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September 2015 Volume 11, number 56

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREE PRESS® Independent reporting on today’s

urrFreePress.com Fields, Dobbin House, Gunner Named 2015 Free Press Prize Laureates In This Issue

The 2015 Free Press Prizes for leader- ship, preservation and advancement of knowledge are announced. 1

In a border-state county, an extensive network of escape routes operated. Fields The Dobbin House Hideaway Gunner

In the eighth annual awarding of the ed every year in . Following 1 Underground Railroad Free Press Maryland's lead launched by Fields, a Prizes, Free Press honors state leader number of other states have since leg- The new Under- Louis Fields, Historic 1776 Dobbin islated their own Harriet Tubman ground Railroad National Monument House Inn & Tavern, and map maker Day. will soon be open for business. Nicholas Gunner as the 2015 winners. Also beginning in 2010, Fields began 2 The Free Press Prizes are regarded as coordinating county and regional ob- the international Underground Rail- servances of Harriet Tubman Day Oberlin, Ohio and Oberlin College road community's top honor. throughout Maryland and tirelessly made themselves into Underground visits the observances each year. He ❦ Railroad and abolitionism hubs. also got the State to include the Un- Louis Fields Awarded the 2015 Free 2 derground Railroad in Maryland Press Prize for Leadership tourism marketing campaigns, collat- Baltimore's Louis Fields, more active eral materials and press releases. Want to take part? The Free Press in Maryland Underground Railroad website offers many ways for you to become involved in today's Under- work than anyone for several dec- Fields works closely with Harriet ground Railroad. ades, has compiled a record as one of Tubman descendants living on Mary- 3 the foremost state or provincial Un- land's Eastern Shore where Tubman derground Railroad leaders in the was born and escaped, and has gone View photos of the web of Under- United States or Canada. as far as organizing reunions for them. He was instrumental in per- ground Railroad routes in one coun- ty today. In 2000, Fields led an effort to per- suading the state's two United States

suade the Maryland General Assem- Senators to introduce the bills which 5 bly to legislate an official annual ob- are creating the new Harriet Tubman servance of Harriet Tubman. As her Underground Railroad National birthday is unknown, 10, the Monument on the Eastern Shore. day she died in 1913, is now celebrat- Please see Prizes, page 4, column 1 A Border County's Seven Recognized Underground Railroad Routes One of an occasional series on Underground Railroad sites Because of higher pro-slavery sympathies to the east and more dif- involved with the Underground Railroad. Over several decades, ficult terrain in the Appalachians just to the west, many freedom civic leader Lebherz's list grew to 20 sites, mostly safe-houses but seekers coming up from Virginia funneled through a 50-mile also a few routes. Ann Lebherz died march, 2015. Snowden went swath centering on Frederick County, Maryland. The more than much further, compiling the county's best-ever collection of local 80 identified safe-houses, routes and people involved in the coun- African Americana, a prize collection which after her passing went ty's Underground Railroad include the seven firmly documented to the Museum of Frederick County History. Snowden was a biol- routes below. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, Kathleen ogist who worked for the National Institutes of Health before re- Snowden and Ann Lebherz independently began keeping lists of tiring and becoming an elected member of the Town Council of places in the county that they had heard were or may have been Please see Seven Routes, page 3, column 1 123

Underground Railroad Free Press 2 Tubman Memorial Construction Nears Completion Construction of the Harriet Tubman Un- new facility jointly when it opens in 2016. derground Railroad National Monument Born Araminta Ross in 1822 on the near- near where Tubman was born and es- by plantation, Harriet Tubman lived and caped on Maryland's Eastern Shore is worked enslaved in this area from child- nearly complete. Authorized by presiden- hood until she escaped at age 27 in 1849. tial proclamation on March 25, 2013, the In her own era, she made her name and $13.9 million project is funded by an $8.5 became famous nationwide for returning million federal Transportation Enhance- to the area from which she had fled to ment Program grant, $3.5 million in State free an estimated 300 members of her funding, a $1.1 million grant from the Na- family, friends and other enslaved Afri- tional Park Service, and two grants from can , becoming the best known the U.S. Department of Housing and Ur- Underground Railroad conductor. In ban Development. The Monument is lo- Union scout, spy and nurse. In a single 1859, she purchased a farm in Auburn, cated on Maryland Route 335 a mile week, she led Union forces up South Car- , and established a home for south of its junction with Key Wallace olina's Combahee River and freed 756 en- her family and others, which she used Drive. The National Park Service and the slaved people, becoming the first woman late in life as a home for indigent elderly Maryland Park Service will operate the women. In the Civil War she worked as a Please see Monument, page 4, column 3 The Oberlins—Town and College—Made Their Abolitionist Marks Book review by Owen W. Muelder

emancipation of the nation’s enslaved as so helped to ensure the school’s future. well. In addition, the community eventu- ally gained a reputation as a center of Morris develops several significant Underground Railroad operations. Con- themes in his book, one of which is his sequently, Oberlin endured remarkable description of the abolitionist movement hostility from those who looked upon the in the east splitting apart at the very time school and town's inhabitants as radicals that Oberlin College was beginning to and self-righteous troublemakers. grow. Arguments between factions along the eastern seaboard, for a variety of rea- 100th Anniversary In the early 1840s, the Ohio legislature sons, led to the rupture of the American even debated an unsuccessful proposal to Anti-Slavery Society in 1840. But at Ober- repeal the college’s charter. lin (and at anti-slavery outposts through- out Ohio, Michigan and other upper Mis- The author expertly details how the col- sissippi Valley states) abolitionists, for the lege managed to go from an institution on most part, were able, in Morris’s words the verge of collapse to a school that sta- “… to accommodate the differences that bilized and soon afterward thrived. This disturbed eastern anti-slavery unity in was primarily due to the arrival of several 1837–40.” Therefore Oberlin’s abolition- young men who came to Oberlin in 1835 ists were able to “…avoid being side- from the Lane Seminary in Cincinnati. In tracked by debates over ‘proper’ or ‘pure’ 1834 Lane students had conducted a Owen Muelder, recipient of the 2014 Free means by prioritizing the ultimate goal of lengthy debate about slavery that turned Press Prize for Preservation, is author of two emancipation.” There were abolitionists books on the anti-slavery movement, and nearly all of the seminarians into radical throughout the north who wanted to see director of the Galesburg Colony Under- abolitionists. The students’ anti-slavery human bondage eradicated, but that did ground Railroad Freedom Center at Knox advocacy at the school and the aid they not mean they viewed African Americans College in Galesburg, Illinois. gave to African Americans in the city out- as equals. However, in Oberlin, Morris J. Brent Morris’s new book, Oberlin, Hot- raged the school’s authorities who de- describes a notable effort to regard each bed of Abolitionism, College, Community and manded that the seminarians disengage person “…according to his personal the Fight for Freedom (University of North themselves from these activities. The sem- worth and not his color.” Blacks in the Carolina Press, 352 pp.) pushes aside my- inarians rebelled and the majority community and college were encouraged thology of Oberlin’s early history to pre- dropped out of Lane. The core of these to be leaders and the town became a truly sent a historically accurate account of the “Lane Rebels”, dedicated to the immedi- integrated community. Oberlin was also community’s anti-slavery past. Morris ate emancipation of all slaves, later among the first colleges to admit women. has produced a first rate piece of work. moved to Oberlin and their arrival at the No other institution of higher learning college brought boom times to the institu- The last part of the book lays out in detail was more deeply committed and actively tion. Before they agreed to come to Ober- Oberlin’s fearless efforts to aid fugitive involved with the anti-slavery crusade in lin, however, they insisted that the college slaves on the Underground Railroad in- the United States than Oberlin College. adopt a colorblind admissions policy. cluding first hand accounts confirmed by Beyond the college campus itself, the citi- Simultaneously, financial support was several reliable sources. They describe zens of the town of Oberlin were stead- given to the college by the wealthy Tap- freedom seekers who moved out of Ober- fastly committed to bringing about the pan brothers in New York City, which al- Please see Oberlin, page 5, column 1 435

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Seven Routes New Market, Maryland. In 2001 when The Susquehanna Path Railroad tracks through the county. Taking he purchased his family's ancestral farm The Susquehanna Path, an ancient abo- the route described by Wanzer, the six fugi- which his ancestors had used as a safe- riginal route, enters the southwest cor- tives would have passed by a string of safe- house, Free Press publisher Peter H. Mi- ner of Frederick County from the east- houses including the African American vil- chael began collecting all of the family ern panhandle of West Virginia (until lages of Flint Hill and Bartonsville, the Bush Underground Railroad information he 1862, Virginia), runs through the county Creek Quaker Meeting House, the Plummer could find, and interviewed family el- seat of Frederick, and leaves the county home and Prince Hall of the Black Masons in ders and others, identifying another near its northeast corner into Pennsyl- New Market, the Dudderar home near Ur- fourteen sites. The National Park Service vania where the path goes on to the bana, the African American village of informed Michael of another five sites. Susquehanna River corridor. In 1844, Dorseytown, and Priestland, a Jesuit-owned farm near McKinstry's Mill. Just past The Potomac River the African American ferry operator Jo- seph Blanhum was arrested for ferrying Priestland when reaching Hood's Mill in ad- From the western reaches of the Appa- freedom seekers across the Potomac jacent Carroll County, the six were accosted lachians all the way east to the Chesa- River from Harper's Ferry (West) Vir- by slave catchers. Frank Wanzer and is fian- peake Bay, freedom seekers had to cross ginia to Frederick County and jailed for cée and the Grigsby couple with them fought the Potomac River which separates Vir- three years. Blanhum resumed work as Please see Seven Routes, page 5, column 1 ginia and West Virginia from Maryland an Underground Railroad conductor af- and, during the Civil War, Union from ter his release. The Susquehanna Path things you can Confederacy. The Potomac is shallow through Frederick County comprises over its entire 18 miles of Frederick today's US Route 340 from the Potomac do at Free Press County shoreline permitting eleven to Frederick and Maryland Route 194 fords and ferries to operate in the days from there to Pennsylvania. Click on links at urrFreePress.com before bridges. Many well documented to do any of the following. accounts exist of freedom seekers cross- The Old Carolina Trail ing the Potomac at these shallows. Per- Another ancient native route traversing Subscribe haps the largest documented group was Frederick County is the Carolina Trail View or Add to Datebook 39 people led by John Jones who in 1844 running from Augusta, Georgia, to Phil- Send News, Letters, Articles or Ads escaped from Loudoun County, Virgin- adelphia, which, after use by European Join the Community or View Lynx ia, directly south of Frederick County, settlers, came to be called the Carolina Maryland, and made it all the way to Road and then the Great Carolina Wag- Make a Free Press Prize Nomination Elmira, New York, where Jones became on Road. A branch of the trail enters Rate an Underground Railroad Site a major safe-house operator and con- Frederick County at Edwards Ferry on List an Underground Railroad Site ductor. In its flight, Jones's group was the Potomac and follows today's Dicker- Read Underground Railroad Surveys aided by Mark Twain's future father-in- son, Old Licksville and Tuscarora Roads law Jervis Langdon. which comprise the western-most The Towpath of the Chesapeake & stretch of Maryland Route 28. Edwards Underground Railroad Free Press® Ohio Canal Ferry was operated by the African- American Underground Railroad con- Independent Reporting on Begun in 1824 in Washington, DC, when Today’s Underground Railroad ductor Bazil Newman and then New- President John Quincy Adams turned man's son in the late Underground Rail- Peter H. Michael, Publisher [email protected] the first spade of earth, the Chesapeake road era. & Ohio Canal runs 185 miles directly 301 | 874 | 0235

along the Maryland side of the Potomac Roads Alongside the Baltimore & Ohio Underground Railroad Free Press is a free newsletter River to Cumberland, Maryland. Free- Railroad published by Underground Railroad Free Press, 2455 dom seekers' heading north across the Ballenger Creek Pike, Adamstown, Maryland, 21710. Freedom seeker Frank Wanzer told Wil- Back issues are available free at our web site. Free Potomac meant immediately crossing liam Still, author of the landmark 1872 Press is distributed by email. Send email address the canal's towpath along which mules Underground Railroad, that Wanzer and changes and new subscriber email addresses to pulled barges up and down the canal. his five compatriots, after escaping en- [email protected]. Some freedom seekers used the towpath slavement at a Virginia plantation on We welcome news articles and letters to the editor. as their escape route. In 1843, James All rights to submissions including emails and letters Eve, 1855, traveled by horse- will be treated as unconditionally assigned to Free Curry, having fled from Person County, drawn wagon from the Potomac into Press for publication and copyright purposes, and North Carolina, crossed the Potomac at Frederick County along roads “on the subject to our unrestricted right to edit and comment Georgetown in Washington, DC, and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.” The most editorially unless otherwise agreed with authors. walked the towpath across the entire likely Potomac crossing point of the par- Free Press accepts tasteful nonpolitical advertising breadth of Frederick County, turning which we reserve the right to reject for any reason ty would have been Edwards Ferry with which in our sole judgment is not acceptable. Submit north into Pennsylvania at Williamsport its Newman family conductors, only a advertising in pdf, jpg or text formats. Visit our web- a few miles further upstream. The Black- few miles from the Wanzer party's point site for rates and layout specifications. ford family, owners of Ferry Hill Planta- of escape. Wanzer reported to Still that Contents of any Free Press issue are protected by tion in neighboring Washington County, on Christmas Day, 1855, he and his fel- copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in wrote of their capturing freedom seek- part for any reason without prior approval of the low freedom seekers went on from an publisher. Underground Railroad Free Press is a regis- ers who were using the canal's tow path unnamed overnight safe-house, continu- tered trademark. as an escape route in 1829 and in 1839. ing alongside the Baltimore & Ohio 43

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Prizes Fields founded, owns and operates Bal- displayed, Dobbin House's recreated hid- Congressional Black Caucus timore Black Heritage Tours and person- ing spot is quite possibly the most realis- Underground Railroad Forum ally conducts the Frederick Douglass Un- tic and best preserved Underground Rail- In its 45th Annual Legislative Conference derground Railroad Path to Freedom road site in existence. to be held September 16 to 20 in Washing- walking tour in the historic Fells Point Dobbin House's two restaurants, Abigail ton, DC, the Congressional Black Caucus section of Baltimore near the city's har- Adams Ballroom, inn and store are worth will convene an Underground Railroad bor. Douglass escaped slavery at Fells a trip. The old stone building with its Issues Forum to commemorate legislative Point and after the Civil War built five large exposed ceiling beams and wide- protection and recognition of the Under- adjoining homes there. Fields is active at plank flooring exude eighteenth century ground Railroad. Panelists led by Rep. the moment trying to persuade the City charm. Visit dobbinhouse.com for more. Corrine Brown (D-FL) will discuss expec- and State to purchase one of the homes Straight from 1776 is the inn's Spring- tations since the Emancipation Proclama- that has been put up for sale, and use it as house Tavern in the cellar with the an- tion. Visit eventscribe.com/2015/ALC. a Frederick Douglass museum. cient spring running through. The annual conferences address issues A book, Freedom Seekers: Early Abolitionists Nicholas Gunner Awarded the 2015 impacting African Americans. More than in Antebellum Baltimore, which Fields is Hortense Simmons Prize for the Ad- 9,000 thought leaders, legislators and citi- writing will be published in 2016. vancement of Underground Railroad zens will explore public policy issues Historic 1776 Dobbin House Inn & Tav- Knowledge from an African-American perspective. ern Awarded the 2015 Free Press Prize Entrepreneur, webmaster and cartogra- for Preservation Monument pher Nicholas Gunner is the youngest re- to lead American troops in combat. Dobbin House, the oldest surviving cipient of a Free Press Prize since the in- building in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, auguration of the prizes in 2008. Gunner Near the new Monument, many places was built in 1776 by Reverend Alexander is recognized for the pro bono develop- where she grew up and worked remain: Dobbin for his family and as a school ment of an extensive online Underground Stewart's Canal dug by slaves; the farm of teaching the classics, and is still going Railroad map of safe-houses, routes and Edward Brodess, enslaver of Tubman's mother and her children; the Bucktown strong as today's Historic 1776 Dobbin people in western New York. House Inn & Tavern. Dobbin House is Crossroads where a slave overseer hit the within sight of the spot where Lincoln The project involving over 300 sites is 13-year-old Tubman in the head with a gave the Gettysburg Address. hosted by orbitist.com owned by Gunner heavy iron as she protected a young flee- Media, founded by Gunner when he was ing slave, resulting in an injury that af- In the mid-1800s under new owners, still an undergraduate. Says Gunner, fected Tubman the rest of her life; Scott's Dobbin House began to be used as an "Orbitist is a tool for telling beautiful sto- Chapel and its African-American grave- Underground Railroad safe-house, shel- ries with digital maps." Gunner also yard with headstones dating to 1792; the tering freedom seekers coming north serves as New Media Manager at the James Cook Home Site where Tubman through Maryland up the Monocacy Val- State University of New York at Fredonia. was hired out as a child; and the Jacob ley, along the eastern slope of Catoctin Jackson Home Site, an early Under- Gunner's interest in the Underground Mountain and via other routes. The hid- ground Railroad safe-house. Jackson was Railroad was piqued in 2013 as he lis- ing spot used was a broad crawl space a free black man to who helped Tubman tened to a presentation by Free Press about three feet high between the ground free her brothers. The Jackson Home Site floor ceiling and second floor, reached Prize laureate Wendy Straight on her has been donated to the United States. through a removable wall panel of a Underground Railroad discoveries in stairway in the inn portion of the build- western New York. A conversation led to In 1868 Frederick Douglass wrote to ing. That this nook was used on the Un- Gunner's offer to compile and automate Tubman: "I have had the applause of the derground Railroad is authenticated by her deep database, and post it all to an in- crowd and the satisfaction that comes of letters written to and from the safe-house teractive online map hosted by or- being approved by the multitude, while operators. Dobbin House was listed on bitist.com. the most that you have done has been the National Register of Historic Places in witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, 1973 and its Underground Railroad story Says Straight, "Nick knew that he could and foot-sore bondmen and women, has been featured in National Geographic help us immediately share our findings whom you have led out of the house of and in Underground Railroad Free Press. with the public. Within a few months, he bondage, and whose heartfelt 'God bless had created a unique space for us, and we you' has been your only reward. The Several years ago, present owners of the now continually upload new findings midnight sky and the silent stars have building outfitted the hiding space with a and edit earlier postings as needed. been the witnesses of your devotion to tableau of three wax figures of husband, Thereby, we are immediately sharing our freedom and of your heroism." wife and child, and a few plain period ac- research with large numbers of interested cessories. The tableau is illuminated with Douglass would be relieved to know that persons at all times of the day or night, an electric candle and seen through a today Tubman does not live in anonymi- and at very low cost. The feedback from Plexiglas panel in the wall where the se- ty. And as President Obama observed in fellow researchers helps our investiga- cret panel was. Dobbin House shows the his proclamation, "The midnight sky and display, located in a distant part of the tions as we connect anti-slavery families the silent stars and the landscape of Har- building, to customers who ask to see it. and church members across New York riet Tubman's homeland remain much as and Pennsylvania. Without Nick’s map they were in her time there. If she were to In the exact undisturbed spot where it and database, it would have been very return to this area today, Harriet Tubman once operated and very authentically easy for us to become discouraged. would recognize it."

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Seven Routes off the their assailants. One of the others was captured and the sixth person killed. The four made it safely to Toronto, Cana- da, where they lived peacefully for the rest of their lives. In August, 1856, Wan- zer travelled back to Virginia and in an act of high daring rescued his sister, brother-in-law and friend, and took them to Toronto. In returning to Virginia and then back to Canada, Wanzer said he used the same route as on his escape.

The Potomac-to-Doubs Route Looking Across the Potomac River from The Canal Tow Path of the Chesapeake This route ran up from the river for three Frederick County, Maryland to Virginia & Ohio Canal National Park miles through six contiguous farms owned by the Michael family and their in-laws and ran through Cooling Springs Farm, a well documented safe-house. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line (the na- tion's first rail line) runs through Cooling Springs Farm as do local roads “on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.” The Cooling Springs Farm spring house, the actual safe-house used to shelter freedom seek- ers, lies 150 feet from the rail line and one of the roads beside it, and is nearly the

exact midpoint between the Wanzer par- ty's escape point and Hood's mill. It is View from the Eastern Slope of Catoctin The Old Carolina Path, Today's Maryland speculated that this is where the party Mountain Near the Site of the Maroon Route 28 Near Point of Rocks, Maryland spent the night of , 1955. Community of Halltown The Eastern Slope of Catoctin Mountain In 1841, freedom seeker Charles Bentley, as he later stated in his autobiography, crossed the Potomac River at Point of Rocks in Frederick County and “went up alongside Catoctin Mountain.” Doing so, he would have passed through Hall Town, a tiny, very isolated African- American maroon community on the eastern slope of Catoctin Mountain a mile or so from where Bentley crossed the riv- er. As he continued along the eastern

slope, he would have come to or near Mountville, Hayes Spring, Bussard Flat, The Potomac to Doubs Route of the Where the Ancient Susquehanna Path Markley Fields and the Coates Cabin, all Underground Railroad, the Wanzer Enters Maryland from Harper's Ferry, Escape Route Running Alongside the West Virginia (1865 photo) Frederick County safe-houses known to- Baltimore & Ohio Rail Line day through oral tradition.

Oberlin The book does have one disappointing ty were replicas of Lane’s. Lane’s radical Oberlin exclusion. Although Morris makes pass- anti-slavery students came in large num- lin to safety in Canada. The author also ing reference to the influence of New bers from the Oneida Institute and many recalls Underground Railroad operators York’s Oneida Institute on Oberlin, he other former Oneida students went di- with ties to Oberlin who were caught and fails to adequately describe how truly rectly to Oberlin from the New York imprisoned after helping bondsmen in- significant this influence was. The first school. It was chiefly from Oneida re- side slaveholding states. Morris also re- anti-slavery society of any kind in the formers that Oberlin was derived. As one tells the story of the famous Oberlin- state of New York was established at the historian of Oberlin has recalled, “Lane’s Wellington Rescue. In 1858 Oberlinites school in the summer of 1833 and the In- radicalism came from Oneida and Ober- rescued fugitive John Price who was tak- stitute’s anti-slavery society’s “Object of lin’s chiefly from both.” Despite this en to the town of Wellington. Price even- Purpose” was paraphrased by the Lane omission, I highly recommend this out- tually regained his freedom and the trial anti-slavery society’s constitution in 1834. standing book to anyone interested in the of his rescuers is masterfully presented. The goals of Oberlin’s Anti-Slavery Socie- history of the abolitionist movement.