The shores of the Chesapeake Bay have been well-established as a pivotal region for enslaved people’s journeys to freedom, but there is even more history that many of us don’t know about. The National Park Service (NPS) just added five historical sites in Maryland as new listings in their National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program.
The five new sites add on to 92 Network to Freedom sites NPS has already established. There are 800 sites, facilities and programs included in the network nationwide. The mission of the Network to Freedom is to “to honor, preserve, and promote the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, which continues to inspire people worldwide.”
The five new Maryland sites include a farm where enslaved people sought refuge, an Eastern Shore home where a well-known enslaved man escaped and later wrote an autobiography about the experience, a church near Maryland’s northern border where enslaved people escaped during the British occupation, a Southern Maryland plantation, and a canal that was believed to be used by freedom seekers.
In Annapolis, NPS says Goshen Farm provided crucial escape routes and refuge for enslaved individuals, including Jack Green and the Johnson family. The Goshen Farm Preservation Society constructed Henson-Hall Slave Garden to be like the small garden grounds often given to the enslaved workers on a property for their own gardening. The garden pays tribute to the 12 enslaved people who worked on the farm in the early 1800s.
On the Eastern Shore, the Isaac Mason Escape Site marks the former Mansfield family home in Chestertown. Isaac Mason escaped enslavement there in 1846, later writing a memoir, Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave.
In the upper Bay region, Cecil County’s St. Augustine Church was known as a place for freedom seekers to escape enslavement during the Revolutionary War, encouraged by British proclamations. And on the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal in Havre de Grace, three stories suggest that enslaved people used the canal as a pathway to freedom from Maryland to Pennsylvania.
In Southern Maryland, the historic plantation Rich Hill has a complicated history of bondage and resistance. There were multiple escapes by enslaved people throughout the 1700s and 1800s. Interestingly, Rich Hill is also known for being a place of refuge for Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Boothe, while he was on the run in April 1865.
The Network to Freedom verifies that each place it lists represents a true story about the men, women and children who freed themselves or were helped by others to escape enslavement. A bipartisan group of Maryland lawmakers applauded the addition of Maryland’s five sites.
“During the darkest days of our history, the Underground Railroad – and the men and women who operated it – provided hope and safety to those seeking freedom. The addition of these sites in our state to the National Underground Railroad Network honors the courage and resilience of those who took great personal risk in the fight against slavery – and further solidifies Maryland’s important role in the fight for freedom,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-8th District).
“The addition of these sites preserve the legacy and bravery of Marylanders who sacrificed their safety for the freedom of others,” added Congressman Andy Harris (R-1st District).
You can read about all 31 historic sites added to the Network to Freedom here.
