Chapter III

, p. 68.

[360] Wm. Still, _Underground Railroad_, p. 41. "The Underground Railroad brought away large numbers of passengers from Richmond, Petersburg, and Norfolk, and not a few of them lived comparatively within a hair's breadth of the auction block." Wm. Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. 141.

[361] Conversation with Mrs. Elizabeth Cooley, a fugitive from Norfolk, Va., Boston, Mass., April 8, 1897.

[362] Letter of Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D.C., March 27, 1893.

[363] Conversation with Mrs. Tubman, Boston, Mass., April 8, 1897.

It is apparent from the map that the numerous tributaries of the Ohio and the great valleys of the Appalachian range afforded many tempting paths of escape. These natural routes from slavery have been recognized and defined by a recent writer.[364] "One," he says, "was that of the coast south of the Potomac, whose almost continuous line of swamps from the vicinity of Norfolk, Va., to the northern border of Florida afforded a refuge for many who could not escape and became 'marooned' in their depths, while giving facility to the more enduring to work their way out to the north star land. The great Appalachian range and its abutting mountains were long a rugged, lonely, but comparatively safe route to freedom. It was used, too, for many years. Doubtless a knowledge of that fact, for John Brown was always an active railroad man, had very much to do, strategically considered, with the Captain's decision to begin operations therein. Harriet Tubman ... was a constant user of the Appalachian route in her efforts to aid escaping slaves.[365] ... Underground Railroad operations culminating chiefly at Cleveland, Sandusky, and Detroit, led by broad and defined routes through Ohio to the border of Kentucky. Through that State, into the heart of the Cumberland Mountains, northern Georgia, east Tennessee, and northern Alabama, the limestone caves of the region served a useful purpose.... The Ohio-Kentucky routes probably served more fugitives than others in the North. The valley of the Mississippi was the most westerly channel, until Kansas opened a bolder way of escape from the southwest slave section." These were the main channels of flight from the slave states; but it must be remembered that escapes were continually taking place along the entire frontier between the two sections of the Union, the drift of travel being constantly towards those points where the homes of abolitionists or where negro settlements indicated initial stations on lines running north to freedom. The border counties of the slave states were thus subject to a steady loss of their dissatisfied bondmen. This condition is well represented in the case of several counties of Maryland, concerning which Mr. Smedley obtained information. He says, "The counties of Frederick, Carroll, Washington, Hartford and Baltimore, Md., emptied their fugitives into York and Adams counties across the line in Pennsylvania. The latter two counties had settlements of Friends and abolitionists. The slaves learned who their friends were in that part of the Free State; and it was as natural for those aspiring to liberty to move in that direction as for the waters of brooks to move toward larger streams."[366]

[364] R. J. Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, pp. 172, 173.

[365] Harriet Tubman has told the author that she did not travel by the mountain route. In his book entitled _The Underground Railroad_ (p. 37), Mr. R. C. Smedley illustrates the value of the Alleghanies to the slaves of the regions through which they extend: "William and Phœbe Wright resided during their entire lives in a very old settlement of Friends, near the southern slope of South Mountain, a spur of the Alleghanies, which extends into Tennessee. This location placed them directly in the way to render great and valuable aid to fugitives, as hundreds, guided by that mountain range northward, came into Pennsylvania, and were directed to their home."

[366] _Underground Railroad_, p. 36.

Along the southern margin of the free states began those well-defined trails or channels that have lent themselves to representation upon the large map given herewith. In dealing with the tracings shown upon this map it will be best to consider the territory as divided into three regions, the first comprising the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York; the second, the New England states; and the third, the five states created out of the Northwest Territory. This arrangement will, perhaps, admit of the introduction of some system into the discussion of what might otherwise prove a complicated subject.

In point of time underground work seems to have developed first in eastern Pennsylvania.[367] Regular routes of travel began to be formed in the vicinity of Philadelphia about the middle of the first decade of the present century. It is said that "some cases of kidnapping and shooting of fugitives who attempted to escape occurred in Columbia, Pa., in 1804. This incited the people of that town, who were chiefly Friends or their descendants, to throw around the colored people the arm of protection, and even to assist those who were endeavoring to escape from slavery.... This gave origin to that organized system of rendering aid to fugitives which was afterward known as the 'Underground Railroad.'" Thus begun, the service rapidly extended, being greatly favored by the character of the population in southeastern Pennsylvania, which was largely Quaker, with here and there some important settlements of manumitted slaves. It was on account of the large number of runaways early resorting to Columbia that it became necessary to have an understanding with regard to places of entertainment for them along lines leading to the Eastern states and to Canada, whither most of the fugitives were bound.[368] There seems to have been scarcely any limitation upon the number of persons in Lancaster, Chester and Delaware counties willing to assume agencies for the forwarding of slaves; hence this region became the field through which more routes were developed in proportion to its extent than any other area in the Northern states. It will be necessary to make use of a special map of the region in order to follow out the principal channels of escape and to discover the centres from which the Canada routes sprung.[369] West of the Susquehanna River Gettysburg and York were the stations chiefly sought by slaves escaping from the border counties of Maryland. Along the western shore of the Chesapeake runaways passed northward to Havre de Grace, where they usually crossed the Susquehanna, and with others from the Eastern Shore found their way to established stations in the southern part of Lancaster and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. From the territory adjacent to the Delaware the movement was to Wilmington, and thence north through Chester and Delaware counties. The routes developed in the three regions just indicated formed three systems of underground travel, the first of which may be called the western, the second, the middle, and the third, the eastern system. These systems comprised, besides the main roads indicated in heavy lines upon the map, numerous side-tracks and branches shown by the light lines. Their common goal was Phœnixville, the home of Elijah F. Pennypacker, and from here fugitives were sent to Philadelphia, Norristown, Quakertown, Reading and other stations as occasion required. While Phœnixville may be regarded as the central station for the three systems mentioned, it did not receive all the negroes escaping through this section, and Smedley says that "Hundreds were sent to the many branch stations along interlacing routes, and hundreds of others were sent from Wilmington, Columbia, and stations westward direct to the New England States and Canada. Many of these passed through the hands of the Vigilance Committee connected with the anti-slavery office in Philadelphia."[370] From this point one outlet led overland across New Jersey to Jersey City and New York; another outlet from Philadelphia, was the Reading Railroad, which also carried refugees from various stations along its course. How many steam railway extensions may have been connected with the underground tracks of southeastern Pennsylvania cannot be discovered. One such extension was the Northern Central Railroad from Harrisburg across the state to Elmira, New York.[371] Another trans-state route in eastern Pennsylvania appears to have had its origin at or near Sadsbury, Chester County, and to have run overland to Binghamton, New York.[372] The intermediate stations along this pathway are not known, although some disconnected places of resort in northeastern Pennsylvania[373] may have constituted a section of it. Lines of northern travel for fugitives also passed through Bucks County, but Dr. Edward H. Magill, formerly President of Swarthmore College, thinks these were "less clearly marked" than those running through Chester and Lancaster counties. He finds that friends of the slave in the middle section of Bucks County generally forwarded the negroes to Quakertown or even as far north, by stage or private conveyance, as Stroudsburg. From this point they sometimes went to Montrose or Friendsville, in Susquehanna County, near the southern boundary of the State of New York,[374] whence, together with fugitives from Wilkesbarre, and, perhaps, the Lehigh Valley, they were sent on to Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro in central New York, and thence to Canada.[375]

[367] See pp. 33 and 34,