground Railroad which began in the early 1800’s with the escape of Charity and Levin Still to New Jersey and which culminated with their son, William, directing the main hub of the Eastern Underground Railroad.

Honey Springs Battlefield
1863 Honey Springs Battlefield Road
Indian Territory was the edge of the American frontier in the Trans-Mississippi campaign of the Civil War, and represented a buffer between the free state of Kansas and the slave holding state of Texas. The battle of Honey Springs (July 17, 1863) was the pivot point of the Civil War in Indian Territory and is the largest military clash ever to have occurred in Oklahoma.
At Honey Springs Americans of all colors fought and died with determination to win liberty for themselves and their cause. With courage men willingly proved themselves and fought for justice, honor and freedom.
Freedom was as diverse as the cultures represented. To some freedom meant returning to life as it was before the Civil War, to some it included living peaceably in a new land and for others freedom from the bonds of slavery.
For freedmen and runaway slaves Honey Springs was an opportunity to overthrow oppression and many found themselves on the frontlines of freedom. With the aide of these individuals the government was able to form regiments that proved themselves with distinction and showed all that hostilities such as Honey Springs could be won with their support and would turn the tide of the war.

Atwater Kent Museum, Quest for Freedom: Friday Afternoon
15 South 7th Street
The Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia (AKMP) is the city's official history museum with a collection of 100,000 artifacts, print materials, and paintings documenting 300 years of urban experience. The Museum's Quest for Freedom presentation for the general public is based on 13 extraordinary artifacts, prints, and paintings from the AKMP Philadelphia City History Collection spanning the period from 1692 to 1871. The stories of the objects create narrative, weaving together the history of Philadelphia's pivotal role in the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement. Rare artifacts, including a child's dress sold at a free labor fair in the 1840s and a silver urn presented to an attorney who worked with the African-American Vigilance Committee, highlight how people from many backgrounds worked to assist those escaping bondage and end slavery. Since spring 2007, more than 1,067 individuals have experienced 80 Quest for Freedom Friday presentations. The AKMP program is a partnership with the statewide Quest for Freedom initiative and the local effort promoted by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.

Philadelphia Doll Museum, Freedom in Philadelphia
2253 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA, 19132
2253 North Broad Street
"Freedom in Philadelphia" is designed to inform and engage participants in learning about the role Philadelphia played in liberating enslaved Africans. The Philadelphia Doll Museum's program will not only highlight the lives of an array of freedom seekers as they journeyed from enslavement in the South via the Underground Railroad to freedom in the North but how the black abolitionists and Anti-slavery organizations in Philadelphia supported and aided them. "Freedom in Philadelphia" is one of the many educational programs presented by the Museum. This Program looks at five individual dolls representing Rev Richard Allen, William Still, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. The Program gives a history of their lives from enslavement to escape.

Philadelphia Quest for Freedom Tour
30 S. 17th St, Suite 1710
Philadelphia Quest for Freedom is an interpretive program about Philadelphia's pivotal role in the Underground Railroad centering on the under-told story of Philadelphia's free Black community (the largest in the north) which was instrumental in forming some of the nation's first independent Black religious and social empowerment institutions that were the forerunners of today's Civil Rights organizations. This influential Black community joined forces with Quakers and other sympathetic whites to form highly successful anti-slavery institutions that had both national and international impact. A strong and diverse regional network of more than 30 sites and six communitities serves as the framework for Philadelphia Quest for Freedom. Unlike traditional trails established for the Underground Railroad, Philadelphia Quest for Freedom enables the public to experience more of the complexities and interlocking nature of the stories and communities. Starting at Independence National Historical Park, where the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the new President's House Commemorative Site are located, Philadelphia Quest for Freedom profoundly and deeply grounds the Underground Railroad story within the national experience, and provides a context and catalyst for civic engagement in both past and contemporary issues.

Place I Call Home Tour
75 Church Street
The Place I Call Home tour takes heritage travelers on narrated motor coach day trips, traversing rural roads and visiting small towns in a multi-county area of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Covering 75-85 miles, visitors learn about this region's significant but little known role in the Underground Railroad and Abolition movements. The context for the region's UGRR story is more deeply understood through this tour, which conveys visitors over a scenic landscape significant for its industrial, agricultural and cultural heritage. This backdrop is critical to understanding how the UGRR and Abolitionist sympathies flourished in this region. Since 1996, the Center for Anti-Slavery Studies has researched , documented, and preserved the history of Abolition and Underground Railroad activities in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Many freedom seekers who passed through this region did not simply stop here for a night hidden in a barn or a back room. Abolitionists in the region, both black and white, actively encouraged and supported efforts of the formerly enslaved to continue their quests for freedom, and were willing to take enormous personal risks to prove it. They offered jobs, money, land, and provided opportunities to establish a life in freedom. Many formerly enslaved and freeman integrated into local communities that accepted them and actively supported their freedom. For many, Northeastern Pennsylvania was not just a stop on the way to Canada, but a place they came to call home.

Pennsylvania Quest for Freedom, Lancaster County
501 Greenfield Road
It is the intent of this program to create a cohesive and historically accurate story of the role of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania's Quest for Freedom, highlighting sites, actors, and communities of significance on the Underground Railroad. Stories of Freedom Seekers, abolitionists and events such as the Christiana Resistance combine to tell a compelling narrative of this area just north of the Mason Dixon Line. Connections to surrounding communities such as Gettysburg, York & Philadelphia are woven throughout the tour narrative. The Pennsylvania Quest for Freedom: Lancaster County Tour was introduced in 2006, following three years of extensive research and development conducted through a partnership of the Pennsylvania Tourism Office, the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau, regional tourism partners, and the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission.

Riverview Farm
2900 State Road
Riverview Farm, a farm of about 284 acres in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, was the location that set the ardently anti-slavery course of the life of young Thomas Garret, Jr. who became one of the most important links in the network of Underground Railroad operatives in the Delaware Valley. At his parent's farm, Riverview was where he came face to face with the tenuous existence of African Americans living under the oppresive slave system when a free African-American woman in the employ of the household was kidnapped to be sold into slavery. His participation in her rescue set him on a path to actively change the slave system by assisting over 2,700 individuals seeking freedom through the Underground Railroad from his base in Delaware. At the death of their father in 1839, Riverview Farm developed as stations on the Underground Railroad during the tenure of Thomas Garrett's brothers Isaac Price Garrett and Edward Garrett who inherited Riverview Farm and split it into two farms, Cleveland Farm owned by Edward Garrett and Fernland Farm owned by Isaac Price Garrett. Two other Garrett brothers Philip living with Edward and Samuel were also active on the Underground Railroad in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. (Riverview Farm is now part of Arlington Cemetery)

National Archives and Records Administration Mid-Atlantic Region
900 Market Street
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives is the repository for official U.S. government historical records for the states of PA, MD, DE, VA, and WV. The Mid-Atlantic holdings date from the founding of the early national government and contain details on the actions and decisions of government officials and the public in confronting the issues of slavery and the status of blacks in America. Court and Customs records document the Atlantic slave trade, including the domestic trade between the Port of Philadelphia and southern ports such as Charleston, New Orleans, and Savannah. Other federal court records include cases related to fugitive slaves, who fled from southern plantations to Pennsylvania in the 1840s and 1850s. Among these records are the cases of Passmore Williamson and the Christiana Riot. Both are considered nationally significant U.S. anti-slavery incidents following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and were causes celebre for the abolition movement. Correspondence from Ft. Monroe documents the employment of freed slaves and the construction of separate quarters for them after the Emancipation Proclamation. Records of the Schuylkill and Frankdord Arsenal document freed slaves' participation in material support of Union troops.

Sandyvale Cemetery Commemorative Site
P.O. Box 41
Sandyvale Cemetery, a commemorative site for Underground Railroad activity, is located in the Hornerstown section of the city of Johnstown and became a cemetery in 1856. According to newspaper obituaries, the only remaining source of information, buried in Sandyvale are several conductors of Johnstown's Underground Railroad network; specifically, James Heslop, Charlotte Heslop, John Cushon, Benjamin SLick, and William Slick. It was James Heslop, John Cushon, and William Slick who were involved in the 1837 incident involving two runaway slaves, Patrick and Abraham, who were brought to Johnstown after a harrowing escape from John Sherrard's farm in Bath, Virginia (present-day West Virginia) The abolitionists who worked to save Patrick and Abraham were also responsible for others who managed to obtain freedom with their help. Their story can only be remembered and told at Sandyvale; a cemetery that itself has almost been lost to time due to the ravishing of three major floods in 1889, 1936 and finally 1977. Both Sandyvale and the story of the UGRR are critical to the history of this region.

Belmont Mansion
2000 Belmont Mansion Dr, Philadelphia, PA, 19131
2000 Belmont Mansion Drive
Belmont Mansion was the 18th and 19th century home of Judge Richard Peters and family. In 1787, Judge Peters was one of the first non-Quakers to join the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS). This society was organized in 1775 with two strategies: Petitioning and Legal Work. From the 1780’s they ran the most important legal aid system for endangered African American by “lawyerly” chipping away at slavery’s margins. A major concern for PAS was the kidnapping of free blacks the ‘”reverse underground railroad”. PAS was also on the side of freedom whether the person threatened was free or a fugitive. The “Columbia and Philadelphia” Railroad was built across Belmont in 1829. The western end of the “Columbia and Philadelphia” Railroad Bridge across the Schuylkill River was set on the banks of the Belmont property and an inclined plane ran diagonally from the bridge to just north of Belmont. This same railroad was used by William Whipper, UGRR agent and lumber merchant of Columbia, PA. Freedom Seekers were often hid in the false end of a boxcar when leaving Columbia and an UGRR agent received them when they got off at the head of the inclined plane at Belmont.

Zercher’s Hotel
11 Green Street
In the aftermath of the 1851 Christiana Riot, several suspects were detained at the hotel owned by Frederick Zercher. Today, the exhibits in this museum explain the role of Zercher’s Hotel in the riot and the strident Anti-slavery sentiments held by the larger community.

Atwater Kent Museum, Quest for Freedom: School and After-school Students
15 South 7th Street
The Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia (AKMP) is the city's official history museum with a collection of 100,000 artifacts, print materials, and paintings documenting 300 years of urban experience. The museum's Quest for Freedom presentations for school and after-school students are based on 10 extraordinary artifacts, prints, and paintings from the AKMP Philadelphia City History Collection spanning the period from 1692 to 1871. The stories of the objects create a narrative, weaving together the history of Philadelphia's pivotal role in the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement. Rare artifacts, including a child's dress sold at a free labor fair in the 1840s and a silver urn presented to an attorney who worked with the African-American Vigilance Committee, highlight how people from many backgrounds worked to assist those escaping bondage and end slavery. From January 2008 to January 2009, more than 1,100 children have experienced the AKMP Quest for Freedom learning experiences. The AKMP program is a partnership with the statewide Quest for Freedom initiative and the local effort promoted by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.

Heinz History Center
1212 Smallman Street
The Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center includes two major components that address Underground Railroad heritage: an extensive library and archive and a permanent interpretive exhibit. The Library and Archives contains a wealth of thematic sources, from recent research to original anti-slavery documents. Highlights of the collection include the minutes of the Pittsburgh Anti-Slavery Society and the minutes from the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society – Western District, 1837-1838. Underground Railroad resources include biographies and autobiographies, sermons, vertical files, photographs, periodicals, census records, cemetery records, church records, and family histories. The Library and Archives has a variety of general materials to aid Underground Railroad research, including court records, newspapers, census indexes, genealogies, county and township records and histories, historic plat maps and atlases, and city directories. The Underground Railroad: Journey to Freedom includes thematic displays woven through the 19th Century section of the History Center’s permanent exhibit, Points in Time. The Journey exhibit gives a contextual understanding of the Underground Railroad, covering the African American experience in 10 “stations.” It combines three-dimensional artifacts, rare books and documents, interpretive panels, maps and photographs, beginning with African people in their native lands and concludes with African Americans and the Civil War.

Old Lancaster County Jail Site
12-16 North Prince Street
Two formerly enslaved African American women were seized by bounty hunters and lodged in the Old Lancaster Conty Jail. They were secretly released by an unlikely co-conspirator: the chief law enforcement officer of Lancaster County, Sheriff David "Dare-Devil" Miller. The two women told sympathizers they escaped themselves, apparently to give cover to sheriff Miller. However, the Sheriff later admitted his involvement to a confidante.

Library and Archives, Erie County Historical Society
419 State Street
The Erie County Historical Society (ECHS) formed in 1903 as an organization dedicated to the preservation, interpretation and presentation of the rich history of this area. Among the classroom presentations offered by the society, learn about how this area served as a vital segment of the Underground Railroad from the 1830s through the 1850s.

Edward Mathews Burial Site at Yellow Hill
Yellow Hill Road
Yellow Hill Cemetery is all that remains of a free Black community that provided a safe haven for freedom seekers. After he died in 1874, Edward Mathews was buried here.

Living the Experience
512 E Strawberry St, Lancaster, PA, 17602
512 E Strawberry Street
“Living The Experience” (LTE) is an Interactive Spiritual Underground Railroad reenactment, which educates national audiences about the Underground Railroad efforts in Lancaster County. This living history program uses the art of first person interpretation and interaction to teach its audience about conductors, abolitionists, and safe houses that operated during the Underground Railroad. The production actively engages its audience members from the start. Our visitors are described as runaways, who have found Bethel AME church as their safe haven and shelter. As the show progresses, the audience members are used to assist in the interpretation of the stories, such as, the African Methodist denomination and it’s position and assistance in the abolishment of slavery, the Christiana Resistance (1850 Fugitive Slave Law Act), Rev. Stephen Smith, and Thaddeus Stevens. LTE demonstrates the enslaved African’s faith and ingenuity through the use of Negro Spirituals that were used during the UGGR. Following the production is a buffet style meal indicative of the 1800s. A Q & A session is included during the meal, during which time, the encoded messages hidden in the Spirituals are taught and discussed. Additional UGRR information and interaction is shared during shows with school-aged children.

Chester County Historical Society
225 N High Street
Chester County Historical Society (CCHS), founded in 1893, is a not-for-profit educational institution whose mission is to promote an understanding of the history of Chester County and southeastern Pennsylvania by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting that history and its relationship to the region, and nation beyond, to audiences of all ages and interests. With diverse audiences and Chester County's unique heritage at its core, CCHS is an educational leader in the history community of southeastern Pennsylvania.

Atwater Kent Museum, Quest for Freedom: Teacher Workshops
15 South 7th Street
The Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia (AKMP) is the city's official history museum with a collection of 100,000 artifacts, print materials, and paintings documenting 300 years of urban experience. The museum's Quest for Freedom presentations for educators are based on 13 extraordinary artifacts, prints, and paintings from the AKMP Philadelphia City History Collection spanning the period from 1692 to 1871. The stories of the objects create a narrative, weaving together the history of Philadelphia's pivotal role in the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement. Rare artifacts, including a child's dress sold at a free labor fair in the 1840s and a silver urn presented to an attorney who worked with the African-American Vigilance Committee, highlight how people from many backgrounds worked to assist those escaping bondage and end slavery. Since January 2008, 185 teachers have experienced the AKMP Quest for Freedom at eight group presentations. The AKMP program is a partnership with the statewide Quest for Freedom initiative and the local effort promoted by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.

First National Bank Museum
170 Locust Street
The First National Bank Museum is one of the few banks in the United States still preserved within its original setting, and among its original records are books of accounts from the antebellum period providing a rare view of the degree of wealth of two prominent African American businessmen who also acted as Underground Railroad conductors. During the Bank’s years of operation in the early and middle nineteenth century, Stephen Smith and William Whipper used their own financial resources and the actual railroad cars in which they shipped lumber to Philadelphia to secretly forwarded freedom seekers onto the next station in their hazardous journey. Whipper is recorded in William Still’s seminal book on the Underground Railroad to have given at least $1000 a year to freedom seekers in the years leading up to the Civil War. They were the wealthiest members of an African American community in the place where most historians recount, albeit anecdotally, that the Underground Railroad received its name.

Frederick Douglass Institute of West Chester University
S High St & W Rosedale Ave, Chester, PA, 19382
High and Rosedale Avenue
The Frederick Douglass Institute at West Chester University is named for one of the 19th century's most famous figures. A former slave, orator, writer, politician, advisor to Presidents, and an affirmative voice for everybody's inalienable right to freedom, Douglass was also a conductor of the Underground Railroad. He is the human example behind the institute and its belief in the critical role of education in the organized life of a democracy. The Institute is an academic program that supports, promotes, and advocates the study of Doulgass and his life and times. A major activity in the life of the Institute is the relationship between Douglass and his support of the elimination of slavery; the UGRR was one of the major forms of resistance to the culture of slavery. The Institute is committed to implementing its mission by developing areas of scholarship and research for understanding the UGRR movement in our society.

Pennsylvania State Archives
350 North Street
As home to the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, later known as Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the Commonwealth was the first state to abolish slavery by legislative action, and was a hotbed of anti-slavery activity. Such activity took various forms and among the holdings of the State Archives are well over 300 years of the African American experience in Pennsylvania. These records play an important role in understanding the legacy of slavery, the lives of free blacks in the antebellum North, and the Underground Railroad. Many historical government records, such as census, tax records, court records, land deeds, etc., help to detail the lives of both enslaved and free blacks in the Commonwealth.

Kennett Underground Railroad Center
505 S Broad St, Kennett Square, PA, 19348
505 S Broad Street
The Kennett Underground Railroad Center, a multicultural and diverse organization, celebrates the values that brought an end to slavery in America and the heroes whose courage led them to dare so much simply to live a decent life. Surrounded by one of the greatest concentrations of Underground Railroad stations in the country, we seek to identify and preserve buildings, artifacts, and documents associated with that inspiring time for the purpose of educating present generations and those to come.

Allegheny Portage National Historic Site
110 Federal Park Rd, Gallitzin, PA, 16641
110 Federal Park Road
The Allegheny Portage Railroad and Main Line were part of the Pennsylvania Main Line of Public Works, a state-run transportation system connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from the 1830s to 1850s. This system, usually just called the "Main Line", was a combination of canals, railroads, and inclined planes that moved passengers and cargo across the state. From 1834 when the system opened in its entirety until 1854 when the Pennsylvania Railroad opened, the Main Line was the primary east-west transportation route in Pennsylvania. The 36-mile stretch of the Main Line between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown known as the Allegheny Portage Railroad was also used by people escaping slavey as a transportation route. This application will cover Underground Railroad activities in both Johnstown and Hollidaysburg and will discuss how the Allegheny Portage Railroad linked the two.
Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site is a unit of the National Park Service and was authorized by Congress in 1964 to preserve the history of the Allegheny Portage Railroad and its part in the Main Line.

William and Phoebe Wright Burial Sites
T-627-East Side Road 2
Huntington Friends Meetinghouse and Cemetery is the burial site of two of Adams County's most prominent Quaker anti-slavery activists and Underground Railroad stationmasters, William Wright (1788-1865) and Phebe Wierman Wright (1890-1873). Huntington Meetinghouse also contains the remains of other members of the Religious Society of Friends who were active in what has come to be called either Pennsylvania's Southeast Corridor or Central Route of the Underground Railroad, both of which originated in Adams County. In 1750 the original meetinghouse and burial ground was established; however, the meetinghouse was replaced in 1790 by the stone structure that is extant today. This is the only known location to appropriately commemorate the lives of the Wrights. The Wrights assisted approximately one thousand freedom seekers during the period 1819 to about 1860, including Dr. James William Charles (J.W.C.) Pennington, also known as Jim Pembroke. Pennington credits the Wrights with helping him to read and write during his six-month refuge, assistance that enabled him to become a Presbyterian Pastor and author of several books, most notably his narrative of escape from slavery in Maryland entitled The Fugitive Blacksmith (1849).

McAllister’s Mill Site
70 McAllister's Mill Road
About two miles south of Gettysburg, PA and 6 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line, McAllister's Mill provided shelter to hundreds of freedom seekers during the years leading up to the Civil War, including some delivered to the site by nationally-recognized Underground Railroad conductor, William L. Chaplin. After receiving assistance at the late 18th century grist mill, the formerly enslaved were guided north about 10 miles to the homes of free African Americans and Quaker Abolitionists, forming critical links in one of the earliest regional networks of the Underground Railroad in the nation. Milling operations ceased at the site in the 19th century. The property now includes remnants of the mill building and related mill structures, all set amid large boulders that line Rock Creek in a densely wooded area where the mill once stood.
On July 4, 1836, McAllister's Mill was the site of an early and significant gathering of Abolitionists in Pennsylvania.
Chaired by mill owner and farmer James McAllister, Jr., the group agreed to publish bold anti-slavery principles, which were reportedly ghostwritten by Gettysburg attorney and later U.S. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. This meeting led to the formation of the Adams County Anti-Slavery Society within six month.

Cyrus Griest Burial Site at Menallen Friends
1107 Carlisle Road
Menallen Friends Meeting (Quakers) is the burial site of Adams County anti-slavery activist and Underground Railroad stationmaster Cyrus Griest (1803-1869). Griest, along with many of his family members buried at Menallen Meeting, were key supporters for freedom seekers passing through Adams County, Pennsylvania, along what has come to be called either the Central Route or the Southeastern Corridor of the Underground Railroad. Menallen Meeting was established in 1780 and worship began at the present site in about 1838. Griest's involvement in the Underground Railroad is established by his collaborative activity with other Quakers and formerly enslaved African Americans who, by the mid-19th century,owned property in the community. This Adams County group is estimated to have been responsible for secreting hundreds - perhaps as many as 1000 freedom seekers. Griest is also recorded as having worked to restore freedom to Kitty Payne, a manumitted slave and the mother of three, who lived in Adams County and who was kidnapped back to the South by agents of her former Virginia owners. Griest, along with fellow Quakers andAfrican American neighbors, gave testimony at the trial in Pennsylvania of her kidnapper in 1845. Griest was involved in raising money among Adams Countians for her trial in Virginia.

Independence National Historical Park
313 Walnut Street
Independence Square, and three historic buildings, Independence Hall, Congress Hall, and Old City Hall that are located on the 4.63 acre Square, are the four significant sites that are associated with the Underground Railroad. The Square was the gathering place for abolition activities, as well as the locations for speeches by Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. At Independence Hall, the Declaration of Independence, promising freedom, was adopted, the US Constitution with its three-fifths rule and 20-year postponement of slavery discussion, was drafted, and the US District Court trials concerning the Christiana riots and other fugitive cases were held. In Congress Hall, the US Congress passed the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and heard anti-slavery petitions. In Old City Hall, two mayors publicly demonstrated their support of the anti-slavery movement. The Square and the three buildings are listed on INDE’s National Register nomination, while Independence Hall is a World Heritage site.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania
1300 Locust Street
In the America we envision, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania engages and enriches all who read, watch films, interact with people of different origins, and explore the Philadelphia region and Pennsylvania. We do so through the histories that we document and illuminate. To bring history to the people and the people to history, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania works to expand American history's documentation, accessibility, and use. Founded in 1824 and significantly augmented in 2002 by The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, the Society serves as a vital gateway to historical resources and understanding for educators and researchers, regional heritage preservationists and presenters, and community history partners. The Society preserves and explores the origins, diversity, and development of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the nation as one of the great repositories of United States history, as the preeminent library of Pennsylvaniana, and as a distinguished publisher and educator. The Society’s collections on the Underground Railroad and slavery, subjects pivotal to this nation’s history and integral to our holdings, document their roles not only in America’s social fabric, but in its psyche as well.

Amtrak Railroad Corridor
2955 Market Street and 30th Street
The 70-mile segment of operating passenger railroad line between Philadelphia and the City of Lancaster, PA was part of the original, 80-mile Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, one of the earliest railroad rights of way in the nation, beginning operations in 1834. This pioneering railroad was the eastern-most segment of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s statewide, 390-mile-long Main Line of Public Works. By the late 1830s, this same eastern segment also became one of the most secretive and expeditious transportation corridors for formerly enslaved people to reach freedom in the care of the Vigilance Committee in the City of Philadelphia. African American entrepreneurs William Whipper and Stephen Smith of Columbia owned and operated railroad box cars which were routinely used to transport freight from their successful businesses to and from Philadelphia. Some of these box cars, according to Whipper and other credible sources, were “peculiarly constructed with hidden compartments for carrying freight belonging to the Underground Railroad.” One account states that no freedom seekers were ever detected using this transport system. Columbia’s burgeoning industrial riverfront on the Susquehanna provided employment for large numbers of African Americans as early as circa 1820. This community emerged as a magnet for freedom seekers and humanitarians supporting the anti-slavery cause. Slave catchers were also a constant threat during these years. One abolitionist, William Wright, a Quaker, is widely credited with organizing the system of overland transport of freedom seekers from one Friends’ family home or farm to another, a distance of about 10 miles apart, or the distance one could travel overnight by foot or wagon. Together, these factors support the popular anecdotal notion of Columbia as one of the unique places where the movement emerged that became known as the Underground Railroad.

Thaddeus Stevens, U.S. Congressman, Burial Site
Corner of North Mulberry and West Chestnut Streets
U.S. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) was a pivotal figure in the public affairs of Pennsylvania and the nation from the 1820s through 1868, when he died in Washington D.C. As a state representative he championed free public education in the early-mid 1830s. During two terms in the U.S. Congress, he was a member of the Whig Party (1849-53) and help found the Republican Party (1859-1868). An avowed Abolitionist and Constitutional scholar, Stevens played key roles in the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He also laid the groundwork for the 15th Amendment, enacted after his death. The “old Commoner” was one of the prime movers of Reconstruction and was the leading advocate for the Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Stevens was an Underground Railroad activist during his residency in Lancaster, PA (1842-1868). Appropriately, the south face of Stevens’s memorial in Lancaster is inscribed with the epitaph: "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not for any natural preference for solitude. But finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death, the principles which I advocated through a long life. Equality of man before his creator."

William C. Goodridge Freedom House
605 South Duke Street
William C. Goodridge (1805-1876) was not only the most prominent African-American stationmaster in Antebellum York City but was also, by virtue of his various enterprises (barbering, retail/wholesale, transportation, photography, etc.), an influential member of Antebellum Pennsylvania’s nascent African-American middle class. In recognition of his importance the Penna. Historical and Museum Commission placed an historical marker in front of his residence at 123 E. Philadelphia Street in York. A measure of Goodridge’s importance is the railroad cars which he owned and used to transport goods and fugitives from York to Philadelphia. Osborne Perry Anderson’s account of his escape from the debacle at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 underscores how Goodridge not only hid him but also helped him to escape capture. Also Goodridge reportedly transported William Parker and his compatriots after their resistance of the slavemaster in Christiana in 1851. Goodridge’s anti-slavery efforts began in the late 1840’s after the well-known Prigg Case which established Pennsylvania as free soil for the fugitive. Local historians have linked Goodridge with William Whipper and Stephen Smith, important African-American businessmen and U.G.R.R. stationmasters in Columbia and Philadelphia. The three were apparently business partners.

Johnson House
6306 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, PA, 19144
6306 Germantown Avenue
The Johnson House was the home of several generations of the Johnson family, ardent abolitionists whose Quaker beliefs led them to open their home to fleeing slaves. Family accounts recall the night time appearance of runaways who were secreted in the house and than “spirited away” before morning. The house is located in the historic Germantown section of Philadelphia, an anti-slavery stronghold where in 1688 colonial America’s first formal anti-slavery protest was held. The Johnson property, stretching from Wissahickon Creek and along what was then known as Abington Lane, was strategically located between the Schyukill River to the south and Underground Railroad stations in Montgomery County to the north. Johnson family members were founders, leaders and members of no less than forty organizations dedicated to abolition and the welfare of freed blacks, including the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the Philadelphia Free Produce Association, the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia, the Junior Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends. These organizations put them in regular contact with Underground activists such as Lucretia Mott, Robert Purvis, and Sojurner Truth and further confirm their roles as leaders of the anti-slavery movement.

Cumberland County Historical Society
21 N. Pitt Street
Cumberland County Historical Society is an active history center with an award winning museum, library, photo archives, educational center, and museum shop. The Society’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret and promote research of Cumberland County history, and has been serving the area since its founding in 1874. The County Commissioners designated the society as the official repository for the county’s historical records dating from the 1750s. The Library and Photo Archives contain many sources relating to the UGRR: books, drop files, photographs, newspaper articles, census records, cemetery records, tax records, pamphlets and special collections, including the Johnson Collection of artifacts and papers relating to the entire history of a Cumberland County African American family from the 1700s to the present. The new Museum encompasses 6,500 square feet and contains 16 galleries, eight changing windows to history and includes two large changing galleries. As part of the Military Exhibit there is a map of Cumberland County highlighting sites associated with the UGRR. The display includes photographs, reward posters, a flyer from Philadelphia to raise funds for Daniel Kaufman’s court costs and newspaper articles about agent Daniel Kaufman. The display also includes information about the 1847 McClintock Riot over runaways.

Thaddeus Stevens Home and Law Office
47 S Queen Street
On August 23, 1848, at his property at 45-47 South Queen Street, attorney Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) assisted several freedom seekers from Maryland, guiding the group seven miles east to the next Underground Railroad outpost, the farm of Daniel and Hannah Gibbons at the Village of Bird-in-Hand.
The previous year, 1847, while he was a well-known attorney at this location, Stevens paid agents to infiltrate the ranks of slave catchers operating in Lancaster County. He thwarted their plans by alerting Underground Railroad activists before the bounty hunters arrived to capture their targets.
Also in the 1840s and 1850s, Stevens' Caledonia Iron Works in Franklin County, PA, provided employment and support for African Americans through the agency of his superintendent and other Underground Railroad operatives in Franklin and Adams Counties.
As Lancaster County's U.S. Congressman, Stevens served as co-counsel to defendants charged with treason in connection with the Christiana Resistance, which occurred on September 11, 1851.
As Lancaster Congressman, Stevens was an avowed Abolitionist and Constitutional scholar, playing key roles enacting major civil rights Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The "Old Commoner" was one of the prime movers of Reconstruction and the leading advocate for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, whom he regarded as too lenient towards the rebellious South.

Quest for Freedom: The Underground Railroad in Philadelphia (Independence National Historical Park)
143 S 3rd Street
This walking tour explores the origins of the Underground Railroad or the African freedom struggle from the time that the early African arrivals escaped to live with the Native Americans and the Spanish in Florida until 1863. Then the covert activities of the secret associations came above ground with the enlistment and service of the United States Colored Troops. Philadelphia is a perfect backdrop for the story of this struggle for freedom in America. The city and Independence Park are associated with the birth of American freedoms terms like "Cradle of Liberty" and "Beacon of freedom" generally refer to the development of the national government. The African - American freedom struggle does not easily fit into the national story. Africans did not physically participate in the planning or development of the important documents but had a presence in effecting the process of there creation and content. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are literary plans and symbols of freedom. The Underground Railroad is another symbol of humanities attempt, desire and commitment to obtain freedom. The struggle had three major levels political, physical, and moral. Each program features one or more of these struggles.

Willis House
135 Willis Run Road
William Willis was one of the earliest Quaker settlers of York County. In 1755 he superintended the construction of the first York Courthouse. He also became one of the founders of the Friends meeting house on Philadelphia Street in York. He built his house and barn off the southwest property of Prospect Hill Cemetery in 1767. William's son, Samuel Willis became one of the leaders in the Underground Railroad. He resided in his parent's homestead and hid slaves in the barn or in the rows of the cornfields. The pursuit at one time became so threatening that the fugitives were hidden in corn shocks until it was safe to move to more secure concealment. Samuel eventually went on to serve as a private in the Civil War.

Mary Ritner Boarding House/John Brown House
225 East King Street
Members of the Ritner family of Chambersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, were Underground Railroad activists who made their property available during the summer of 1859 to abolitionist John Brown and his associates while they planned their ill-fated raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry on October 16 of that year. Abram Ritner, son of the Commonwealth's anti-slavery Governor Joseph Ritner, is described as both a "conductor" on the UGRR and as an actual conductor on the region's interstate railroad, which was one of the earliest established in the country. Purchased in 1849, the Ritner home was operated as a boarding house as early as 1852 by Mary Ritner, Abram Ritner's widow. She is reported to have aided scores of freedom seekers there. While in Chambersburg, John Brown pruchased tools and brought in weapons which were transported to his attack headquarters in Maryland, a few miles from Harper's Ferry. Over his stay in Chambersburg, Brown was visited by Frederick Douglass whom Brown unsuccessfully tried to recruit for the attack.

State Library of Pennsylvania
We have origional source documents as follows: The State Library of Pennsylvania collection of Pennsylvania newspapers is one of the largest in existence. It is comprised of more than 80,000 microfilm reels and over 2,000 bound volumes. Newspapers are found on microfilm reels or in their original format or both. Our earliest Pennsylvania newspaper is a December 22, 1719 issue of the American Weekly Mercury. This newspaper is reputed to be the first newspaper published in the middle colonies, and the fourth in order of time, published in America. It is preserved on microfilm. The earliest Pennsylvania newspaper we maintain in both formats (microfilm and original) is an April 25,1771 issue of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser. The Genealogy and Local History Collection of the State Library of Pennsylvania consists of a wide variety of indexes, genealogies, state and county histories, atlases, land warranty maps, ship lists, and compilations of church and cemetery records, as well as the Pennsylvania Federal Census records on microfilm. Of interest to genealogists and historians alike are such items as the Published Pennsylvania Archives series, the many regimental histories in the collection, research guides for ethnic and minority groups, and guides to genealogical research in foreign countries. This collection is the largest and most complete collection of Pennsylvania publications to be found anywhere. The oldest materials actually predate the founding of the Commonwealth, while the newest materials include the current publications of the various agencies. The majority of the approximately 50,000 titles in this collection are fully cataloged and included in the online catalog. The collection grows by approximately 2,500 new titles each year.

Cumberland County Courthouse
2 Courthouse Square
The Cumberland County Old Courthouse, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, has played an important role in the history of the Underground Railroad. This nomination includes five known UGRR incidents that occurred at the courthouse. The first was when a slave owner named Anderson, requested custody of a man named Jim, whom he claimed was his fugitive slave. He went before the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County with two witnesses who support his claim. The next incident occurred in 1847, and is known today as the McClintock riot. After three freedom seekers found their way to Carlisle, their owners forcibly entered a private home near Shippensburg in order to capture them. This incident led to the slave owners having to appear in court, and eventually to the illegal imprisonment of the fugitives. At the trial a riot broke out in front of the courthouse, leading to the death of one of the slave owners and the escape of the freedom seekers. Also in 1847, the Kaufman Case was heard at the courthouse. This case was about Daniel Kaufman's work on the Underground Railroad and his aiding thirteen fugitives at his home in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. In 1850, the Burns Family incident occurred in which a young black man was lured into a carriage and taken back to Maryland to be sold as a slave. The fifth known incident occurred in 1859, when slave catchers in the middle of the night abducted the Butler Family. The catcher was found and put on trial for kidnapping.

Underground Railroad Camps
1936 West Page Street
Underground Railroad Camps for Children, Youth and Families is designed to provide participants with an enrichment program that highlights the importance of the UGRR in the struggle for freedom for enslaved Africans from the time of capture in Africa to the period of bondage in the Americas. Through lessons, readings, discussions, films, music, arts and crafts, drama, and field trips,participants in grades four to eight (age nine to fourteen) will learn about the history of the UGRR. The Program is designed to spark and keep an interest in this critical and most important phase of America's history. At the conclusion of the camp, participants will know about the history of enslavement in America and the lives and contributions of the people who struggled and worked diligently in the fight for freedom to end enslavement of African people. Participants will learn about the transatlantic slave trade, the middle passage, William Still, Robert Purvis, Henry "Box" Brown, the Crafts and others.

William Still Burial Site at Eden Cemetery
1434 Springfield Rd, Collingdale, PA, 19023
1434 Springfield Road
Eden Cemetery is the oldest African American owned cemetery in the U.S. Located in Collingdale, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, it is comprised of 53 beautiful rolling acres. The Cemetery was established on June 20, 1902 and today there are over 85,000 interred at Eden. Buried at Eden are abolitionists and Underground Railroad activists. These include William Still, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Stephen Smith, Octavius Valentine Catto and members of the First African Baptist Church (1823-1842). The most famous of these being William Still, the "father of the underground railroad." Still was laid to rest here in 1902. Still's interviews with former slaves, including one who turned out to be his long lost brother Peter, grew into the book "The Underground Railroad", published in 1872. Buried with him are his wife Letitia and his daughter Caroline.

Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
419 S 6th Street
Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Mother Bethel) was founded in Philadelphia in 1794 by Richard Allen. Allen had once been enslaved and understood the plight of those still held in bondage. Mother Bethel has been recognized as an abolitionist and an emancipationist church. Members were active with the Free African Society, a mutual aid society founded in 1787, known for assisting the enslaved on the UGRR. Members were also part of the local Vigilance Committee, Prince Hall Masons and Free Produce Association. The church was also the first to hold a national convention of Africans in 1830 and would later host many other abolitionist meetings and forums for many of the nation’s great orators. Allen was a champion of the anti-slavery cause, and he became a spokesman for his people on both local and national issues. The bishops that followed in his footsteps would go on to establish churches and educational institutions within the United States, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Cliveden
6401 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, PA, 19119
6401 Germantown Avenue
Cliveden is the country home of the Philadelphia Chew family, which has been called the owners of the largest slave populations in colonial Delaware and Pennsylvania.(1) So, too is the body of documentation that records their activities, including more than 200,000 original papers now on deposit at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. These papers provide thousands of data points about slave life under the Chew family. Part of this trove also documents their enslaved workers’ efforts to escape, and the punishments of those who failed, the advertisements for those who were “lost”, and at least one poignant struggle when the boundaries between freedom and bondage were so confused that the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society was brought in to help clarify the demarcation. The Chew’s enslaved Negroes experienced many of the situations that marked the long struggle between bondage and freedom. Not unsurprisingly, we see these struggles from the owner’s viewpoint, but on an unusually intimate and sometimes brutal basis. Notes: 1) Gary B. Nash, “Slaves and slave owners in Colonial Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly (3rd series, 30), 1973, p. 250; William H. Williams, Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865 (Wilmington: Scholastic Resources), p. 16.

Thaddeus Stevens’ Caledonia Iron Furnace Monument
101 Pine Grove Rd, Fayetteville, PA, 17222
101 Pine Grove Road
Pennsylvania's anti-slavery Congressman and Underground Railroad activist Thaddeus Stevens also was an industrialist who owned Caledonia Iron Furnace in eastern Franklin County, beginning in 1837. This charcoal-fired iron furnace complex employed free persons of African descent and also served as a station along one of the state's well-traveled corridors of the UGRR. In the early 20th century, Hiram E. Wertz publicly described his UGRR involvement with Steven's superintendent at Caledonia Furnace, William Hammett, and businessman Robert Black III. A resident and shopkeeper in the Village of Greenwood, two miles west of Caledonia, Black aided residents of the nearby enclave called "Africa", just south of his properties in Greenwood on US Route 30. Here, Wertz turned over freedom seekers he led by night from his family farm eight miles south in the Village of Quincy. In late June of 1863, Confederate troops destroyed Caledonia Iron Works on their way to Gettysburg, in part because Stevens' ownership of the works and his anti-slavery efforts.

F. Julius LeMoyne House
49 East Maiden Street
The Julius LeMoyne House is significant as a National Historic Landmark for its association with the antebellum, anti-slavery movement as a center of anti-slavery activity and a safe station on the Underground Railroad. The period of significance begins with Julius LeMoyne's entry into the Washington Anti-Slavery Society in 1834 and ends with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. Through the 1830's and 1840's Julius threw himself into the anti-slavery cause. Using his position as a prominent community figure, he and his wife made their house a center of anti-slavery activity in southwestern Pennsylvania. When Julius joined the anti-slavery cause he did not limit his commitment to politics, organizing rallies, and debating the constitutional abstractions of states' rights, property rights, and human rights. Like many Americans and some of his neighbors his conscience prompted him to bend the law by aiding the escape of fugitive slaves. He put himself at risk by offering his house as a safe station on the fugitive slave escape network.

Fair Hill Burial Site
W Cambria St & Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, PA, 19133
Cambria Street and Germantown Avenue
The Fair Hill Burial Ground is the final resting place of many individuals who were involved in the Underground Railroad. Robert Purvis, who organized the Vigilant Association in 1837, is credited by some historians as helping 3000 freedom seekers through the Philadelphia area. Among the most famous he asssisted was Harriet Jacobs, whose story of being confined to her grandmother’s attic is often told. Harriet Forten Purvis, his wife, was a member of the Philadelphia Female Society which raised money for the Vigilant Association, later the Vigilant Committee. Lucretia and James Mott supported the underground railroad, and frequently hid Freedom Seekers. Edward M. Davis supported the underground railroad, and lent his farm to the U. S. Army for the training of the first black regiments during the Civil War. Edward Hopper, son of Isaac Hopper, an underground railroad pioneer, was a lawyer who defended many Freedom Seekers including Daniel Dangerfield. Nine members of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society, and 104 members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society are buried at Fair Hill.

Blairsville Passport to Freedom UGRR Experience
P.O. Box 92
Before the Civil War, Blairsville was a transportation terminus connecting east to west over the Appalachian Mountains via canal and railroads. Blairsville had one of the larger black communities in Indiana county and the first AME Zion Church organized here in 1844. Blairsville's anti-slavery leadership included wealthy merchant John Graff and black community leader Lewis Johnson. Collaborating with them in UGRR activities were men, women and children acting as conductors, agents, suppliers and watchmen plus a citizenry willing to challenge, in one way or another, attempts by slave hunters to 'kidnap' runaways. Black community members led two citizen 'rescues' of freedom seekers, one in 1858 and the other in 1860. The Blairsville Passport to Freedom UGRR Experience interprets UGRR, anti-slavery and African-American activities in the county. Interpretive activities include walking tours, cemetery & driving tours, living history programs and yearly re-enactments.

Henry Watson Burial Site at Mount Vernon Cemetery
140 Lincoln Road
A traditional burial ground for African Americans from the Chambersburg, PA area, Mount Vernon Cemetery is the site of the grave of Henry Watson (1813-1898), the business owner who helped to arrange the secret meeting between Frederick Douglass and John Brown at a quarry on the western edge of the historic seat of Franklin County. There, on August 19, 1859, discussions were held on the Abolitionist Brown’s plans for the impending raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The ill-fated raid occurred on October 16, 1859. At the meeting, Brown tried unsuccessfully to enlist Douglass in his plans. The Cemetery, established circa 1850, also holds the remains of 26 African American veterans of the Civil War.

Journey to Freedom
Erie County Pennsylvania served as a vital segment of the Underground Railroad. Erie's location on the northern boundary of the U.S. became a natural hub. Once in Erie, freedom seekers could then continue north across Lake Erie into Canada or head east through the state of New York. Some opted to remain in the region. Abolitionists and the free black community provided freedom seekers with a safe place to stay, new clothes, and a quick change of appearance at the local barbershop. The Journey to Freedom educational program was created to help tell this story. Journey to Freedom is an interactive Underground Railroad program for Erie County. A component of the interactive program consists of pre and post-visit activities. The activities include Methods of Escape, Escape Routes, Narratives, Erie's Abolitionists and a Timeline Creation. The Program incorporates historical photographs and documents, role-playing activities and games.

Kaufman’s Station at Boiling Springs
The village of Boiling Springs was the site of an Underground Railroad station located on one of the major escape routes leading from Maryland to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The area included an iron making complex where freedom seekers were sheltered by some of the free black employees. Daniel Kaufman, who lived on a farm near the ironworks, operated a station at his home and in a secluded wooded area near his home known as Island Grove. A number of village residents, including some of his relatives, assisted Daniel with his work. Daniel Kaufman was sued by a Maryland slave owner in 1847 for assisting thirteen of her slaves who were last traced to his home. This lawsuit led to three trials that attracted statewide attention. Kaufman lost his case in Federal Court and had to pay fines and expenses amounting to approximately $5,000. Daniel Kaufman was one of the youngest and consequently one of the last surviving agents on the UGRR when he died in 1902. His work as an agent and the UGRR activities in the Boiling Springs area are well documented because of the transcripts of two of his trials and the resulting newspaper coverage.

City of Philadelphia Archives
The City of Philadelphia Archives within the Department of Records is the repository for official city government records. Holdings date from the 1701 City Charter chronicling actions and decisions of city government and the public in confronting slavery and status of blacks in Philadelphia important for telling the Underground Railroad story. In fact, the Archives are unmatched in the comprehensiveness of their eighteenth and early nineteenth century records (Gary Nash support letter, 7/2/08). City Council Minutes from 1704 to 1865 chronicle Philadelphia as the Nation's capital and the birthplace of Abolition and an Underground Railroad center. Among materials are citizen, government, and police response to the 1838 burning of Pennsylvania Hall a center for discussing the evils of slavery. Working documents include property deeds, birth and death records valuable for pinpointing abolitionist owned property and URR sites. Prison and Court records index prisoners including abolitionists awaiting trial for treason for participation in the 1851 Christiana Riot, fugitive slaves and Civil War deserters. Public Health Department records from 1729 include the Philadelphia Almshouse, Marine Hospital Accounts of Lazaretto Hospital Philadelphia's quarantine hospital, and a ledger of two illegal U.S. slave ships, schooners Phebe and Prudent captured by the USS Ganges.

Rhode Island Historical Society
110 Benevolent St, Providence, RI, 02906
110 Benevolent Street
The Society's Library holds a wealth of primary source materials on the slave trade, slave ownership and manumissions, abolition and the Underground Railroad in Rhode Island. The stories of Rhode Island slaves survive mainly through the distorting lens of the records left by the ruling classes.
The Quaker community was particularly active in both movements, and the archives of the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends(NEYM) are housed at the Society's Library.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace (1806-1899) was a Quaker and a tireless life-long worker for women's rights and the abolition of slavery. She is probably best known for opening her home as the main Rhode Island stop on the Underground Railroad. The Library holds The Elizabeth Buffum Chace (MSS 1002) Family Papers, which include materials concerning her involvement in the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad.
The printed collections include monograms, many of them unique, others rare and out of print, on the Underground Railroad in Rhode Island.
Altogether the Society's holdings on slaves, abolition and the Underground Railroad comprise a significant body of resources documenting the history of the state's relationship to slavery.

Forgotten History: Rhode Island and the Slave Trade
52 Power Street
Upon entering the John Brown House Museum, visitors are introduced to the "Forgotten History: Rhode Island and the Slave Trade" exhibit. In 1764, the one-hundred ton brigantine Sally embarked from Providence to West Africa on a slaving voyage. The ship was owned by the four brother firm of Nicholas Brown and Company. This voyage was one of roughly a thousand transatlantic slaving ventures launched by Rhode Islanders in the colonial and early national period, and one of the deadliest. Of the 196 Africans acquired by the ship's master, Esek Hopkins, at least 109 perished, some in a failed insurrection, others by suicide, starvation, and disease. The insurrection is documented in the exhibit and the account has been reproduced and enlarged from the original journal. Although unsuccessful, as most slave trading voyage uprisings were, this revolt demonstrates the African slaves' determination to acquire their freedom. The story of the brave and anonymous slaves onboard the Sally should be shared on a national level and connected to other accounts in the fight for freedom.

Fort Howell
Fort Howell was constructed in 1864 on Hilton Head Island to defend the nearby freedmen's village of Mitchelville from possible Confederate raids. Mitchelville was established in 1862 to provide a community where freedom seekers could live and self-govern under their new-found freedom under the protection of the Union Army. Mitchelville was the clearest example of the Port Royal Experiment, whereby, formerly enslaved people demonstrated their willingness to fight for freedom and their capacity to live independently.
By 1864, Union military units were being drawn from the Department of the south for operations further north. Military operations transitioned from offensive to defensive in the area. Three major new earthworks were constructed on Hilton Head, including Fort Howell, which was located to provide protection for Mitchelville. Fort Howell was constructed in part by the 32nd USCT Infantry unit. This unit, raised in Pennsylvania from volunteers coming from Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, was comprised mostly of free blacks, rather than formerly enlsaved men.
Fort Howell is nominated as a military site. It also compliments the commemoration of Mitchelville, a destination site for freedom seekers. Further, we aspire that this site will build upon the history of the origin and activities of Mitchelville residents- i.e. service in the US Navy which formed the largest armada to that time in the capture of Port Royal Island on which Mitchelville was built and the formation of the first US Colored Army Troops who were instrumental in the Union victory in the Civil War. Fort Howell is an ideal site to serve as a futute commemoration of the thousands of freedom seekers that served valiantly in the US military.

Mitchelville Freedom Park, Commemorative Park for Historic Mitchelville
227 Beach City Rd, Hilton Head Island, SC, 29926
227 Beach City Road
The Mitchelville Freedom Park commemorates the nearly forgotten, historic town of Mitchelville, South Carolina. Two distinct phases qualified Mitchelville as an important Underground Railroad site. First, it was the site of mass-escapes from Hilton Head Island plantations when Union troops entered Port Royal Sound in November 1861. With the first shots fired, the enslaved island population seized their opportunity for freedom. Despite threats and deception by local plantation owners, freedom seekers bolted to the woods until Union troops occupied the area. Second, Mitchelville became the destination for waves of freedom seekers fleeing bondage in nearby confederate territories of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It was the place where the newly emancipated would first experience freedom and emerge from enslaved victims into responsible citizens.
Mitchelville was the heart of "The Port Royal Experiments", termed a "rehearsal for reconstruction", the experiments were launched by the US government and proved to a skeptical American public that African-Americans would fight for freedom and country, work for wages within a free enterprise labor system, and live responsibly as independent citizens. Mitchelville was constructed, inhabited and governed exclusively by previously enslaved freedom seekers. Activities in this settlement were reported nationwide ultimately influencing national reconstruction policies.

Stories from Da Dirt
Stories From Da Dirt is a living history dramatic presentation which was researched and written and by African American Studies professor, Dr. Nancy J. Dawson. The paly utilizes music, dance and storytelling to tell the story of African Americans (men and women) who went to Fort Donelson (Dover, TN) as laborers, cooks, nurses and soldiers. Specifically, the play focuses on several families who lived near the Fort who still have connections to the area. Several of the soldiers of the military from the 8th USCT enlisted at Fort Donelson as early as 1864. Some of the soldiers actually escaped from local farms and came to Fort Donelson to enlist. Much of the research gathered for the production is directly from pensions and military records obtained by Dr. Dawson at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

Stone's River National Battlefield
3501 Old Nashville Hwy, Murfreesboro, TN, 37129
3501 Old Nashville Highway
Stones River National Battlefield, established by the Act of March 3, 1927, was set aside “with view of preserving and marking such field for historical and professional military study.” The park commemorates the battle that set the stage for the devastating 1863-1864 Union campaigns through Tennessee and Georgia and produced a military victory to support the Emancipation Proclamation as it went into effect on January 1, 1863. Stones River National Battlefield’s association to the Underground Railroad is important. This site commemorates a significant Union victory that was critical to the legitimacy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was a critical step in the transformation of the war into a campaign to end slavery. The Union occupation of Murfreesboro also provided local slaves the opportunity to seize their freedom and begin defining their roles in a changing society. For some, this process included taking up arms to fight for their freedom in the United States Colored Troops.

Fort Donelson National Battlefield
120 Fort Donelson Road
Fort Donelson National Battlefield, established by the Act of March 26, 1928, was set aside "with view of preserving and marking such field for historical and professional military study." The park commemorates the battle that gave the North its first victory of the Civil War. More importantly, the military post acted as a safe haven for enslaved runaways from 1862-1865. It was at Fort Donelson that refugees received assistance from Union soldiers and religious and charitable organizations. Fort Donelson eventually became a recruiting station for African American troops in 1863.

Blazing Trails to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in Texas
"Blazing Trails to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in Texas: is a three-day education agenda designed to assist communities in the investigation, documentation and preservation of their history as it relates to the identification and preservation of Underground Railroad stories, sites, activities, and related events. Everything that contributed to the Resistance Movement of the enslaved who left Texas and sought refuge in Mexico between 1821 and 1865 is the subject of our investigation and dialogue. This process includes selecting a community where slavery was dominant, namely East Texas. We contact local historians and Convention and Visitors Bureaus to make inroads to the general public, educational institutions, businesses, and heritage organizations, i.e., County Historical Commissions. The program then takes several forms: presentations at area schools and colleges, community historic tours, family history workshop, a day-long general session, a cooperative exhibit, and a community recognition dinner.

Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery
The nominated cemetery site of The Black Seminole Scouts is located outside the small town of Brackettville, Texas. Persecuted by the U.S. Army and slave hunters, the black Seminoles and their families had traveled on the Trail of Tears from Florida to Indian Territory in Oklahoma and finally to Sonora, Mexico, where they were finally free from persecution and reenslavement. By this time the Seminole maroons had gained a reputation on the U.S/Mexican border as fierce fighters and Indian trackers. After the Civil War they were asked by the U.S. Army to return to Texas and serve as scouts at the Fort Clark Reservation at Bracketville. Included in the group were runaway slaves and their families to whom they had given refuge on their journeys to freedom. Subsequently, the black Seminoles were to play a major role in defending the Texas borderlands between 1872 and 1914. Generations of balck Seminole families are buried here in the cemetery and it has becom a pilgramage site for descendants.

Resurrection of Harriet Tubman - Escape to Freedom
Flying Geese Productions is an entity committed to the exploration and preservation of historical facts and events related to the Underground Railroad. This group of re-enactors will provide positive, facts and documentable accounts of true historic information and disseminate it via theatrical re-enactments for students and adult audiences.

Rippon Lodge
15520 Blackburn Rd, Woodbridge, VA, 22191
15520 Blackburn Road
Rippon Lodge, Woodbridge, Virginia, in Prince William County (PWC), is perhaps the oldest standing structure in the county, its initial portion having been built about 1747. It stands upon a hilltop by the mouth of Neabsco Creek and the Potomac River. The 18th-century plantation had its own port from which tobacco was exported and it was located on the well-traveled King's Highway (now Route 1). The main house and 40 surrounding acres belong to the PWC government. The site is significant to Underground Railroad history, because it was a plantation using enslaved labor some of whom escaped while belonging to the Blackburn family (1733-1820) and the Atkinson families (1820-1920).
Historical documents verify that people enslaved at Rippon Lodge escaped during Thomas Blackburn's tenure. An 1804 newspaper notice for information regarding a freedom seeker named Rachel is signed "from the subscriber...T. Blackburn, Rippon Lodge near Dumfries."

African Methodist Society (Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church)
637 North Street
Enslaved residents who were members of the African Methodist Church, later known as Emanuel A.M.E. Church, escaped from Portsmouth aboard vessels that plied the waterways that headed to points north. These freedom seekers included Clarissa Davis and her two brothers William and Charles, and sister. Also, members such as Anthony Blow and Moses Wines were recorded to have escaped. Operatives like Henry "Bluebeard" Lewey and Eliza Bains, are credited with assisting many of the Church‟s members, especially in the 1840s and 50‟s. The Church‟s records indicated that their membership was depleted in the 1840s because of the large numbers who escaped. Moreover, other accounts, such as the book written by William Still and WPA oral histories of Portsmouth residents, discussed the interaction between the Church and the Underground Railroad.

Alexandria Library, Special Collections Branch
717 Queen Street
Slavery existed in Alexandria, VA, since the city's origins, and ads in the Alexandria Gazette document generations of freedom seekers. Alexandria was also the site of a substantial population of free African Americans, as well as a thriving slave trade. During the Civil War, when Alexandria was occupied by federal forces, the city became a magnet for African Ameriicans escaping from enslavement. The Alexandria Library, Special Collections Branch, collects books, journals, newspapers, microfilm, private papers, wills, deeds, tax records and dissertations dealing with the history and culture of Virginia and the Mid Atlantic region, with a concentration on Northern Virginia. The branch is the repository for the historic records of the city of Alexandria. Published resources in the collection include memoirs, religious and civic histories, and genealogies. The archives holds many items unique to the history of Alexandria and Northern Virginia. The Collection also includes books and periodicals from every county in the state of VA. Recent budget reductions have forced the library to cut both staff and service hours. Despite these cuts, the library is able to successfully assist patrons with their researach. The branch remains the place to go for both scholarly research and general public inquiry regarding the Underground Railroad, African American history and the story of both in Alexandria.

Appomattox Plantation at City Point (NPS, Petersburg National Battlefield)
1001 Pecan Avenue
At the Appomattox Plantation at City Point, a unit of Petersburg National Battlefield, enslaved African Americans owned by the Eppes family escaped during the Civil War. In 1862, 106 of Richard Eppes' slaves escaped from the three counties in which he owned land. Among those who escaped from his properties in Prince George County were Jenny Oldham, George Oldham, Madison Ruffin, Edward Oldham, Sally Lewis, Harriet Ruffin, Steward Slaughter, Solomon Morris, Charles Davis, Henry Corsen, Jim Booker, Archer Lewis, James Spratley, Toby Bird, Patience Bird, Frank Lewis, Dilsy Slaughter, Jane Booker, Nancy Thompson, Paulina Ruffin, Richard Slaughter, Louisa Slaughter, Charlotte Cary, Agnes Ruffin, John Ruffin, Samuel Ruffin, Fanny Corn, Indianna Ruffin, Ida Booker, and Lavania Bird.
Dr. Richard Eppes was in America's top 1% of the plantation elite, by owning 130 enslaved people, and one of the wealthiest men in the country.
From 1635 when Frances Eppes claimed this property based on the headrights of indentured people he brought from England - five of this group were black servants, to the end of the Civil War, there are stories of escape, resistance, freedom, and citizenship that connected the beginning of slavery in this country to its physical and Constitutional demise.

Aquia Landing
2846 Brooke Road
Between 1842 and 1862, Aquia Landing of Stafford, Virginia was a pivotal gateway between southern states and northern ports. As the terminus of the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac (RF&P) Railroad, Aquia Landing was the only direct rail-to-steamboat transfer point on the Potomac River between the capital cities of Richmond, VA and Washington, DC. Here, passengers, cargo and entire rail cars were transferred from the RF&P Railroad to steamboat vessels which carried them from the Aquia Creek up the Potomac River to Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD. This key location also positioned Aquia Landing as a major gateway along the 'Network to Freedom' through which fugitive slaves had to pass in order to reach freedom. This wharf helped transport prominent individuals such as William and Ellen Craft in December 1848 and Henry "Box" Brown in March 1849, and also aided an estimated 10,000 freedom seekers who sought refuge behind Union lines during the first Federal occupation to Stafford County between April and September 1862. These documented escapes occured prior to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862.

Brentsville Courthouse and Jail
12229 Bristow Road
The Prince William County Courthouse and Jail in Brentsville, VA, are associated with the Underground Railroad because they served as sites of arrest and lodging of runaway bondsmen and abolitionists from 1820 until 1862. Bondsmen were tried, lodged, punished (including execution) and sold all on the courthouse lot. Relevant cases are: runaway named Billy documented because of treatment at the jail on 3 succeeding days by a local physician; free black William Hyden unjustly imprisoned in the Brentsville Jail and almost sold into slavery in 1833; Landon a runaway held in the jail, charged with arson, tried, and found guilty, and sentenced to be hung in 1839. Period newspapers provide evidence of antislavery sentiment in the county. Vocal abolitionist John Underwood was brought to trial and found guilty of "uttering and maintaining that owners have no rights of property in their slaves." This and other cases show how the county courts tried to repress opposition to slavery within the county. The courthouse and jail are part of the Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre, administered by Prince William County's Historic Preservation Division. The courthouse is open for tours and the jail is under restoration.

Bruin’s Slave Jail
1707 Duke Street
In 1848 one of the largest attempted escapes in the United States occurred on a ship called The Pearl, sailing down the Potomac River for Frenchtown, Maryland, starting from the Washington, D.C., waterfront. Over 70 freedom seekers were on board. Unfortunately, the attempt failed, and many of the bondspeople involved were bought by slave traders for sale further south. Among these unfortunates were the Edmonson sisters who were purchased by the slave trading firm, Bruin & Hill. After a period in the Bruin & Hill slave pen at 1707 Duke Street, Alexandria, Virginia, the sisters were sent to New Orleans. An outbreak of yellow fever meant that Joseph Bruin brought them back to Alexandria, where they worked for the Bruin family until the sisters' parents were able to raise money in New York City to redeem them. The sisters then attended Oberlin College. After sister Mary died, Emily the surviving sister returned to D. C. to teach with Myrtilla Miner.

Rev. Leonard A. Black Burial Site
334 South Crater Road
Leonard Black (8 March 1820-28 April 1883) is the author of the slave narrative, The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, a Fugitive from Slavery (1847). He was born enslaved in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. This narrative recounts his escape in 1837. After his arrival in the North, he became interested in the ministry and involved with George H. Black, a Baptist minister, whose daughter he married. Black attended theological school with assistance from the president of Brown University and possibly with the proceeds of his narrative. Toward the end of his life, Black moved to Virginia where in 1873 he was made pastor of the First Baptist Church, also know as Harrison Street Church, in Petersburg. He was successful in doubling the church’s membership during his time there. Black’s death on April 28, 1883 was followed by one of the largest funerals ever held in the city. More than five thousand people overflowed the church service and lined the streets to the cemetery. In the following months funds were raised for a stone monument with a bas-relief portrait to mark Black’s burial site in the African-American cemetery now known as People’s Memorial Cemetery.

African Americans: From Slavery to Emancipation, Museum of the Confederacy
1201 East Clay Street
The overriding theme of the program, African Americans: From Slavery to Emancipation, is the quest for freedom by enslaved African Americans—the struggles that they endured and the steps they took to achieve liberty and equality. The Underground Railroad was an important means of obtaining freedom for many, and it is highlighted in this program along with the story of Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad, who repeatedly risked her life and became the Moses of her people. The program, geared toward 4th and 5th graders, begins with introductory information on slavery, which helps set the stage for students in understanding the importance of the Underground Railroad as a means of obtaining freedom. By utilizing a handling collection that makes history tangible, this program is a valuable tool for teachers seeking to reinforce Virginia Standards of Learning related to slavery, the Underground Railroad, and the American Civil War. While acknowledging the horrors of slavery, the program tells the story of African Americans and their struggles to obtain freedom and equality not only for themselves but also for their race as a whole.

Petersburg Court House
150 N Sycamore St, Petersburg, VA, 23803
150 North Sycamore Street
On 31 May 1858, on the James River, the schooner Keziah, out of Wilmington, Delaware, was overtaken by Petersburg officials who arrested the captain, William Baylis, and his mate, and took away the five runaway slaves hidden below on the Keziah. So many people crowded into to the Petersburg Court House for the trial of Baylis that it had to be postponed twice. Despite the services of two of the city’s most outstanding lawyers, Baylis was found guilty and sent to the penitentiary. Baylis was an important figure in the Underground Railroad, well known to such leaders as William Still and Thomas Garrett, and his arrest and conviction, which made news across the nation, provides a rare glimpse into the operations of the Underground Railroad in eastern Virginia. For the citizens of Petersburg, too, the Keziah affair made the court house, as the Petersburg Daily Express exclaimed, “the theatre of the most intensely exciting event that has ever transpired within [the city’s] limits.”

Spotsylvania County Courthouse and Jail
9012 Courthouse Rd, Spotsylvania, VA, 22553
9012 Courthouse Road
One of the many events from the Spotsylvania County Courthouse and Jail is the story of George Boxley and his involvement in the struggle to end slavery in the early 1800s. George Boxley was a white storekeeper and mill owner. While living in Berkeley Parrish, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, he allegedly tried to coordinate a local slave rebellion in 1815, based on "heaven-sent" orders to free the enslaved. His plan was for slaves from Spotsylvania, and surrounding counties to meet at his home with horses, guns, swords and cubs. His plan involved capturing Richmond's magazine or arsenal, and from there he planned to help the participating enslaved reach freedom. An enslaved girl, Lucy, informed her owner, Ptolemy Powell, who then informed the magistrate. The plot was foiled. At least six enslaved people were executed and many others were arrested. Boxley was able to escape from the Spotsylvania County Jail when his wife, brought him a file, which he used to cut his chains and escape to freedom. A thousand dollars reward was offered for Boxley, but he was never caught. Boxley fled to Indiana, where he continued to help runaways and teach the principles of abolitionism on the railway to freedom.

Sully Historic Site
3650 Historic Sully Way, Chantilly, VA, 20151
3650 Historic Sully Way
Sully Historic Site is part of the Fairfax County Park Authority. It consists of: a Georgian House with Federal Period overtones; outbuildings consisting of original kitchen and laundry, smokehouse, dairy, a representative slave quarter; and gardens and grounds. Richard Bland Lee, an uncle of Robert E. Lee, lived at Sully from 1794-1811 with his wife Elizabeth Collins Lee, their children and wards, and up to 40 enslaved African Americans. Mr. Lee inherited 1500 acres of land and 29 bondsmen upon the death of his father, Henry Lee II in 1787. He sold half the land and kept approximately 777 acres for use as a farm. Crops grown at Sully included wheat, corn, timothy, and clover. Of the nearly 40 enslaved African Americans, approximately 80% were field workers, while 20% were house servants. During the Lees' occupancy of Sully, there are four known incidents of escapes. These incidents are documented through Lee letters and run-away advertisements. In one case, Beaver Ludwell did return to Sully, accompanied by his wife Nancy. When the Lees left Sully in 1811, many of the bondsmen were sold as part of the property. Others accompanied the Lees to their new home in Alexandria.

Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County
4243 Loudoun Avenue, The Plains
The Afro-American Historical Association (AAHA) operates a museum, genealogical research center, library, document and photographic archive, and educational facility that interprets regional and national African American history. Our highly agricultural region of rural VA was heavily dependent on enslaved labor prior to the Civil War and much of the African American population living here now are descended from the enslaved and freed people of that era. A large part of the facility's mission is to document, preserve, research, and interpret the history of slavery and resistance in the region. Through original documents, recorded oral history, maps, and artifacts, the facility shares a hidden history with visitors from all over the US. We are especially pleased to offer an exhibit titled, "Footprints to Change," which illustrates the Underground Railroad in Fauquier County. Staff are currently researching runaways in the county.

Leesylvania
2001 Daniel K Ludwig Dr, Woodbridge, VA, 22191
2001 Daniel K. Ludwig Drive
Leesylvania State Park, Prince William County, VA, is a 508 acre tract of a 2000 acre estate patented in 1658. The Leesylvania archeological site is significant to the UGRR because of 17 runaways. Leesylvania, which means "Lee's Woods," was the circa 1750 home of Henry Lee II and birthplace of Henry Lee III, Revolutionary War hero and father of General Robert E. Lee. Nineteenth century owners were: Charles Lee; Martha Lindsay Fairfax Robertson; and Lt. Col. John Walter Fairfax. A significant part of all of the owners' farms was the fishery at Freestone Point retained in the present park. Cate and Sinah, the 18th century runaways, were advertised in Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, Oct. 21, 1784, Leesylvania. The 19th century runaways listed in Alexandria Gazette are: Andrew and James, June 12, 1807, Leesylvania Farm; Daniel, Feb. 25, 1848, Freestone Farm; Henry and Betsy, June 26, 1856, Ohio Farm; and (Henry, Betsy), Tom, Armstead, Littleton, Abram, and Moses, Ohio Farm, August 15, 1856.
The Confederate Battery is significant because five African Americans (four men and one woman) escaped to the US Steam Sloop Seminole on Sept. 23, 1861, reporting Confederate troop numbers and the Freestone Point Confederate Battery location.

Birch Slave Pen
1315 Duke Street
Used for 33 years before the Civil War by slave dealers (1828-1861), the building (a National Historic Landmark) at 1315 Duke Stree, Alexandria, VA, is a symbol of America's internal slave trade to the Deep South. It was thus acquired by the Northern VA Urban League for adaptive reuse. During the Civil War the former Slave Office was used to house contrabands, that is, those enslaved African Americans who fled their places of enslavement and flocked to Union protection from areas surrounding Washington, D.C., in order to obtain freedom. A number of primary sources document use of the property by contrabands -- a Union map, a minister's records of deaths and marriages among contrabands, and a diary and a letter written by women working to help refugees from slavery.

Alexandria Archaeology Museum at the Torpedo Factory
105 N Union Street
The Alexandria Archaeology Museum is dedicated to preserving and protecting the archaeological heritage of the City of Alexandria. One commitment has been to identify archaeological sites related to the Underground Railroad by developing and implementing an innovative research strategy. Using William Still's book Underground Railroad and runaway ads, local records have been mined to tie surviving structures and archeological sites to sites of enslavement of those seeking freedom. The Museum has created a compilation of freedom seekers, sites of enslavement, and free African American areas. It has also excavated several sites related to African Americans, and has an extensive African American collection (free and enslaved). The Museum collects information on the history of Alexandria, educates the public, and sponsors ongoing research related to the Underground Railroad.

Gadsby's Tavern
138 North Royal Street
Gadsby's Tavern Museum, located on the southwest corner of Cameron and Royal Streets, is a cultural icon for the early Federal period celebrated in Alexandria, Virginia. The museum consists of two tavern buildings, the ca. 1785 tavern and the 1792 City Tavern and Hotel. While the museum includes several generations of tavern-keepers in its interpretation, it is tavern-keeper John Gadsby for whom the complex named. John Gadsby ran the City Tavern and Hotel from 1796 to 1808. One of the largest taverns in Alexandria at the time, it catered to the upper classes and was visited by many of the early American Presidents, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Most tavern-keepers in Virginia relied on a staff of enslaved African Americans to accomplish the tavern’s work. Gadsby’s 1802 inventory indicates that he owned 11 enslaved workers making up $3,555 of his $22,441 estate.

Virginia Historical Society
428 North Boulevard
For four centuries African Americans have shaped the state's history, and their lives and stories are preserved in the Virginia Historical Society. The VHS is the largest repository of non-official manuscripts in the commonwealth, and the collection of personal, family, and coporate papers ranges from the colonial period to the present. These unique materials are supplemented by an extensive collection of books, journals, newspapers, maps, sheet music, broadsides, and museum artifacts.
Since 1831, the VHS has acquired materials that relate to various aspects of African American life in Virginia. Researchers have used these plantation records and family papers for evidence of fugitive slaves, slave rebellions, and other forms of resistance. Historians have produced numerous books and articles that include material from the VHS development of slavery. As a museum and research library, the VHS is a source for educational outreach and information on the reinterpretation of the African American experience from Jamestown in 1619 to the colonization movement, and from Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement. In the absence of extensive first-hand accounts by slaves, the Virginia Historical Society is an important center where a range of evidence can be studied to place the Underground Railroad in historical context.

Downtown Norfolk Waterfront
One block south of Waterside Drive, roughly bounded by the west end of Main Street, east end of Wate
One block south of Waterside Drive, roughly bounded by the west end of Main Street, east end of Water Street, the Elizabeth River on the south, and Waterside Festival Marketplace on the north
The Norfolk waterfront was a busy stop on the Underground Railroad. Virginia’s last Royal Governor made Norfolk a major refuge for runaways when he issued a 1775 proclamation promising freedom to all slaves who joined him to fight with the British Army. Some 800 fugitives enlisted. Eighteenth and nineteenth century runaway slave advertisements indicate that Norfolk’s waterfront continued to be a destination for fugitives from southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina throughout the ante-bellum years. Two of the South’s most famous fugitives, George Latimer and Shadrach Minkins, made their escape from Norfolk. Certain ships’ captains were known in the underground community to be sympathetic to runaways, or at least agreeable to transporting them secretly for a price. Of the approximately ninety former slaves interviewed or referenced by William Still of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee (The Underground Railroad, 1871), the majority reported escape by ship from the Norfolk waterfront. Many credited Captain William D. Bayliss of the Keziah or Captain Fountain of the City of Richmond with aiding them. The City of Richmond is known to have customarily tied up in Norfolk at the wharf belonging to John Higgins, a one-time owner of Shadrach Minkins.

Moncure Conway House
305 King Street
The owners of the Moncure Conway House are members of the Stafford County Historical Society and together have worked to promote public awareness of the great humanitarian Moncure Conway through magazine, newspaper articles, displays, and meetings open to the public. Many people are unaware of this unique American who gave up his Southern aristocratic birthright to stand by his convictions and advocate for individual rights and freedom. He led over 30 souls to freedom while his two brothers were in the Confederate army. It is hoped in the future to create the Moncure Conway Foundation that will be instrumental in interpreting the home and life of Moncure Conway, also making the site more open to the public.

Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
3100 Desert Road
Since the 17th century, historians, surveyors, and newspaper ads have identified the swamp and canal as a refuge and a route to freedom for thousands of runaway enslaved Africans. For some, the swamp offered a means to purchase their freedom, through work on the Swamp Canal and in cedar and cypress shingle and timber production. Others found refuge deep within the swamp, living off the land and what they could steal. These 'outlyers' established maroon communities on the higher points of the swamp. Many lived here, raised families, and died here. For others, the swamp was a 'stopping point' to get to Norfolk or Portsmouth, VA, or to the Albemarle Sound and Elizabeth City, NC, where they could secure passage on a ship traveling north. Despite the method or living conditions, the swamp provided the means of freedom which so many sought. During the Civil War, Union regiments of the United States Colored Troops under the leadership of Brigadier General Augustus E. Wild successfully marched down the Swamp Canal bank to liberate and recruit enslaved Africans in NC.

Evergreen
15900 Berkeley Drive
Evergreen, in Prince William County, VA, is the manor house of a former plantation of over 1000 acres. The plantation belonged to a family well known in the county, a family known for three brothers and a son who joined the Confederate Army in the Civil War. It is now vacant. It is on the National Register for Historic Places. A community group is trying to save the building.
The plantation relates to the Underground Railroad because African American bondsmen escaped. In the 1850s Edmund Berkeley, from a distinguished Virginia family, was the plantation owner of Evergreen. According to the slave censuses of 1850 and 1860, Berkeley controlled his own bondsmen and those dower bondsmen from his wife. In 1850 he had 33 enslaved people. There are accounts of at least three escapes of Nelson, Bob, and White Bishop. The source for Bob and Nelson's escapes is Edmund Berkeley's 1852 Evergreen Farm Day Book, and for White Bishop's escape, it is the Prince William Court Minute and Order Book.

Oatlands Plantation
20850 Oatlands Plantation Ln, Leesburg, VA, 20175
20850 Oatlands Plantation Lane
Oatlands Plantation was begun in 1804 by George Carter, great-grandson of Virgina's renowned planter, Robert "King" Carter. With the addition of many dependency buildings, the plantation soon became a 3400 acre estate. The complex is valuable as a social document of Piedmont Virginia country life in the early 19th century. The Plantation is associated with the UGRR because of runaway ads and letters by George Carter documenting escapes from slavery. The story of "Billy" (William Jordon Augustus) begins with 2 newspaper ads (1809) and continues in a series of letters between Carter, his nephew Tom and a Doctor. Billy apparently escaped to PA where he lived for at least 8 years before being apprehended and lodged in a jail in Baltimore. Through a ruse, he was able to once again escape, probably to Pennsylvania.

Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery
1001 S Washington St, Alexandria, VA, 22314
1001 S Washington Street
Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery was established at the urging of Rev. Albert Gladwin, the civilian Superintendent of Contrabands. Brigadier General John P. Slough, Alexandria's Military Governor, seized a parcel on South Washington Street and established a cemetery for former slaves. The 1999-2000 test excavations by the cultural resources management firm, URS Geiner Woodward Clyde, unearthed evidence of nearly 60 graves. An earlier ground penetrating radar survey by another firm indicated the presence of many burials beneath a gas station parking lot. Many of those buried were "Contrabands", enslaved people fleeing to Union-held Alexandria to seek freedom and protection. A memorial is in progress.

Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
The Library of Virginia is the official repository for all state records, and the collections also include extensive county and city court records and a wide variety of personal, business, church and organizational records, supported by a comprehensive collection of books, newspapers, and pictorial materials. Court records, papers of the governors, and documents of state agencies are invaluable sources of information about fugitive slaves, the people who helped them, and the state’s efforts to close down the Underground Railroad in Virginia. There are also extensive documentary collections on slave revolts, especially Gabriel Conspiracy of 1800 and Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831, and on John Brown’s raid in 1856. As a public research facility with educational and outreach materials at the Library’s Web site, the Library of Virginia will be an important regional facility for Underground Railroad research.

Loudoun County Courthouse
18 E. Market Street
The Loudoun County Courthouse site is significant to the history of the Underground Railroad in Virginia. On this site Leesburg attorney John Janney took part in at least two trials. In 1840 Janney obtained the least punishment possible for free-born carriage-driver Leonard Grimes for stealing slave Patty and her six children on behalf of Patty's free husband. Grimes served two years in a Richmond jail; Patty and her family reportedly reached safety in Canada. In the second jail, Janney successfully argued the 1846 acquittal of freed slave Nelson Talbott Gant for stealing his slave wife Maria with help of the Underground Railroad agents in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Grant was then able to purchase Maria's freedom and the couple moved to Ohio. Gant and Grimes, along with many others of their race, had been registered as free at the courthouse.

Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial
George Washington Memorial Pky, Mclean, VA, 22101
George Washington Memorial Parkway, Turkey Run Park, McLean
Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, is a unit of the National Park Service and consists of a Greek-Revival mansion, two slave quarters, a museum, and the house grounds. George Washington Parke Custis and his bondsmen began construction of the home in 1802 and completed it sixteen years later. The Arlington estate was an 1,100-acre plantation on which enslaved workers grew corn, wheat, garden produce, and also raised livestock. Custis and some of his enslaved people contributed money to the controversial American Colonization Society, which established colonies in Africa for emancipated slaves. Some of Custis’ enslaved individuals were not content to wait for freedom. During Custis’ lifetime, and later when his son-in-law, Robert E. Lee, administered the property, a number ran away from the plantation. Custis mentioned runaways in an 1831 letter. In 1836, Jane Steiner was charged in a Washington DC court with aiding a runaway from Arlington. Three more slaves fled Arlington in 1859 and their flight received much attention in the press. In 1862, all of the remaining slaves received their freedom as specified in Custis’ will. During the Civil War, many formerly enslaved people settled at Freedmen’s Village located on the Arlington estate.

Melrose Farm
14428 Loyalty Road
Melrose, a 500-acre property, was built on land in Loudoun County, VA, originally settled in the mid 1700s. It is related to the Underground Railroad because it was the home of both William Giddings and his slave Noble Robinson who escaped in 1862 to Union lines.
On the eve of the Civil War, Lt. Colonel William Giddings commanded a local regiment-the 56th-of Virginia's state militia. In late 1861 he was put in charge of constructing Confederate fortifications near the county seat of Leesburg, Virginia. General D.H. Hill, the senior officer in the county, ordered all able-bodied males - black and white -- not serving in the regular military be put to digging earthworks. To avoid the work, many fled north, including Noble Robinson, 24, a slave of Giddings. Robinson fled Melrose on January 12, 1862, to Union forces some eight miles away at Point of Rocks, Maryland, on the Potomac River. Two weeks later, with the permission of Federal officers, Robinson slipped back into Virginia and rescued his wife Martha and three young children, enslaved at a nearby plantation.

Conn’s Ferry
8700 Potomac Hills St, Great Falls, VA, 22066
8700 Potomac Hills Street
The Conn house from which Ellick escaped was located on this property on a hill above the ferry landing. The road to the ferry Ellick traveled on before his escape remains as does the ferry landing.
The landscape is relevant to the Underground Railroad because of the escape from
Conn 's Ferry in 1817 of Ellick, an African-American worker enslaved by the Conn family. While it is unknown if he used the ferry to escape, he made the most of an opportunity, caused by the confusion of being returned from jail to his owner, to run away again. Previously Ellick ran away after being arrested and punished for theft. When caught two months after that escape, he was imprisoned in the Leesburg, Virginia, jail overnight until his captors could take him back to his owner at the ferry.

Freedmen’s Aid Workers Site
323 S Washington St, Alexandria, VA, 22314
323 South Washington Street
The Freedmen’s Aid Workers Site on South Washington Street in Alexandria, Virginia, was built in the mid-1850s as a wedding present for Elisha Miller by his father, the merchant Robert Hartshorne Miller. At the beginning of the Civil War, the Union occupied Alexandria for strategic reasons, because the city is located across the Potomac River from Washington. When the pro-South Miller family fled at the occupation of Alexandria by Union troops, the Union government confiscated their house for use. The Freedmen’s Aid Workers Site is significant to the Underground Railroad for its association with refugees from slavery (freedmen) and freedmen’s aid relief workers during the Civil War. The most outstanding among the relief workers were Julia Wilbur and Harriet Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs is known as a freedom seeker and author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. A Quaker, Julia Wilbur was a reformer from New York State. Although their residence was relatively brief, 1863-1865, this is the best place in Alexandria to commemorate their activities.

Fort Monroe: Freedom’s Fortress(NPS, Fort Monroe National Monument)
151 Bernard Road
Fort Monroe, a Third System fortification built between 1819 and 1834, is located in Hampton, Virginia. The site, approximately 565 acres of ground, includes the 63-acre fortress and is a National Historic Landmark District and on November 1, 2011, portions were declared a National Monument.
Known also as ""Freedom Fortress," it was one of the few Union military installations in the South not occupied by Confederate forces during the Civil War. Perhaps its greatest historic significance is its association with the contraband decision by Fort Monroe commander General Benjamin Butler in May,
1861. On May 23, slaves of Confederate Colonel Charles Mallory contracted out to work on nearby
Confederate fortifications sought refuge at Fort Monroe. Butler refused to return them as stipulated in the
1850 Fugitive Slave Act and declared them "Contraband of War." More refugees soon arrived, overflowing space at the fortress for their shelter. The Grand Contraband Camp was constructed in the Confederate vacated and torched areas of Hampton to accommodate the Contraband and their families. Many of the Contraband were put to work at Fort Monroe in support of Union Army efforts. General Benjamin Butler's Headquarters where he weighed his options, made his decision, and initiated the Army's Contraband Policy is Old Quarters #1.

Fairfax Circuit Court, Historical Records Room
4110 Chain Bridge Rd, Fairfax, VA, 22030
4110 Chain Bridge Road
Located in Northern Virginia, Fairfax Co. has been intimately involved in the history of the US. Formed from Prince William Co. in 1742, colonial Fairfax Co. and its port town of Alexandria, Virginia, quickly became a center of commerce in the mid-Atlantic Region. George Washington and George Mason were 2 of the early luminaries who called Fairfax Co. home. The Historical Records Room holds the original, official records of the county and circuit court from 1742 up through the early 20th century. County courts in Virginia served as the primary local form of government until the Virginia Constitution of 1870 created the Board of Supervisors. The location of Fairfax Co., close to the federal government in Washington, DC, and the Chesapeake Bay, brought a variety of people and cultures together. Their shared experiences provided Fairfax with a rich and diverse history. The history of African-Americans in Fairfax Co. can be traced through these court records. Enslaved people appear in the records as jailed runaways, values in estates, property in inventories, petititioners for freedom, defendants in criminal cases and missing valuables. Free African Americans also called Fairfax Co. home, establishing their own communities and participating in civic life.

Thomas Balch Library
208 W. Market Street
Thomas Balch Library is the genealogy and research library for Loudoun County, VA. The holdings can be used to document the history of both slavery and the Underground Railroad. Government documents include property, estate, and tax records. Court cases relate to chattels (including bondsmen) and to abettors of escape. The holdings of newspapers can recount news of the day, including runaway ads, court coverage and commentary on contemporary laws and practices. Maps depict the area. Church records reveal the attitudes and activities of parishioners, enslaved and free, abolitionist and pro-slavery. There are demographic sources such US censuses and property rolls. The collection also includes secondary sources, architectural photographs, and magazines to fill out the history of this area. There is a Manuscript Collection which contains primary material on Loudoun history and Loudoun County families.

Rokeby Museum
4334 Route 7
Rokeby Museum is a 90-acre historic site and National Historic Landmark, designated for its Underground Railroad history. The site was the home and farm of a remarkable Quaker family through four generations and nearly 200 years (1793-1961). The second generation of the family—Rowland Thomas and Rachel Gilpin Robinson—were radical abolitionists who participated in reform activities both locally and nationally and sheltered many freedom seekers. The record of these African-American freedom seekers is retained in family correspondence.

Caroline Quarles: She’s Got a Story to Tell
6302 Mineral Point Rd, Madison, WI, 53705
6302 Mineral Point Road
Caroline Quarles' story is a unique exemplar of the courage displayed by the many thousands who escaped to Canada via the UGRR. It also highlights the dangers encounterd by the Wisconsin abolitionists who in aiding her, put their own freedom at risk.

Racine Heritage Museum
Joshua Glover, a freedom seeker, lived and worked in Racine for two years before he was captured in 1854 and jailed in Milwaukee. In Racine, a gathering in the square sent a delegation to Milwaukee, which joined Milwaukee citizens to break open the jail and free Glover. He shuttled on the Underground Railroad throughout Southeastern Wisconsin and finally escaped through Racine harbor on a ship for Canada. Later, a newspaper editor, Sherman Booth, was sentenced and jailed for violating the fugitive slave law for helping Glover. The Wisconsin Supreme Court nullified that law and refused to conform with Federal law. The eventual formation of the Republican Party was also accelerated by the Glover incident. Today in Racine, the Glover story has been celebrated and re-enacted. The Racine Heritage Museum has had a permanent exhibit about Glover, the Underground Railroad, and the Civil War era in Racine County. The section about Glover and the Underground Railroad was significantly expanded.

A. P. Dutton Warehouse
South bank of Root River west of Main Street, variously identified as First Street, North Water Stre
South bank of Root River west of Main Street, variously identified as First Street, North Water Street, or foot of Main Street
Racine County's involvement in the Underground Railroad is documented from 1842 with Caroline Quarles' passage, through the Civil War with Racine's Colonel Utley and his Abolitionist Regiment. One major Racine UGRR conductor was Achas P. Dutton. He had a verified role in the escape of fugitive slave Joshua Glover and approximately a hundred others. His warehouses were concealment and embarkation sites, where Dutton could transfer fugitives to the vessels of abolition-friendly lake captains who then took them to Canadian ports and their freedom. Dutton provided a link to the Great Lakes maritime portion of the UGRR. His warehouses along the south bank of the Root River in Racine are long gone; the sites are now pleasure boat marinas and condo developments. We propose to commemorate his sites and the UGRR link to the Great Lakes with a monument on a city-owned promenade along the Root River, located within view of the original sites of Dutton's elevators and warehouses.

Joshua Glover Rescue Site
E Kilbourn Ave & N Jackson St, Milwaukee, WI, 53202
E Kilbourn Avenue and N Jackson Street
Joshua Glover, a runaway slave from St. Louis, Missouri, escaped from his owner Benammi S. Garland in the spring of 1852. He made his way to Racine, where he worked at a sawmill for almost two years. On March 10, 1854, his owner, accompanied by a federal marshal and others, broke into his cabin, struck him on the head, manacled him and took him to a jail in Milwaukee. When word reached the citizens of Racine, the courthouse bell was rung, and the largest group ever to gather in the city assembled at Haymarket Square (now Monument Square, and an NTF site). Warrants were issued for the arrest of Glover's owner and the U. S. marshal. A committee of 100 men with strong abolitionist sentiments accompanied the Racine sheriff to Milwaukee to bring the kidnappers back to Racine to face charges. Upon their arrival at the Milwaukee jail, they encountered a crowd of protesters estimated to number between 3000 and 5000, demanding Glover's release. Shortly thereafter, a number of those assembled picked up a timber from a nearby construction site. Using it as a battering ram, they freed Glover from jail, whence he was shuttled on a several weeks journey on the Underground Railroad though three additional counties of southeastern Wisconsin, finally being placed aboard a ship in Racine (at Dutton's warehouse, another NTF site), eventually landing in Canada where he spent the next 34 years in freedom, until his death in 1888.

Monument Square
701 South Main Street
In the center of the square is a 61-foot tall monument that was dedicated in 1884 to honor Union soldiers from Wisconsin.

Milton House Museum
18 South Janesville Street
The Milton House Museum is an 1844 stagecoach inn in Milton Wisconsin constructed of lime-mortar and hexagonal in shape. It was built by Milton’s founder, Joseph Goodrich, a staunch abolitionist and member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. Goodrich also constructed a dirt tunnel between the inn and the 1837 log cabin to the rear of the inn. Goodrich secretly harbored freedom seekers in the cellar of the Milton House using the tunnel as the exit and entrance to the cellar. Here he and his family would provide assistance to the freedom seekers. Goodrich and his family also conducted freedom seekers to other stops as they continued the journey toward the Great Lakes and on to Canada.

Samuel Brown Farm Site
In August 1842, the Samuel Brown Farm in Milwaukee served as a stop on the Underground Railroad during the escape of Caroline Quarlls from Missouri, the first documented case of a freedom seeker traveling through Wisconsin.
Despite the real possibility of being caught and prosecuted, Deacon Samuel Brown, a "first" and important citizen, thought it imperative that a young freedom seeker be conveyed to safety and emancipation. Brown housed Qualls overnight at his farm and conducted her twenty miles by wagon and horseback to another safe haven as they were pursued by bounty hunters.

Jonathan Walker’s House
The property up for nomination is the former residence of Captain Jonathan Walker, otherwise known as “The Man with the Branded Hand”. Walker gained fame after his attempted journey in 1844 to help seven freedom seekers to gain their freedom by sailing them south to the Caribbean. Walker was caught, subjected to jail time, and branded with an “SS” for “Slave Stealer” as mandated by the federal courts. He built his residence in Wisconsin in 1855 and lived there until moving to Michigan to live out his remaining years in 1863. Given the nature of the Underground Railroad a precise number is hard to ascertain, but it is thought that Walker helped hundreds of slaves gain their freedom throughout his lifetime.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry NHP has multiple verifiable associations with the Underground Railroad. Most nationally significant are the Armory Ground and Engine House where abolitionist John Brown's 1859 Raid unfolded. Brown attempted and failed to seize weapons from the national armory in order to garner local and regional support to start a war on slavery and free thousand of slaves throughout the south. During the antebellum period, the area was still part of Virginia. Several escapes from slavery are documented through local newspaper reports and one is included in William Still’s book, The Underground Railroad. Many of these stories took place at the “Point” area of the town where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers converge. When the town was occupied by northern forces during the Civil War, escapees who passed into Union lines seeking protection, were designated “prize of war”, “contraband”, detained in a contraband camp at the former Armory enclosure and placed on work details for the US Quartermaster. United States military records' regimental morning reports detail military and civilian activities, and Freedmen's Bureau's operations reports in West Virginia document African American lives on the road to freedom. These and many other escaped African Americans' stories are integrated in the park’s John Brown Museum, Black Voices Exhibit, publications, educational programs, and public history tours.

West Virginia State Archives
1900 Kanawha Blvd E, Charleston, WV, 25305
1900 Kanawha Boulevard
The West Virginia State Archives(WVSA)seeks to collect, preserve and disseminate information about the history of the state and its people. West Virginia became a state during the Civil War, after Virginia joined the Confederacy and western counties chose to remain in the Union. Though much less prevalent in western counties than in other parts of Virginia, slavery did exist in West Virginia prior to the Civil War, with bondsmen accounting for more than 10 percent of the populations of six counties in 1860. Slavery was most prevalent in Jefferson County, where abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859 in a failed attempt to launch a slave rebellion. The West Virginia State Archives collects books, periodicals, maps, state government records, manuscripts, photographs, audiovisual materials, microfilm, and special collections materials. Holdings from the antebellum and Civil War periods include some specialized collections, as well as microfilm of county records, newspapers, and censuses. The Archives website (www.wvculture.org/history) contains much information of interest to researchers, including guides to collections holdings, lists of West Virginia repositories and historical societies and of county history resources, and several searchable databases.

Honor Our Ancestors: the Freedom Seekers of Old Quindaro Exhibit
The Honor Our Ancestors: the Freedom Seekers of Old Quindaro is an exhibit in the Old Quindaro Museum and Information Center which celebrates, documents and interprets Underground Railroad activity in Kansas and Missouri by highlighting the escape stories of former enslaved Africans who settled in Quindaro, a town located on the Missouri River established during the height of pre-Civil War debates. Quindaro was used as an ideological battleground for pro and anti slavery forces to determine whether the Kansas territory would come into statehood as a free-state. In the process of the debate, and well into the 20th century, formerly enslaved Africans migrated to Kansas, first as runaway slaves and later as Exodusters searching for freedom.
The museum, located in Wyandotte County, Kansas opened on September 12, 2008 under the auspices of the Concerned Citizens of Old Quindaro, a nonprofit organization. The museum is housed in a 19th century two-story-bungalow formerly owned by John Walker-- the grounds keeper for Western University (a now defunct African American university). Walker, who was instrumental in the installation of the famous John Brown statue, helped to preserve the area’s African American history. The museum continues his work by preserving and disseminating the history of Quindaro through exhibits, lectures, tours and other programs.

UGRR Research Institute at Georgetown College
400 East College Street
The Underground Railroad Research Institute (UGRRI) was established at Georgetown College on May 1, 2001 for the purpose of researching and documenting Kentucky's UGRR sites and educating Georgetown College students and community through an interdisciplinary academic curriculum, programs, and opportunities for original research. Georgetown College is a private, residential, co-educational liberal arts college established ini 1792 by Elijah Craig, Baptist minister from Spotsylvania, Virginia's "Traveling Church." Special Collections at Georgetown contain some of the historical records of early Kentucky Baptists responsible for establishing early Kentucky Abolitionist Churches. Efforts are underway to expand this collection and add a greater variety of Underground Railroad research materials to our beginning collection.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (NPS)
1850 Dual Highway, Suite 100
The purpose of this application is to nominate the entire Chesapeake and Ohio(C&O) Canal National Historic Park for the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.John Curry, a slave from North Carolina narrates his escape by following the towpath before passing into Pennsylvania.Franklin Blackford recounts in his diary the capture of five slaves along the towpath and collecting the reward.These accounts along with the numerous runaway slave ads mentioning the C&O Canal provides evidence that the canal was used not only as transportation route for fugitives escaping slavery but also as a destination point.The C&O Canal National Historical Park runs 184.5 miles from Georgetown in Washington DC to Cumberland in Western Maryland.Construction of the canal began in 1828 and progressed westward until reaching Cumberland in 1850.As the canal reached Western Maryland it becomes exceedingly close to Pennsylvania, a beacon for freedom seekers as a free state where help could easily be obtained.During the time of its construction, the canal provided a means for runaway slaves to finance their escape by posing as free and gaining employment within the labor intensive construction of the canal.This documentation is reflected in the historical record through the numerous runaway slave ads.

President Street Station
601 S President St, Baltimore, MD, 21202
601 President Street
The site nominated is a former railroad station, begun by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&BRR) in May of 1849 and opened to the public on February 18, 1850. The building sits on ½ acre of ground. The structure is known as a “headhouse” because it originally stood at the head of a train shed. It contained the waiting rooms, ticket booth and railroad offices. The City of Baltimore, Maryland owns the site. Both with and without the aid of employees of the PW&B Railroad, the facilities were used by the General Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, as well as other groups and individuals to escape or aid others in escaping slavery. A railroad operated on the site as early as 1835. Both a depot structure prior to the current surviving building and the current building were involved with incidents related to the activities of the Underground Railroad or with individual escapes from slavery.

Ross House
123 Meadow Street
The Ross Homestead is the only remaining property known to have been part of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI). The NAEI was one of a number of Massachusetts’s “utopian” communities of the 1840’s. Largely defined by the abolitionism of its members, several documents confirm the presence of fugitive slaves at the “Community”, at least two of who became members. The Sojourner Truth and the black abolitionist David Ruggles who reported to have helped 600 slaves to freedom in New York were also members. Frederick Douglass and Samuel J. May visited, as did William Lloyd Garrison whose brother-in-law, George W. Benson, was one of the founders. Eight members are said to have kept safehouses on the Underground Railroad either before or after their time at the NAEI. One of these men, Samuel L. Hill, arranged to purchase Ross Homestead (then the Theodore Burt house) in 1841, merging it with other founders’ property to form the 470 acres of the NAEI. Austin Ross arrived in 1845 and was the last director of the Agricultural Department of the NAEI. He remained on the farm in 1846 when the NAEI dissolved. Of all the local agents, Samuel L. Hill and Austin Ross are the most often mentioned in connection with the Underground Railroad. Accordingly, the Ross Homestead well represents the Underground Railroad activity of the NAEI and the subsequent work of Austin and Fidelia Ross.

First Congregational Church of Detroit
33 E. Forest Avenue
First Congregational Church Detroit's (FCC) initial founding was in 1844. A second building was constructed in 1854 and the present building dates back to 1891. Throught its first three decades, FCC as a congregation, some of its ministers such as Rev. Harvey D. Kitchel, and Rev. Oren C. Thompson and individual members such as Silas Holmes and Samuel P. Mead established substantial contributions to the Underground Railroad and antislavery efforts. FCC, during its early history, demonstrated consistent monetary support of escaped formerly enslaved individuals through Rev. Kitchel's chater membership in and the church's sustained financial support of the Refugees' Home Society (RHS).

Marcus Sims-The Charles Huber Tannery
134 S. Second Street
This site was the farm owned by Charles B. Huber, the station master of Williamsburg, Ohio, until his death in 1854. In addition to secreting fugitives at his home, Huber hid them in the haybarn and cornshocks at his farm located on the outskirts of Williamsburg.

Milton House Museum Tour
18 South Janesville Street
The Milton House Museum is an 1844 stagecoach inn in Milton Wisconsin constructed of lime-mortar and hexagonal in shape. It was built by Milton’s founder, Joseph Goodrich, a staunch abolitionist and member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. Goodrich also constructed a dirt tunnel between the inn and the 1837 log cabin to the rear of the inn. Goodrich secretly harbored freedom seekers in the cellar of the Milton House using the tunnel as the exit and entrance to the cellar. Here he and his family would provide assistance to the freedom seekers. Goodrich and his family also conducted freedom seekers to other stops as they continued the journey toward the Great Lakes and on to Canada.