On September 17, 1849, Harriet Tubman took her first hazardous steps toward self-liberation. The death of her enslaver, Edward Brodess, six months before, had marked a turning point for the transformation of Tubman from a slave to a freedom seeker. Spurred by rumors of her impending sale to satisfy creditors of Brodess’s estate, Tubman and her two brothers, Ben and Henry Ross, ran away.1 Though this first escape plan ultimately failed, it would not be long before Tubman would strike out on her own, and embark on a decade long campaign of liberation for her family and friends living on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

An advertisement for a reward for the capture of the Ross siblings did not appear in the local paper in Dorchester County for over two weeks, suggesting that Eliza Brodess, Edward’s widow, had hired them out to other masters in the region. Tubman, in fact, had been working for Dr. Anthony C. Thompson, who owned properties in both Caroline and Dorchester counties during this time period. It is probable that her brothers, Ben and Henry, were also hired out to Thompson, making their escape together more likely.

The trio seemingly did not get far during the three week period they may have been gone. Ben and Henry disagreed with Tubman about the path to freedom and succumbed to the fear of being captured and returned home.2 Runaway slaves, if caught, faced severe repercussions, including whipping and sale to the Deep South. Tubman was deeply convinced it was only a matter of time before she would be called to the auction block. Tubman decided to flee again, alone, leaving behind her husband John, her brothers, and the rest of her family.

The exact route and the identities of those who helped her on this escape remains a matter of great speculation. We do know that Harriet was helped first by a white woman who gave Tubman two names, and directed her to the first person on the list who would then send her on to the second. Tubman gave this unidentified woman a coveted bed quilt; she could not give it to another slave, as they would soon come under suspicion for knowing of Tubman’s plans to run away.3

Interestingly, Dr. Thompson’s vast plantation at Poplar Neck in Caroline County was ideally located on an invisible path to freedom in the North. Situated on the Choptank River between Skeleton Creek to the north and the village of Choptank to the south, it was also where Tubman’s father Ben Ross and her mother Rit were living while Ben managed some of Dr. Thompson’s timbering operations there.4 A small Quaker settlement, the Marshy Creek Friends of the Northwest Fork Meeting, had been rooted there for over 150 years, and several of the area’s most active Quaker abolitionists lived within a mile of Thompson’s home.5 A small black settlement had also been established there, and, in fact, the local Quaker community deeded a parcel of its Mt. Pleasant Church property to this black community in 1849 for a church and cemetery of its own. While Dr. Thompson maintained a home in Poplar Neck, he also maintained a residence in Cambridge, Dorchester County. Tubman may have run away from his Cambridge property, but Poplar Neck seems to be the most likely way station for Tubman’s escape north, if not the starting point.

Harriet’s escape was not, in fact, unusual for the Eastern Shore. Throughout 1849, scores of slaves ran away from the Eastern Shore counties of Talbot, Dorchester and Caroline. While local Quakers were important members of an increasingly organized network to freedom for runaway slaves, it was the black community, both free and enslaved who were the bricks and mortar of this underground movement on the Eastern Shore. The Underground Railroad, as this secret network of places and people was known, on the Eastern Shore and Delaware was alive and functioning well throughout the region by the time Tubman took her liberty.

Not all Quakers, to be sure, or all African Americans were willing participants in this network. Living in slave territory made participating in such business far more risky, both financially and physically, than for those who participated in this illegal activity in the Northern States. There were also non-Quakers living on the Eastern Shore who had abolitionist and anti-slavery feelings, though very few were vocal.6 Thus, regardless of where Tubman initially ran from, she could have quickly tapped into an existing local network of abolitionists and others, including free blacks and other slaves, who were willing to help her make her way to freedom.

The Levertons, Quakers of Caroline County, were known to be active abolitionists and Underground Railroad operatives.7 Jacob Leverton had been caught helping a young enslaved woman flee her master, and though he was dead by the time Tubman took her freedom in 1849, his widow Hannah still lived in the area with her son, Arthur W. Leverton. Arthur was later run out of Caroline County along with his neighbor, a free black named Daniel Hubbard, for aiding slaves in their attempts to escape from their masters.8 Another local Quaker family, the Kelleys, were also known to be Underground Railroad agents. It is highly possibly that any one or more of these people helped Tubman on her first steps to freedom.

Traveling mostly at night, following the North Star and stopping at each new house she was directed to, Tubman finally crossed the border and into freedom in Pennsylvania. Tubman made her way to Philadelphia where she blended into a large community of free blacks and freedom seekers from the South. Though she was nominally free in Philadelphia, she soon learned that freedom did not ensure happiness. “There was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free.”9 Tubman was determined to act; she quickly set upon a plan to liberate her family. She easily found work as a domestic and a cook in various hotels and private homes in Philadelphia, and later, during the summer months, at Cape May, New Jersey.10 She hoarded her money, planning carefully for the days ahead when she could return to the Eastern Shore to bring her family away to freedom. She kept in touch with events back home by communicating with the extensive network of sources among the free black, fugitive black, and liberal white communities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington, and Cape May.

In December 1850, Tubman received word from relatives and friends in Baltimore that her niece, Kessiah, was going to being auctioned off at the courthouse in Cambridge. Tubman went immediately to Baltimore, lodging with friends and relatives then living along Baltimore’s busy and diverse waterfront. Harriet’s brother-in-law, Tom Tubman, concealed her until the appointed time.11 Tom was possibly working as a stevedore on Baltimore’s docks; in fact, there were many former Dorchester County free blacks (and possibly some runaways and a few slaves who had been hired out to Baltimore, much like Frederick Douglass had been) living and working in Baltimore.12 Harriet’s other brother-in-law, Evans Tubman, was a seaman, who also lived there, as did several Bowleys, Manokeys, and others from Dorchester’s Eastern Shore black community. The work assignments and living arrangements of many of these individuals made Baltimore’s waterfront an ideal location from which Tubman could operate.

Harriet and John Bowley, Kessiah’s free husband, devised a scheme to spirit Kessiah and her two children away. On the day of the auction, Bowley bid successfully to purchase his wife. Kessiah was removed from the courthouse steps and set aside while the auctioneer went to dinner. But when the auctioneer returned and called for payment, John did not come forward with the money, and Kessiah and the children were nowhere to be found.13 The Bowleys were in fact hiding safely nearby until dark, when John put them in a small boat and sailed them up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore. There they met one of John’s brothers, possibly Major, and Harriet, who hid them among friends. After recuperating for a few days, Tubman safely brought them on to Philadelphia.14

Emboldened by her success, Tubman returned to Baltimore a few months later, this time to bring her brother, Moses, and two other men to freedom. 15 Tubman was once again successful in executing an escape without returning to Dorchester County herself. Tubman used Baltimore as a rendezvous point at least three times, and possibly more, throughout the 1850s. It’s teeming waterfront, bustling markets, and sheer size made anti-slavery and Underground Railroad activity more widespread than elsewhere in slave territory. It was not until the fall of 1851 that Tubman finally returned to Dorchester County, and it was then she began to establish her own network to freedom out of the Eastern Shore to Philadelphia.

The prospects for permanent freedom was always doubtful, but safety and security for runaway slaves in the north diminished greatly in 1850. As part of the famous Congressional Compromise of 1850, California was admitted to the union as a free state, which led to an imbalance of free and slave states in the legislature. To appease disgruntled southern representatives, Congress also passed a new Fugitive Slave Act in September 1850. The Act required federal judges, marshals, and commissioners to convene special commissions, or courts, to determine the status of an accused runaway slave. The law favored the slave owner over the slave, and slave catchers searching in the north for their slaves were given the power to force cooperation from local authorities for the return of their enslaved property. Anyone obstructing the efforts of slave owners trying to retrieve their slaves, or who helped a slave escape, was subject to heavy fines and jail time. Under this law, Northern police authorities were bound by federal law to capture and return to their enslavers any suspected runaway slave caught within their jurisdiction. After passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman and her family and friends were no longer safe in Philadelphia or any other Northern city. Like many fugitives, Tubman and the Bowleys began a second journey to a more secure freedom in Canada. But Tubman soon returned to Philadelphia, for members of her family remained enslaved and she could not rest until she brought them away, too.

In his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, published in 1845, Douglass explained to his readers that he could not reveal the secret network of supporters who populated the Underground Railroad.16 Though he eventually revealed some of the names of his fellow agents in the North in a later autobiography, he maintained his silence about the Southern operators for the rest of his life.17 The communication network that functioned between Baltimore and the Eastern Shore, and between Talbot, Dorchester, and Caroline counties, was dependent upon people Douglass and Tubman both knew in common. It is highly probable that these two giants of American freedom shared strong familial and community relationships throughout the Chesapeake, ties that eventually encompassed runaways and free blacks living in cities and towns throughout the North.

During the 1850's, slave escapes continued unabated on the Eastern Shore, frustrating local authorities who were increasingly looking toward Northern abolitionists as the root cause of their problems, both in losses in slave property, politics, and economics. This made escapes all the more hazardous as slave-holders tightened their grip on both free and enslaved blacks in the community. Tubman would not give up, however. Facing increasing danger, she became more dedicated to her decade long mission of liberation. Though there were other individuals like Tubman, who risked their lives to bring slaves out of the south to freedom, most self-liberators did not return to the places of their enslavement to bring others away. But, as tensions continued to rise throughout the country over the issue of slavery in the 1850's, Harriet Tubman only intensified her efforts.

Tapping into the powerful communication and relief networks of the black community as well as the white abolitionist community in the North, Tubman began to gain recognition and notoriety among a small group of radical anti-slavery activists committed to the end of slavery. They deeply admired her drive to liberate her family and friends, her unquestioning belief in God’s protection, and her confidence in the vast underground network she had come to know so well.

Relying heavily on trustworthy free and enslaved African Americans and sympathetic whites, Tubman’s success rate was remarkably high. In total, she made between approximately thirteen trips, spiriting away roughly seventy slaves, in addition to perhaps sixty more to whom she gave detailed instructions. Nearly all of them were from Dorchester and Caroline counties in Maryland. Tubman “would never allow more to join her than she could properly care for though she often gave others directions by which they succeeded in escaping.”18

Maryland’s self-liberators had several advantages. First, they were close to a free state. Second, these runaways benefitted from the heavily traveled north-south trade routes populated with free black families, and the water traffic throughout the region was itself dependent on free and enslaved black labor. Potential self-liberators could travel by road, boat, train or canals. As in other slave communities, some slaves and slave owners on the Eastern Shore had become accustomed to a periodic and short-term desertion from the plantation, ostensibly allowing some slaves the flexibility to visit with relatives, avoid work assignments, or trade, hunt, or fish.19 Though punishments could be severe, such absences became a fact of life on some plantations.

This practice certainly worked in Tubman’s favor, giving her time to leave the Eastern Shore with her charges before their departures were noticed. Tubman carefully organized her escapes to leave on a Saturday evening because newspapers were not printed on Sundays and no runaway slave advertisements could be taken out until Monday. She avoided appearing on the plantations of those she sought to rescue. She arranged for a particular meeting place at an appointed time, for her own safety as well as those who were to join her.20 Choosing a rendezvous point, sometimes eight or ten miles away from the plantations or homes of the runaway slaves and their masters, protected Tubman from discovery should any of the freedom seekers get caught as they attempted to flee their neighborhoods. One former slave recalled that Tubman selected a cemetery as a meeting place, a clever choice.21 A group of slaves gathering in a cemetery might not arouse the same attention as a group gathering in a home, or in the woods, which was specifically forbidden by law.

Tubman preferred the winter, when the nights were long, although she did lead parties out of Dorchester in the spring and fall as well. Like most runaways, she usually traveled at night, hiding and sleeping during the day. The geography of the Eastern Shore, with its wide tracks of timber, numerous estuaries, swamps, and tidal marshes, creeks and inlets, provided for adequate cover for runaways, and various opportunities to affect escape. Tubman herself was sometimes confident enough to move about during the day in pursuit of food and information, as she had friends along the routes to freedom who could be trusted to help her while her companions stayed safely secreted in the woods.22

Tubman also guided her groups of fugitives by singing spirituals and other songs with coded messages. If danger lurked nearby, Tubman would sing an appropriate spiritual to warn her parties of an impending threat to their safety. When the road was clear, she would change her words or the tempo of the song and guided them on to the next safe place. She paid free blacks to follow white slave masters and slave catchers as they posted reward notices, and then tear the posters down. Tubman carried a pistol, not only as protection from pursuers, but as added encouragement to weary and frightened runaways who wanted to turn back. A dead runaway could not inform on those who helped him or her. Whether Tubman would have actually used the pistol in such a case we cannot know. Elizabeth Brooks of New Bedford, Massachusetts, recalled that Henry Carrol, a runaway from Maryland who took flight with Tubman, wanted to stop for a rest, even though slave catchers were closing in quickly.23 Harriet told him, “go on or die,” and he quickly moved along.24

Her success should not be allowed to diminish the enormous obstacles she surmounted in assisting runaways. Tubman frequently had to disguise herself, and the survival skills she learned from her father, like reading the stars and the bark on a tree, were vital as guides during her dangerous missions.25 There was constant danger from relentless slave catchers, who were armed with guns, knives and whips and who hunted with vicious dogs that were trained to attack human beings.

Though Tubman had been successful in helping her youngest brother, Moses, to run away in 1851, she failed in two trips between 1852 and early 1854, to bring the rest of her family North. But her success rate would improve as the decade wore on. While she was not responsible for all the slaves who would run away from Dorchester and its surrounding counties in the 1850's, it would be her inspiration that propelled many to do so.

Between 1851 and 1854, Tubman’s brothers, Ben, Robert and Henry Ross, attempted several times to flee the Eastern Shore.26 Their father, Ben Ross tried to help them but was unsuccessful. They never gave up hope. Harriet, in the meantime, did successfully bring away Winnebar Johnson, the slave of Samuel Harrington of present day Madison in Dorchester County, in early June 1854. Johnson passed through William Still’s office on June 29th, where Still noted that Johnson had been “brought away by his sister Harriet two weeks ago.”27

In December 1854, after saving more of her own money and soliciting funds from anti-slavery activists, Tubman made another attempt to retrieve her brothers after she learned that Eliza Brodess was planning to sell them over the Christmas holiday. Tubman enlisted the help of a literate friend in Philadelphia, who wrote a letter to Jacob Jackson, a free black then living in the Parson’s Creek District of Dorchester County. Though Jackson’s exact relationship to Tubman and her family is unknown, as a literate free black, Jackson may have been a hub of communication in the community, writing and reading letters for those who could not read and write for themselves. Tubman and Jacob must have established a specific code at some point during the years prior to 1854. Tubman was extremely cautious not to reveal anything in the letter that might pique the interest of a suspicious white postmaster. She first wrote of “indifferent matters,” then asked, “read my letter to the old folks, and give my love to them, and tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer, and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step aboard."28 The letter was signed, “William Henry Jackson,” the name of Jacob’s adopted son who had left Dorchester County for the north some years before. Their caution proved wise; the postal authorities became suspicious because there had been several escapes in the area.

Jackson’s letters were intercepted by the postal authorities and read before given to him. When he was questioned about this particular letter, he claimed to have no knowledge of what it meant, and that is must have been intended for someone else. Jacob then immediately informed Tubman’s brothers that she was about to return for them, and to be prepared to go.

Harriet made her way back down to the Eastern Shore, probably by train to Baltimore, and then by boat to Cambridge, or some other convenient landing along the Choptank River. She arrived Christmas Eve day, a Saturday, the perfect timing for an escape. Slaveholders usually allowed some of their slaves, especially field slaves, to take time to visit with relatives and friends on other plantations during the holidays. Ben, Robert, and Henry were expected to visit their parents for Christmas dinner at Poplar Neck in Caroline County. With no time to waste, Robert, Ben and Henry were alerted to her presence; they were to meet after dark on Christmas Eve and start immediately for Poplar Neck. Unbeknownst to Tubman, though, Robert’s wife, Mary Manokey, was in labor, about to give birth to their third child.

Robert stayed with his wife while she gave birth to a little girl, whom they named Harriet. It was getting very late and he knew he had to leave in order to meet at the appointed time. Robert agonized over leaving his wife, his two little boys John and Moses, and now his infant daughter. He could not be sure of their fate, but he knew that staying behind meant certain sale for him to the Deep South.

Tubman had not waited for Robert, however; she had specified a time and place, and according to her rules, she “never waited for no one.”29 She gathered those who had arrived on time and set out for Poplar Neck. Ben had arranged for his fiancee, Jane Kane, to join them; she was enslaved by Horatio Jones, “the worst man in the country.”30 On the night of the escape, Jane put on a suit of men’s clothing that Ben had secreted for her in one of Jones’s gardens. The disguise worked well, and Jane successfully made her way to Poplar Neck with Ben.31 Robert, in the meantime, raced directly for Poplar Neck himself, hoping to catch up with the group there. On Christmas morning he reached Dr. Thompson’s property. There, in the corn crib not far from his parent’s cabin, Robert found his sister, his two brothers, Ben and Henry, Jane and two others: twenty year old John Chase, the slave of John Campbell Henry from Cambridge, and Peter Jackson, the slave of George Winthrop, also a farmer from the Cambridge area.32 It was raining heavily that day, so they remained hidden together in the fodder house to wait for the cover of darkness to run north.33

Christmas night they stepped out of their hiding place in the fodder house, and set their path north and to freedom. Tubman most likely took one of two routes. She could have gone east through Federalsburg, then over to the Bridgeville area in Delaware, then north to Camden, Dover, New Castle and Wilmington, stopping at various safe houses along the way in Blackbird, Smyrna and other places. Tubman could also have headed northeast, along the Choptank River, through Denton and Greensboro, through Sandtown and Willow Grove, then on to Dover and Wilmington in Delaware. Once in Wilmington, however, Tubman and her group stopped at Thomas Garrett’s home where he provided them with food and clothing. Harriet and one of the men “had worn their shoes off their feet,” so Garrett gave them two dollars to buy new shoes. Garrett, a hardware and iron merchant used his own income to provide refuge and necessities for the estimated 2500 or more runaways who came through his home over a thirty-to-forty year period.34

Garrett secured a carriage for Tubman and her party, directing them on to Allen Agnew’s house in Kennett, Chester County, Pennsylvania, where Agnew would forward them to William Still’s Anti-Slavery Office in Philadelphia.35 Still was one of the most famous black Underground Railroad station masters in the region. At Still’s, the group felt relieved to have “eluded pursuit.”36 It was December 29, and they had spent four days traveling over one hundred miles to freedom. By the time Tubman arrived, her party had grown to nine, including two additional men who had joined them along the way.37

William Still was responsible for securing passage from Philadelphia to a variety of other “stations” along the Underground Railroad route North. He depended upon a large network of white and black abolitionists throughout the area, predominantly in Philadelphia and neighboring Chester and Lancaster counties and across the Delaware River in New Jersey. He forwarded many of his charges directly on to New York City, New Bedford, Boston, and beyond, as well as to central New York cities and town like Troy, Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester, where fugitives were then directed to Buffalo or some other convenient place for safe passage across Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, or Niagara Falls. Some went to Elmira, where John W. Jones, a longtime black Underground Railroad operator, funneled hundreds of fugitives making their way though eastern and central Pennsylvania, then on to Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo for transfer to the Suspension Bridge over Niagara Falls.38

Harriet Tubman continued to worry about the rest of her family on the Eastern Shore. Her sister Rachel, and Rachel’s two young children, Ben and Angerine, were still enslaved by Eliza Brodess. Robert Ross’s wife, Mary Manokey, and their three young children remained enslaved by Dr. Thompson. Both women were at even greater risk of being sold than before now that Harriet’s three brothers had escaped. Tubman could waste no time in rescuing them. With her brothers safely in Canada, Tubman returned to Philadelphia to earn more money to continue her personal campaign of liberation.

Tubman successfully brought north Henry’s wife, Harriet Ann, and their son, William Henry Stewart, Jr., sometime between 1855 and 1856, but the diligence of the slave-holders and slave catchers on the Eastern Shore made rescues increasingly difficult. To avoid endangering her parents, she tried to vary her hiding places. She stayed, at times, with the Rev. Samuel Green and his wife, Kitty, in East New Market, but she may have also stayed with other black families in the area, or secreted in swamps and other hideouts.39 During one attempted rescue mission she spent three months in Dorchester County, waiting for the opportunity to bring away family members.40 It is remarkable that she was not betrayed, as so many other southern agents and runaways had been.

In early December 1855, Tubman brought away one man, probably Henry Hooper, who arrived in William Still’s office on the sixth; she immediately returned to Dorchester county, determined to bring away her sister Rachel and Mary Manokey with their children.41 She did not succeed, but she was probably responsible for directing Joseph Cornish, a local Dorchester County freedom seeker, to William Still’s home in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Cornish, 40, had been a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church for about seven years, but his owner, Captain Samuel W. LeCompte, had decided recently to sell him, so Cornish set his sights on freedom instead.42 On the following day, Garrett forwarded George Wilmer, a slave from Kent County, Maryland, who was himself an agent on the Underground Railroad.43 Whether Wilmer was being pursued or not is unclear; curiously, he passed through Still’s office the following fall with William Cornish of Dorchester County, possibly a clue to one of the many paths to freedom Tubman and her friends had come to rely on – this one through the Sassafras River region of Kent County. Somehow, Wilmer juggled a variety of roles: as a both slave and an Underground Railroad operator, living a very precarious dual life on Maryland’s upper Eastern Shore.44

Tubman could not rest; her sister Rachel was still trapped on Brodess’s plantation. During Tubman’s trip at Christmas 1855, Rachel could not get away; her children had been separated from her and she would not leave them behind. Eliza Brodess probably would not let Rachel visit her parents at Poplar Neck that Christmas, as she had allowed Ben, Henry and Robert to do the year before. She may have been suspicious of Ben and Rit since the brothers had escaped, and was not about to take any more chances with the last of her slaves by allowing Rachel traditional freedoms over the holiday. Where Rachel’s children, Ben and Angerine, were at this time is not known. Tubman returned to Philadelphia gravely disappointed, but still wholly determined to return to bring her whole family together in the North.

It would take another five months before Tubman could earn and collect enough money to make another trip. On May 11, 1856, Thomas Garrett wrote J. Miller McKim and William Still that he had forwarded four young men to Longwood on the 9th, with Tubman following on the 10th.45 The next day, Still noted that Harriet Tubman had arrived with the four unidentified men after having made a stop at the home of “Mrs. Buchannon.” With the help of Nathaniel Depee, a member of the Vigilance Committee who boarded the men for 2 days, the party was forwarded to Canada. Harriet had been lucky, again. Just two weeks earlier, two black men, Charles Hubbard and William Creighton were thrown into jail in Dorchester County court for aiding and abetting a slave to run away.46

After escorting the unidentified men to Canada in May, Tubman became quite ill. A respiratory ailment, possibly pneumonia brought on by exposure to the elements during her last raid, weakened her considerably, so much so she could not make another trip south until the following September. Garrett was deeply worried that her health had been permanently affected.47

Tubman often faced severe restrictions on her ability to travel freely, to save money, and coordinate her missions to coincide with an opportune time to affect an escape, increasing the likelihood of failure. When she was finally able to return to Philadelphia from Canada in September 1856, for instance, she discovered that her landlord had died during the summer. His widow had sold the house and left Philadelphia for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, taking Harriet’s clothes and money with her. Thomas Garrett wrote to his friend and benefactor, Eliza Wigham, that Tubman had asked that Wigham kindly send “five pound sterling” (about $25) to help her with her efforts, and to direct the funds to William Still’s office in Philadelphia, where she would be staying whenever she was in Philadelphia.48

On September 12, an undeterred Tubman left Garrett’s office for Baltimore to bring away two children. She told Garret that once she returned she would make her way back to the Eastern Shore to make still another attempt to retrieve Rachel and Rachel’s children from Dorchester County. On September 26, Garrett wrote Still to be on the lookout for five runaways from the Eastern Shore who had been sent along from his home earlier. Francis Molock, Cyrus Mitchell, Joshua Handy, Charles Dutton, and Ephraim Hudson had probably either left with Tubman or had used instructions provided by her.49 Tubman’s illness throughout the summer had delayed their escape; in fact, Garrett had been waiting for Tubman to bring them on since May.50 She may have organized their efforts, or she could have accompanied them just part of the way, preferring to remain close to the Eastern Shore or in Baltimore to embark on another mission of her own.

One month later, Tubman arrived in Wilmington with Tilly, a young woman whose lover had pleaded with Tubman to bring his fiancé away from Baltimore to Canada.51 Perhaps while in Baltimore to retrieve the two unnamed children, Tubman sought out Tilly and brought her to Wilmington.52 Garrett gave Tubman the $25 that Eliza Wigham had sent for her. Tubman and Tilly both needed new shoes, but more importantly, Tubman needed at least $20 to “go for her sister and children,” still waiting on the Eastern Shore.53 Tilly was sent along to Canada, while Tubman immediately returned to Dorchester County. Tubman assured Garrett that she had great confidence that God would protect her “in all her perilous journeys,” for she never went “on a mission of mercy without his consent.” 54

Tubman had made arrangements to meet her sister, and had “one or more interviews with her,” but after waiting for ten days, her sister could not leave without her children, who were then living away from her.55 Her sister was hopeful that she and her children would be allowed to be together over the Christmas holiday, and they would make their bid for freedom then. Harriet gathered another group of eager freedom seekers, and headed north.

Josiah (Joe) Bailey and his brother Bill, Peter Pennington, and Eliza Manokey struck out with Tubman in mid November. Laboring together in William Hughlett’s timbering operations, Joe and Bill had both been eager to escape. A prominent planter who owned thousand of acres of farmland and timber along the Choptank River, and the owner of some forty slaves, Hughlett was a harsh master, and when he whipped the Bailey brothers, they decided to run away.56 As a timber foreman who managed the harvesting and hauling of ship timber from Hughlett’s land along the Choptank River, Joe Bailey was well connected to the black maritime and shipbuilding networks in that region. Bailey knew Ben Ross and knew of Harriet’s forays into the neighborhood to help lead away her family and friends. Setting out from Jamaica Point in Talbot County on the Choptank River, one evening, Joe rowed across the river to Poplar Neck in Caroline County. There he told Ben to let Tubman know he and his brother wanted to leave with her the next time she came through. Within a week or two Tubman had arrived, and because of her sister’s inability to leave, she was ready to take another party of fugitives north.57 Joe and Bill Bailey probably contacted Peter Pennington, who labored for Turpin Wright at Wright’s farm at Secretary Creek across the Choptank River from Hughlett. How Eliza Manokey came to join the party remains a mystery.

They were hotly pursued. It took them nearly two weeks to reach Wilmington, a trip that had in the past taken Tubman only three or four days. The slave catchers’ persistent tracking of the group forced them to proceed slowly and remain hidden for a longer period than Tubman was used to. They hid in potato holes while the slave catchers passed within feet of them. They sought shelter with Sam Green in East New Market and were “passed along by friends in various disguises,” where they were “scattered and separated” and led “roundabout” to a variety of safe meeting places while their pursuers relentlessly searched for them.58

William Hughlett, who had only recently purchased Joe Bailey, posted runaway advertisements throughout the Eastern Shore of Maryland, offering an extraordinary reward of $1,500 for the twenty-eight year old. Joe was a valuable slave, a highly skilled worker whose services were vitally important to Hughlett’s operations. John Campbell Henry, who owned Joe’s older brother, Bill Bailey, offered a more typical reward of $300 for his return, while Turpin Wright offered another high reward, $800, for the capture and return of thirty year old Peter Pennington.59 Such high rewards increased substantially the danger of capture for the runaways.

Weaving their way northeast through Caroline County, following, perhaps, the Choptank River into Sand Town and Willow Grove in Delaware, the party of freedom seekers relied heavily on the secret network of safe houses belonging to blacks and whites. Near Camden, they probably sought shelter with Tubman’s friends, William Brinkly and his brother Nat, or Abraham Gibbs, where Tubman felt “safe and comfortable.” Gibbs and the Brinklys, active black Underground Railroad operators in this region of Delaware, probably brought Tubman and the group further north past Dover and Smyrna to Blackbird, where other Underground Railroad operators took charge of them and sent them over or around the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to New Castle and other towns outside of Wilmington.60

When they finally reached the outskirts of Wilmington, they discovered that Hughlett, Wright and Henry had arrived three days before, posting reward notices and hoping for news that the fugitives were near. Police were patrolling all routes into the city, and there was no safe route to Thomas Garrett’s house or store. Garrett engaged the services of a couple of black bricklayers, who loaded their wagon with bricks and journeyed across the bridge in the morning, “singing and shouting,” greeting the police and others watching the traffic. The bricklayers located Harriet, Joe, Bill, Peter, and Eliza and loaded them into the wagon, concealing them in a compartment built into the wagon, beneath a strategically placed mound of bricks. Back they proceeded, still “singing and shouting,” passing undetected by the police and slave catchers waiting about the bridge.61

One day later, on November 26, the party arrived in Philadelphia at Still’s office.62 They were not safe, however, and it was imperative that they get to Canada as quickly as possible. The high reward offers had made them valuable targets, and a large deep scar on Joe’s face made identifying him easy. On the 27th, they were immediately sent by train to the Suspension Bridge, which spanned the Niagara River separating New York and Ontario, Canada.63

Joe had been terrified for much of the trip. As they approached the bridge, Tubman called out to her friends to look at the great falls. But Joe was inconsolable and would not look. When they reached the Canadian side of the bridge, Tubman shouted out, “Joe, you’re free!” Overcome with relief, Joe’s shouts of joy and singing drew a crowd. Praising God for his good fortune, Joe told Tubman the next trip he planned on taking would be to heaven. “You might have looked at the Falls first,” Tubman replied, “and then gone to Heaven afterwards.”64

After securing food and lodging for the Bailey brothers, Pennington, and Manokey, Tubman was supposed to return immediately to the Eastern Shore to try to bring away Rachel and her children, Ben and Angerine, over the Christmas holiday. Apparently Tubman did not make it back, for in March 1857, Thomas Garrett wrote to William Still that he had not seen her since the previous fall, when she had come through his office with Joe Bailey.65 Still immediately wrote to Garrett that day, informing him that Tubman had just arrived, and that she was preparing for another trip south.66

Tubman’s needs for money to complete her missions remained a constant struggle throughout the 1850's, and the continual lack of funds probably prevented her returning to the Eastern Shore as she had hoped to on several occasions. She was even frustrated with abolitionists who sometimes could not or would not provide her with funds as she needed them. Once she earned or was given enough money, Tubman finally made her way to Still’s office in Philadelphia.

Garrett was worried for Tubman’s safety, more so than he had been in the past. Earlier in the month, on March 8, eight slaves from Dorchester County had escaped, but they were caught and trapped in Dover, Delaware. Henry Predeaux, Thomas Elliott, Denard Hughes, James and Lavinia Woolfley [Woolford], Bill and Emily Kiah, and an unidentified eighth man had followed a route given them by Tubman.67 They were advised to contact Thomas Otwell, then living outside of Dover, Delaware, who could guide them to the next stops on the Underground Railroad north to Wilmington. 68 Otwell, who knew the Underground Railroad network in the Camden and Dover region, was also familiar with William Brinkly and his brother Nathaniel, who were active agents in the area. Otwell was a highly trusted agent; William Brinkly told Still that Otwell had “come with Harriet, a woman that stops at my house when she passes to and through you.”69

Otwell, however, betrayed this group of eight runaways into the Dover jail. Revealing his role as an Underground Railroad operator to a local white man, James Hollis, Otwell conspired to trap the group coming through and claim the reward money estimated at nearly $3000.70 Otwell and Hollis approached Dover’s Sheriff Green and informed him of the plan to lead the unsuspecting runaways to the jail, where they were to be held, ostensibly, for protection for the night. On the evening of March 9th or 10th, Elliott, Predeaux, Hughes and their fellow fugitives, armed with knives and pistols, met up with Otwell, who for the sum of $8.00 was to guide them from Milford, Delaware to north of Dover, a total of thirty miles. By four o’clock in the morning they neared Dover, and Otwell took them to the jail and introduced them to Hollis who, they were assured, was a “great friend of the slaves.”71 The moonlight shone through the barred windows, and Henry Predeaux became suspicious, commenting that he “did not like the looks of the place.”72 As the Sheriff reached for his pistols, Predeaux grabbed “a shovel full” of embers from the fireplace, scattering burning coals throughout the room and onto the beds.73 With a red hot poker he smashed the window and kept the Sheriff back while the rest jumped out the window.74 They scaled the wall surrounding the jail and disappeared into the night. Predeaux was the last to make it out of the jail, and, as fortune would have it, was spared when the Sheriff’s pistol jammed as he tried to shoot him.75

The group scattered. Predeaux made his way to Garrett’s house, while six of the others made their way back to Camden and within a short time overtook Otwell. Pleading for his life, Otwell promised he would take them to the next Underground Railroad station at William Brinkly’s, the place that he was originally supposed to take them to. Once there, Otwell disappeared, and Brinkly took charge of them. Moving just ahead of the Sheriff, the six were taken on to Willow Grove and through forest back roads.76 Brinkly raced through Dover and Smyrna, taking the runaways nineteen miles to the next station, nearly breaking his horses.77

Thomas Garrett was waiting in Wilmington, worrying that they would all be captured. The owners of three of the men were in town, waiting for their arrival. Thomas Elliott and Denard Hughes may have been trying to get to the residence of Moses Pinket, Elliott’s uncle who lived in Wilmington.78 Garrett watched the roads himself for several nights and eventually found Hughes and Elliott near Wilmington, and brought them safely to his home. 79 Four more were met outside of the city by two men commissioned by Garrett, who were directed to take them across the Christiana River to another stop on the Underground Railroad, ten miles from Wilmington.80 Eventually, five of the eight made it to William Still’s office, and they were directed on to Canada and freedom. William and Emily Kiah remained either in Delaware, Maryland, or Pennsylvania, waiting to bring away their daughter Mary, whom they had to leave behind.81 Lavinia Woolfley [Woolford] was somehow separated from her husband, though she did elude capture. Hiding out for several months, she successfully made it to Philadelphia, where she learned from William Still that her husband James was waiting for her in Canada.82 The identity of the eighth runaway remains unknown, though he or she apparently found their way to Canada with the rest.

The fallout from this dramatic escape was tremendous. Underground Railroad agent Rev. Sam Green of East New Market was arrested as a suspect in the escape of the Dover Eight. In Caroline County, Ben Ross had come under suspicion of aiding them as well. Indeed, Ben had sheltered the eight runaways at the beginning of March.83 Garrett thought that the original party of slaves was in fact nine, but that they had been “betrayed by one who started with the rest,” who had turned back informed on the person who piloted them to Ben’s house the first day of their escape.84

Ben and Rit were more than likely aware of their precarious situation. The authorities were preparing to arrest Ben, “when his master secretly advised them to leave.”85 Dr. Anthony C. Thompson, who Ben would later criticize for his emotional cruelty, apparently suggested to Ben that he leave the state immediately. By the end of May, Harriet safely made her way to Poplar Neck and prepared to take her aged parents north.

Fleeing in the face of great danger, Tubman led her parents north to Wilmington. On June 4th Tubman arrived at Garrett’s house, where he provided them with $30 and sent them along to William Still’s in Philadelphia.86 Ben, Rit and Tubman most likely went on to New York City where Oliver Johnson and Jacob Gibbs would have tended to their needs. When they reached Rochester, Ben and Rit stayed with Maria G. Porter, the Secretary of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society and a close associate of Frederick Douglass’s, for at least two weeks before moving onto St. Catharines where Ben and Rit’s sons, William Henry and John Stewart, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren were living.87

Tubman did not stay with her parents in Canada. Tubman returned to the Eastern Shore to try again to retrieve her sister Rachel and her children. Rachel, who was separated from her children by some twelve miles, was probably hired out to another master somewhere in Dorchester County. By this time Angerine was ten years old, and Ben was eight, both old enough to be helpful and productive around the Brodess farm. But Tubman was again unsuccessful, and it appears that while she remained on the Eastern Shoe for some time during that summer and fall, she did not bring away another party of slaves.

She did, however, help a large group of thirty-nine slaves make their own plans to run away together that fall.88 During a three-week period in October 1857, over forty slaves ran away from masters in Dorchester County. Though a few runaways had taken flight during September, it was not until the early part of October that a wave of escapes threatened the stability white slave owners imagined they had created after the high profile imprisonment of Sam Green and other Underground Railroad operatives in the area. Caroline Stanley, her husband Daniel, and their six children fled Dorchester County in early October with Nat and Lizzie Amby and several other adults in a group of about fifteen runaways. They passed through Norristown, Pennsylvania on the 18th and were forwarded to Still in Philadelphia by John Augusta.89 With masters and slave catchers already on the lookout, another group, nearly twice as large, fled from their enslavers, heightening anxiety in an already tense community.

On the evening of Saturday, October 24, twenty-eight men, women and children snuck away from the homes and slave quarters of their enslavers. Samuel Pattison, in fact, started his day with the shocking discovery that nearly all his slaves, fifteen in number, had left the night before, leaving him with no labor to operate his farm or, indeed, to cook his morning breakfast!

How such a large number of runaways successfully eluded capture remains somewhat of a mystery. For two substantial groups of slaves to successfully escape from the same county in less than two weeks was an extraordinary achievement in itself. But that these two large groups of self liberators also brought away twenty children, several of whom were infants, makes their escapes all the more remarkable.90

It rained heavily over the three days these self-liberators traveled the route to northern Delaware and then to Pennsylvania. Several adult male slaves joined the group; Solomon and George Light, Marshall Dutton, and Silas Long increased the number of freedom seekers to an astonishing twenty-eight runaways. They were heavily armed, carrying pistols, revolvers, knives and one paw, a three-pronged weapon for “close combat.”91 The escaping slaves found their way to Tubman’s friend, William Brinkly, who, with his associates, brought the group from the Camden area to the outskirts of Wilmington. They had been warned ahead of time to stay clear of the city. The news of the great escape had reached Wilmington, and Samuel Pattison, having learned that the fugitives were expected in the city, was following them and closing in quickly. In an all out effort to outrun Pattison and other slave catchers, Brinkly’s carriage broke down and his horse was severely injured.92 The fugitives were sick, cold, and hungry.

On the 31st, Thomas Garrett wrote Still, informing him that he had received word that twenty-seven of the runaways were outside the city, in Centreville, near the border on the road to Kennett, Pennsylvania. Part of the group, eighteen men, women, and children were under the care of a black conductor named Jackson from Wilmington. A fourteen-year-old boy, probably one of the Cornish children, had been separated from the rest. He was barefoot, and there was great anxiety that he would be caught and perhaps inform on the rest.93 The runaways had to be sent along as quickly as possible.

The fugitives were separated and sent to different Underground Railroad operators outside of Philadelphia, as the city itself was then not safe for them. Some of the eighteen were secreted at John and Hannah Cox’s home at Longwood in Chester County, Pennsylvania.94 Joe and Susan Viney and their children were sent on to Georgiana Lewis and Elijah Pennypacker outside of Philadelphia; Joe’s older sons were sent on ahead while Susan, Joe, and the younger children followed later.95 Traveling through a blinding snowstorm in late November, the weary and frightened runaways were greeted by some of the worst weather to hit the Northeast and Central New York in years.96 The Vineys, the Stanleys, the Cornishes, and many of the others, eventually made it to St. Catharines, Ontario, where they joined a growing number of their friends and neighbors from the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

On the Eastern Shore, in the meantime, a torrent of accusations and counter accusations were unleashed. Slave-holders and non-slave-holders were struggling to make sense of it all, calling for tighter restrictions on slaves and free blacks.97 Little did they realize, however, that Harriet Tubman, the disabled slave they had known a few years before and who had run away, had become part of this great underground movement for freedom. But increased vigilance on the part of slave -holders on the Eastern Shore made it impossible for Tubman to get her sister and her sister’s children and bring them North. She eventually gave up and returned to Canada. Staying on the Eastern Shore was far too precarious now; the increased activity of slave patrols created a climate of oppression and fear. Tubman could not be sheltered safely anymore.

Without Tubman’s help, and in spite of active patrolling by whites, slaves continued to run away throughout December 1857 from many parts of the Eastern Shore and southern Delaware. Unfortunately, a group of seven runaways from Cambridge were caught in Caroline County as they were trying to make their escape in early January 1858.98 Hannah Leverton’s son, Arthur Leverton, and his free black neighbor, Daniel Hubbard, were immediately suspected. With tempers already at the breaking point, a white mob formed to forcibly carry the men to Cambridge with the intention of lynching them, but Arthur and Daniel received word of the mob’s plans beforehand and made a run for Philadelphia.99

Up and down the Eastern Shore, vigilante groups were meting out their own form of justice on those who they believed harbored and aided runaway slaves. In the June 1858, James Bowers was dragged by a group in fact local farmers and prominent members of the community from his home outside of Chestertown in Kent County, Maryland. He was beaten, stripped, tarred and feathered, and threatened with hanging if he did not leave the county immediately.100 That same evening the mob victimized a free black woman named Harriet Tillison, whose visits to the area supposedly preceded the escape of a number of slaves.101 Tillison was not as lucky as Bowers; after her tar and feathering she was arrested and thrown in jail.102

In August 1858, another group of runaways from Dorchester County made an effort to break for freedom, but they were apparently betrayed by a free black, Jesse Perry, who in collusion with a group of white men set an ambush for them seven miles north of Greensborough in Caroline County.103 Their white conductor, Hugh Hazlett, was arrested and thrown into jail. When the steamer was transferring the eight fugitives, including Hazlett, to Cambridge, a large crowd gathered at the wharf. The Sheriff, fearful of a lynching, directed the steamer to disembark the fugitives at another location, thereby avoiding the angry and potentially murderous mob.104

While the Eastern Shore devolved into chaos, Tubman became more involved in the relief activities in St. Catharines, aiding newly arrived fugitives and helping them settle into free lives there.105 She also focused her energies into building and strengthening her network of black and white friends and supporters throughout Central New York and New England. Discouraged by her inability to return safely to the Eastern Shore, and financially and physically burdened with supporting her aged parents, Tubman channeled her frustrations into a more public and activist role in Northern abolitionist circles.

In November 1860, Tubman made a final attempt to retrieve her sister Rachel and Rachel’s two children. Sadly, Rachel had died a few months before, news that had not reached Tubman. Ben and Angerine could not be reached; Tubman did not have the thirty dollars necessary to bribe someone to bring them to her.106 Stephen and Maria Ennals, and their three children, Harriet, Amanda and a three month old infant were ready to go, however, so Tubman set out with them instead. It was a harrowing rescue. Somewhere along her escape route, Tubman brought her party of runaways to the home of a black man she knew to be an Underground Railroad stationmaster. Arriving in the rain during the early morning hours, she knocked on the door several times but received no response. Tubman became alarmed when a white man appeared at the window, demanding to know what she wanted. Tubman soon learned that her black friend had been run out of the area for aiding runaway slaves.107

The Underground network had disintegrated considerably on the Eastern Shore due to increased vigilance on the part of the slaveholders and local authorities since the great numbers of escapes in the fall of 1857. Several known and unknown agents had been caught and jailed, chased out of the area, or possibly even killed. Tubman may not have known the fates of some of her particular allies. Finding herself caught off-guard by the white man living in a former black occupied Underground Railroad safe house put Tubman and her party of runaways at greater risk of exposure. Eventually Tubman found help from other agents in the area, who passed them on, with great difficulty, to Wilmington.108

The group suffered terribly as they tried to make their way to Wilmington. They froze and starved, but eventually they arrived safely at Thomas Garrett’s home. By Christmas they had made it to Auburn, New York, where Martha Coffin Wright and her family helped shelter and care for them all. Sadly, Angerine and Ben remained enslaved in Dorchester County.109

Marveling at Tubman’s continued success, Garrett wrote Still that Harriet “seems to have had a special angel to guard her on her journey of mercy.”110 She also had a powerful and resourceful Underground network that guided her and protected her, helping her to become one of the most successful Underground Railroad agents of all time.

2. Sarah H. Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. (Auburn, New York: W.J. Moses, 1869). 16. "Interview with Helen W. Tatlock [Mrs. William Tatlock]." Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection. Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. New York..

3. “Statement of Mrs. William Tatlock,” Conrad, Conrad/Tubman.

4. 1850 U.S. Census. Dorchester County, Maryland, District 1.

5. Kenneth Carroll, Quakerism on the Eastern Shore. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1970).

6. William T. Kelley, "Underground R. R. Reminiscences [April 2, 1898]," Friends' Intelligencer, April 2, 1898. 238.

7. William T. Kelley, "Underground R. R. Reminiscences [April 19, 1898]," Friends' Intelligencer, April 19, 1898. 265. See also, Carroll, Quakerism, and Kelley, "Reminiscences, April 2, 1898." 238.

8. Debra Smith Moxey, Newspaper Abstracts from the American Eagle and Cambridge Chronicle 1846-1857. (Cambridge, MD, 1995). See page 47 for Jacob Leverton’s death; see also, Kelley, "Reminiscences, April 19, 1898." 265; and, Carroll, Quakerism. 142. Dr. Thompson’s son, Anthony C. Thompson Jr., married Mary Elizabeth Leverton, Jacob and Hannah Leverton’s daughter, in November of 1849.

9. Bradford, Scenes, 20.

10. Bradford, Scenes. 20-22; see also Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, "Moses," Freedmen's Record, March 1865. 35.

11. "Interview with Harriet Tubman," The Underground Railroad: Manuscript Materials Collected by Professor Seibert, Ohio University. Vol. 40. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA..

12. Louis Diggs, Baltimore City Directories, 1835-1860.

13. "Mills Deposition." Dorchester County Court Records, Equity Papers 249. Maryland State Archives [MDSA]. Annapolis, MD.

14. Conrad, Conrad/ Tubman. Letter, “Harkless Bowley to Earl Conrad, August 8, 1939.” See also, Franklin Sanborn, "Harriet Tubman [July 17]," The Commonwealth, Boston, July 17, 1863. Also. "Letter, James A. Bowley to "Aunt" [Harriet Tubman], 1868." Harriet Tubman Collection. Harriet Tubman Home Museum. Auburn, N.Y."

15. Emma P. Telford. "Harriet: The Modern Moses of Heroism and Visions," Cayuga County Museum, Auburn, NY: circa 1905.

16. Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Quarles, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. (1845; Reprint, 6th). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1971). 101-102

17. Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. (1882; Reprint). Scituate, MA: Digital Scanning, Inc., 2001).

18. Cheney, "Moses." 35-36.

19. Julius Sherrard Scott, III, "The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the Era of the Haitian Revolution" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University., 1986) 24-25. See also, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. (New York: Oxford university Press, 1999).

20. Cheney, "Moses." 36

21. Joseph D. Thomas, and Marsha McCabe, ed., Spinner: People and Culture in Southeastern Massachusetts. Vol. Iv (New Bedford, MA: Spinner Publications, Inc., 1988).66-67.

22. Cheney, "Moses." 36

23. Thomas, ed., People, Vol. Iv. P. 67.

24. Bradford, Scenes. 25.

25. Cheney, "Moses." 36.

26. John W. Blassingame, ed., Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977). 415

27. "Journal C of Station 2 of the Underground Railroad (Philadelphia, Agent William Still)." Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Reel 32. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA.. August 28, 1854. See also, Samuel Harrington, "$250 Reward," The Cambridge Democrat, Cambridge, MD, June 17, 1854.

28. Bradford, Scenes, 57 Interestingly, the black spiritual, “The Old Ship of Zion” supposedly has its roots in Anne Arundle Co., Maryland, circa 1830-1840. See Lucy McKim Garrison, William Francis Allen and Charles Pickard Ware, Slave Songs of the South. (New York: A. Simpson & Company, 1867). 102-103; and, A. S. Jenks, The Chorus (Philadelphia: A.S. Jenks, 1860). 167-170.

29. Bradford, Scenes 59.

30. "Journal C." and William Still, The Underground Railroad. (1871; Reprint) Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., 1970).

31. Benjamin Drew, . The Refugee: A North-Side View of Slavery. (1855; Reprint) Tilden G. Edelstein, ed. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, MA: 1969. 28- 29. See also, Bradford, Scenes.63.

32. "Journal C."

33. Bradford, Scenes 61.

34. James McGowan, Station Master on the Underground Railroad. (Moylan, PA: The Whimsie Press, 1977). 48-69.

35. "Letter, Thomas Garrett to J. Miller McKim, December 29, 1854," William Still, The Underground Railroad. (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., rpt. edition 1970)., 305.

36. Drew, The Refugee: A North-Side View of Slavery. 29. No reward advertisement has been found for Robert, Ben and Henry. Robert and Ben were assessed at $400 each and Henry was assessed at $250. See, "Assessors Field Book." Dorchester County Board of County Commissioners. MDSA.

37. “Journal C.”.

38. "Pennsylvania." The Underground Railroad: Manuscript materials collected by Professor Siebert. ; and, "New York." The Underground Railroad: Manuscript materials collected by Professor Siebert. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA.

39. "Tubman Interview [Seibert]."

40. McGowan, Station Master. 123-126. "Letter, Thomas Garrett to Eliza Wigham, December 16, 1855."

41. Conrad, Conrad/Tubman, and, McGowan, Station Master. 25. "Garrett to Wigham, Dec. 16, 1855."

42. See Still, Underground Railroad 346; "Journal C." and "Vigilance Committee Accounts," Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Reel 32. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA.; and 1861 Ontario, Canada census; St. Catharine assessment rolls.

43. Still, Underground Railroad. Still, Underground Railroad 661-662, “Garrett to William Still, December 25, 1855.”

44. "Journal C." and "Vigilance Committee Accounts." See also, William Cornish’s interview in Blassingame, ed., Slave Testimony. 423-426.

45. McGowan, Station Master-.93. “Garrett to McKim and Still, May 11, 1856.” See also, R.C. Smedley, History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania. (Lancaster, PA: John A. Hiestand, 1883). 367; and Still, Underground Railroad.xz 402.

46. Charles Hubbard and William Creighton were tried in Dorchester County Circuit Court, April 1856, for “aiding and assisting” Levin Creighton, the slave of Pere North, to run away. See, Debra Moxie, Dorchester County Genealogical Magazine. (Cambridge, MD: Privately Printed.) March 1996, Vol. XV, No. 6, p. 21.

47. McGowan, Station Master. 127. “Garrett to Eliza Wigham, September 12, 1856.”

48. McGowan, Station Master.. 126-127. “Garrett to Eliza Wigham, September 12, 1856.”

49. “Journal C.” See also, Still, The Underground Railroad. 294.

50. McGowan, Station Master. 93; “Garrett to Still, May 11, 1856.” See also Still, Underground Railroad. 402; and Smedley, History of the Underground Railroad. 367.

51. McGowan, Station Master. 129-131 “Garrett to Wigham, October 34, 1856.” See also, Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet.The Moses of Her People. (New York: Geo. R. Lockwood & Sons, 1886). 57-59.

52. McGowan, Station Master. 129-131. “Garrett to Wigham, October 24, 1856.”

53. McGowan, Station Master. 134-135. “Garrett to Wigham, December 27, 1856.”

54. McGowan, Station Master. 134-138. “Garrett to Wigham, Dec. 27, 1856.”

55. McGowan, Station Master. 134-138. “Garrett to Wigham, December 27, 1856.”

56. “Journal C.”

57. Bradford, Scenes. 29

58. Bradford, Scenes. 30-31.

59. Still, Underground Railroad. 279-281. See also “Journal C.”

60. "Tubman Interview [Seibert]."

61. Bradford, Scenes. 31.

62.“Journal C.”

63. McGowan, Station Master. 149. “ Garrett to Joseph Dugdale, November 29, 1856.”

64. Bradford, Scenes. 35.

65. McGowan, Station Master.95; and, Still, Underground Railroad. 662.

66. McGowan, Station Master. 139-143

67. William Still identifies Henry Predeaux as “Predo,” Denard Hughes as “Daniel” Hughes. See Still, Underground Railroad. 57-60. James and Lavinia Woolfley may actually be “Woolford”, though their exact identity has not been determined. Denard Hughes was also known as Denwood. Bill and Emily Kiah are identified in a runaway advertisement, see Debra Smith Moxey, Newspaper Abstracts from the American Eagle and Cambridge Chronicle 1846-1857. (Cambridge, MD, 1995). American Eagle, March 18, 1857.

68. McGowan, Station Master. 95. “Garrett to Samuel Rhodes, March 13, 1857.”

69. Still, Underground Railroad. 60. “William Brinkly to William Still, March 23, 1857.”

70. "Unsuccessful Attempt to Capture Fugitive Slaves," New York Tribune, New York, March 20, 1857.

71. McGowan, Station Master. 139-143. “Garrett to Edmondson, March 29, 1857.”

72. McGowan, Station Master. 139-143. “Garrett to Edmondson, March 29, 1857.”

73. Still, Underground Railroad. 58.

74. McGowan, Station Master. 139-143. “Garrett to Edmondson, March 29, 1857.”

75. Still, Underground Railroad. 58.

76. "Unsuccessful Attempt."

77. Still, Underground Railroad. 60. “William Brinkly to William Still, March 23, 1857.”

78. Pritchet Meridith, "$600 Reward," Cambridge Democrat, Cambridge, MD, March 18, 1857.

79.McGowan, Station Master. 56; see also, Smedley, Underground Railroad, and William Kashatus, Just over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad. (West Chester, PA: Chester County Historical Society with Penn State University Press, 2002).

80. McGowan, Station Master. 139-143. “Garrett to Edmondson, March 29, 1857.”

81. William Still records William and Emma “Chion” [Kiah] coming through his office in 1860. See Still, Underground Railroad. 543. They changed their last name to Williams, and they settled in Ontario for a few years before moving to Auburn, New York to live near Harriet Tubman. See Ontario 1861 Census, St. Catharines; and Auburn, NY, 1865 census.

82. Still, Underground Railroad. 160-161.

83. McGowan, Station Master. 143-145. “Garrett to Mary Edmundson, August 11, 1857.”

84. Bradford, Scenes. 48.

85. McGowan, Station Master. 143-145. “Garrett to Mary Edmundson, August 11, 1857.”

86. Bradford, Scenes. 52 “ Garrett to Bradford, June, 1868.”

87. Siebert, "New York." “Mrs. C. Bloss Webb to Siebert, Sept. 7, 1896”

88. Bradford, Scenes. 25

89. Still, Underground Railroad. 100.

90. Still, Underground Railroad. 88-89.

91. Still, Underground Railroad. 87.

92. Still, Underground Railroad. 663. “Garrett to Still, Nov. 17, 1857.” See also, Still, Underground Railroad. 467. “Brinkly to Still, June 13, 1858.”

93. Still, Underground Railroad. 100. “Garrett to Still, October 31, 1857.”

94. Smedley, Underground Railroad. 273-274, 276-277.

95. Still, Underground Railroad. 101. “G. Lewis to William Still, Nov. 6, 1857.” See also, Smedley, Underground Railroad. 365. “E. Pennypacker to Still, Nov. 7, 1857.”

96. "St. Catharines," New York Tribune, New York, November 23, 1857. "The Storm," New York Tribune, New York, November 24, 1857.

97. "Free Negroes," Annapolis Gazette, Annapolis, MD, March 18, 1858.

98. "Capture [January 9, 1858]," Easton Gazette, Easton, MD, January 9, 1858.

99. Carroll, Quakerism. 143-144. See also, Kelley, "Underground R. R. Reminiscences [April 2, 1898]."; and Kelley, "Underground R. R. Reminiscences [May 28, 1898]."

100. "Lynch Law in Maryland," Liberator, Boston, MA, July 8, 1858. See also, "[Bowers]," Easton Gazette, Easton, MD, July 3, 1858.

101. "Foul Outrage," Liberator, Boston, MA, July 8, 1858.

102. "Suspicious," The Public Monitor, Easton, MD, July 8, 1858.

103. "Capture [August 7, 1858]," Cecil Whig, Elkton, MD, August 7, 1858. See “Garrett to William Still, August 21, 1858.” in McGowan, Station Master. 101-102; and Still, Underground Railroad. 497.

104. "Negroes Captured," Easton Gazette, Easton, MD, August 7, 1858. "Excitement at Cambridge," New York Tribune, New York, August 7, 1858, and, "Escape and Recapture," Easton Gazette, Easton, MD, October 16, 1858. , and "Trial of Hugh Hazlett," Easton Gazette, Easton, MD, November 20, 1858. See also, "Prisoner # 5324 Hugh Hazlett." Maryland Penitentiary Records - Prisoner Records. MDSA. Hazlett was pardoned, Dec. 21, 1864, after Maryland freed its slaves (Nov. 1, 1864.)

105. Cheney, "Moses."

106. Cheney, "Moses."

107. Bradford, Harriet, 1886. 54-55.

108. Bradford, Harriet, 1886. 56.

109. "Martha Coffin Wright to Ellen Wright Garrison, December 30, 1860." Garrison Family Papers. Box 36. f. 948, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. Northampton, MA.

110. Still, Underground Railroad. 555. McGowan, Station Master. 108.

111. Bradford, Scenes. 57-59.