{"id":1920,"date":"2022-08-17T21:10:34","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T01:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/?page_id=1920"},"modified":"2023-06-29T14:27:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T18:27:02","slug":"escaping-in-and-around-washington-dc-maryland-virginia-harrold","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/regional-essays\/escaping-in-and-around-washington-dc-maryland-virginia-harrold\/","title":{"rendered":"Escaping In and Around Washington, Maryland, &amp; Virginia by Stanley Harrold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Banner image:\u00a0<\/strong>A group of 28 armed freedom seekers successfully fled from Cambridge, Maryland in October 1857, original illustration by Wilbur Osler, colorized by Amanda Donoghue (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/18721\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Download PDF version of this essay (coming soon)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/category\/harrold\/\"><strong>See related Timeline entries<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The two most important things about the Underground Railroad in and around Washington, DC are that it was centered south of the Mason-Dixon Line and that it was a biracial effort.\u00a0 Although slavery was legal in Washington, the city had from its foundation during the 1790s attracted Black people escaping on their own from their owners in Maryland and Virginia.\u00a0 This was to a large degree because those who sought freedom could merge into the District of Columbia\u2019s large free Black population.\u00a0 From the start, the freedom seekers, once they reached Washington, also received assistance from some white residents, including attorneys, businessmen, and evangelicals, all influenced by the northern abolitionist movement.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Between 1842 and 1844, the clandestine escape network centered in Washington took shape.\u00a0 Charles T. Torrey and Thomas Smallwood led the effort.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div id=\"attachment_2659\" style=\"width: 280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Charles-Torrey.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2659\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2659\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Charles-Torrey-270x300.png\" alt=\"Torrey headshot suit facial hair head slightly tilted\" width=\"270\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Charles-Torrey-270x300.png 270w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Charles-Torrey.png 539w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2659\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Charles Torrey (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/47998\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"noopener\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Between 1842 and 1844, the clandestine escape network centered in Washington took shape.\u00a0 Charles T. Torrey and Thomas Smallwood led the effort.\u00a0 Torrey was a white Congressional minister from Massachusetts, who had graduated from Yale College.\u00a0 Smallwood was a formerly enslaved Black man from Prince George\u2019s County, Maryland, who had become a well-to-do shoemaker and a worker at the Washington Navy Yard.<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 When Torrey came to the city from Boston in 1842 as a correspondent for antislavery newspapers, he worked publicly with a group of antislavery northerners, including Whig congressmen and antislavery congressional lobbyists.\u00a0 These men, although often condescending toward African Americans, helped create a biracial antislavery community on which the regional Underground Railroad depended.\u00a0 Soon after Torrey, who had been arrested in Baltimore for reporting on a slaveholders\u2019 convention, arrived in Washington, Smallwood contacted him at Torrey\u2019s 13<sup>th<\/sup> Street boarding house.\u00a0 According to Smallwood, Torrey \u201cimmediately informed him\u201d of a plan to rescue a Black family that Secretary of the Navy George F. Badger of North Carolina was intending to sell south.<a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The plan fell through when the wife told Smallwood that her husband preferred to raise money in the North to purchase hers and their children\u2019s freedom rather than risk an escape attempt.\u00a0 But during the following months, Smallwood, Torrey, Smallwood\u2019s wife Elizabeth, and Torey\u2019s southern white landlady, Mrs. Padgett, created what Smallwood called \u201cour new underground railroad.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a> They provided organization for slave escapes from Washington and its vicinity that had been lacking.<\/p>\n<p>The biracial escape network they led stretched from Washington northward and to a lesser extent southward.\u00a0 It included white Quakers in Delaware and southern Pennsylvania, the Black-led Philadelphia vigilance committee (known then as the Vigilant Association), and white abolitionists in Albany, New York.\u00a0 The network also actively involved those seeking freedom, \u00a0including many who provided funds and logistical support for northward journeys.\u00a0 At times Smallwood or Torrey personally transported or led freedom seekers northward.\u00a0 On other occasions, they hired Black men hoping to earn help for their families, to do this dangerous work.\u00a0 Jacob Gibbs, a free African American, headed an Underground Railroad operation centered in Baltimore, similar to, and connected with, the one in Washington.\u00a0 The network involved secret meeting places where freedom seekers could rendezvous with their guides.\u00a0 Operatives also established \u201cplaces of deposit between Washington and Mason\u2019s and Dixon\u2019s line\u201d to house their \u201cpassengers.\u201d<a href=\"#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 An important aspect of the network was the role of women.\u00a0 A division of labor by gender existed within these organizations.\u00a0 Men recruited and guided; women harbored.\u00a0 But the gender line was permeable as men sometimes harbored and women sometimes planned and guided.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4739\" style=\"width: 180px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.39.12-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4739\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4739\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.39.12-PM-170x300.png\" alt=\"Smallwood title\" width=\"170\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.39.12-PM-170x300.png 170w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.39.12-PM-581x1024.png 581w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.39.12-PM-768x1353.png 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.39.12-PM.png 856w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 170px) 100vw, 170px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4739\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thomas Smallwood&#8217;s narrative detailed Underground Railroad operations around Washington, DC in the 1840s <a href=\"https:\/\/rmc.library.cornell.edu\/abolitionism\/narratives\/Smallwood_pic1.htm\">Cornell University<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Torrey\u2019s and Smallwood\u2019s leadership of the Washington Underground Railroad soon began to end, however.\u00a0 In August 1842 Torrey barely escaped arrest as he led fifteen men, women, and children north.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter he moved with his wife and children, who had remained in Massachusetts while he was in Washington, to Albany.\u00a0 There he became editor of the <em>Tocsin of Liberty<\/em> newspaper, which he renamed the <em>Albany Patriot<\/em>.\u00a0 This left Smallwood in charge of an operation that by October 1842 had helped about 150 freedom seekers reach the North.\u00a0 Yet by the following June, Smallwood had dispatched only nine additional people and had become fearful of arrest.\u00a0 Several of those he helped escape had been recaptured and he came to distrust several of the Black men he employed as agents.\u00a0 He left for Toronto, Canada, on June 30 and moved his family to that city in early October.<a href=\"#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Following their relocations, Torrey and Smallwood attempted to continue their Washington-centered Underground Railroad efforts.\u00a0 In 1843, with support from Thomas Garrett, a white Quaker abolitionist located in Wilmington, Delaware, they drove a wagon south to the city to help as many as they could flee from slavery.\u00a0 But in Baltimore, as they returned northward, the Washington Auxiliary Guard, tipped off by a Black informant, captured ten of those who were trying to escape, while Torrey and Smallwood barely avoided arrest.\u00a0 This ended the two men\u2019s collaboration, as Smallwood returned to Toronto and Torrey moved his base to Philadelphia.\u00a0 Thereafter Torrey made a series of forays into Virginia and Maryland that eventually led to his arrest, imprisonment in Baltimore Jail, and death there from tuberculosis in May 1846.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the Underground Railroad continued in Washington even though escaping from slavery remained dangerous. An unassisted escape attempt in the Washington area demonstrated this reality.\u00a0 In July 1845 approximately 75 armed enslaved men headed north from Charles County, Maryland, located to the southeast of the city.\u00a0 The men hoped to reach Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Instead, white patrollers intercepted them, wounding many, during two violent encounters, and returned most of them to slavery.\u00a0 It is not surprising, therefore, that Black and white antislavery activists in Washington, during 1845 and 1846, emphasized purchasing the freedom of individuals threatened with sale south, instead of escape.\u00a0 Aimed especially against sale south by slave traders, purchasing freedom, like aided escapes, sought to further weaken slavery in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.<a href=\"#_edn6\" name=\"_ednref6\"><sup>[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In July 1845 approximately 75 armed enslaved men headed north from Charles County, Maryland, located to the southeast of the city.\u00a0 The men hoped to reach Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Instead, white patrollers intercepted them, wounding many, during two violent encounters, and returned most of them to slavery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>William L. Chaplin, like Torrey, a white New Englander, joined these efforts.\u00a0 He had arrived in Washington, in December 1844 as correspondent for the <em>Albany Patriot<\/em>.\u00a0 Although Chaplin periodically left the city, its Black community inspired him.\u00a0 He attended Black churches and thereby learned of the anguish Black families suffered.\u00a0 At first Chaplin restricted himself to purchasing freedom.\u00a0 But by 1848 it had become clear that this tactic had failed in preserving Black families and lessening suffering.<a href=\"#_edn7\" name=\"_ednref7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Daniel Bell, a formerly enslaved ironworker, was at the center of a revived Underground Railroad operation in Washington.\u00a0 Bell had worked with Smallwood at the Washington Navy Yard.\u00a0 In 1848, when Bell\u2019s wife, children, and two grandchildren faced sale south, he contacted Daniel Drayton, a semiliterate, white, Delaware Bay trader from southern New Jersey.<strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>In turn, Drayton paid Edward Sayres of Philadelphia $100 to charter Sayer\u2019s schooner <em>Pearl<\/em> to transport slaves to freedom.\u00a0 Chaplin worked with Bell for months thereafter as the number of potential escapees increased.<a href=\"#_edn8\" name=\"_ednref8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On Saturday night April 15, 1848, the <em>Pearl<\/em>, with 77 men, women, and children crowded below deck, and a crew, consisting of Drayton, Sayers, and young white deckhand Chester English, cast off in Washington harbor.\u00a0 They planned to use the Potomac River and the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to reach Frenchtown, New Jersey.\u00a0 But, as the vessel approached the Potomac\u2019s mouth, the steamer <em>Salem<\/em>, crewed by 30 well-armed white proslavery volunteers and commanded by a Washington magistrate, overtook and captured the <em>Pearl<\/em>.\u00a0 The <em>Salem<\/em> towed the <em>Pearl<\/em> and those on board back to Washington, where the volunteers marched the ship\u2019s crew and passengers to the city jail.<a href=\"#_edn9\" name=\"_ednref9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In response Black residents gathered in the streets, while white antislavery activists provided lawyers for Drayton, Sayers, and English.\u00a0 As Black and antislavery white crowds surrounded the city jail, a proslavery mob, led by local slave traders, confronted them.<\/p>\n<p>That Wednesday slaveholders came to the jail to begin selling the captives south.\u00a0 The antislavery community acted to counter this, purchasing the freedom of some African Americans in imminent danger of sale and of some who had already been taken as far south as New Orleans.\u00a0 But most of the <em>Pearl <\/em>passengers did not gain freedom.\u00a0 And by June 1848 approximately twenty remained in Washington Jail.\u00a0 Their fate is unknown.<a href=\"#_edn10\" name=\"_ednref10\"><sup>[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Drayton, Sayres, and English faced trial in Washington, DC on charges of slave stealing and transporting slaves out of the District.\u00a0 Several local lawyers served as the men\u2019s defense.\u00a0 English gained acquittal because he did not know the purpose of the <em>Pearl <\/em>voyage.\u00a0 Sayres remained in jail, pending payment of a huge fine totaling $10,360 for transporting slaves.\u00a0 Drayton\u2019s case proved to be more dramatic as prosecutors attempted unsuccessfully to force him to reveal the names of those who collaborated with him.\u00a0 In response his defense team argued that because Drayton did not intend to keep the slaves or sell them for profit, he was not guilty of stealing them.<\/p>\n<p>Juries convicted Drayton on two counts of stealing slaves.\u00a0 He initially received a twenty-year penitentiary sentence.\u00a0 Then in the spring of 1849 a new jury found him not guilty of slave stealing.\u00a0 In return he pled guilty to the transportation charges and, like Sayres, received a $10,360 fine, with the same stipulation that he remain in Washington Jail until he paid.\u00a0 The result was that he and Sayres stayed there until President Millard Fillmore pardoned them in August 1852, after intensive lobbying by US Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts,.<a href=\"#_edn11\" name=\"_ednref11\"><sup>[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Two years earlier, in August 1850, the Washington Guard had arrested Chaplin following a ferocious battle on the District of Columbia-Maryland line as he attempted to transport two escaping slaves northward.\u00a0 After northern abolitionists posted bail for him, he permanently left the city.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2660\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Mary-and-Emily-Edmonson.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2660\" class=\"wp-image-2660 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Mary-and-Emily-Edmonson-777x1024.png\" alt=\"two women one standing one seated\" width=\"629\" height=\"829\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Mary-and-Emily-Edmonson-777x1024.png 777w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Mary-and-Emily-Edmonson-228x300.png 228w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Mary-and-Emily-Edmonson-768x1012.png 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/11\/Mary-and-Emily-Edmonson.png 786w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2660\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary and Emily Edmonson were captured during the failed mass escape on the<em> Pearl<\/em> in 1848 (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/47999\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"noopener\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Although a failure, the <em>Pearl<\/em> escape attempt struck a strategic blow against slavery in Washington and the surrounding states, because it frightened slaveholders regarding the extent of cooperation between African Americans and slavery\u2019s white opponents.\u00a0 One result of that fear, however, was more suffering among local Black families, as sales south increased.\u00a0 It also led to more kidnappings of free Black people as profits for slave-trading companies increased.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Although a failure, the <em>Pearl<\/em> escape attempt struck a strategic blow against slavery in Washington and the surrounding states, because it frightened slaveholders regarding the extent of cooperation between African Americans and slavery\u2019s white opponents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As Black families faced these precarious circumstances, bonds between Washington\u2019s Black and antislavery white populations tightened.\u00a0 African Americans went to court and raised funds to purchase freedom.\u00a0 White antislavery activists tracked slave sales, attended slave auctions, visited slave pens, and investigated kidnappings.\u00a0 They worked with endangered Black people to avoid sales south, secure freedom for those who had been arrested as fugitive slaves, and purchase freedom for other enslaved people in the District.<a href=\"#_edn12\" name=\"_ednref12\"><sup>[12]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And assisted escapes continued.\u00a0 In 1853 Myrtilla Miner, a white northern woman, who had established a school for Black girls in Washington, helped several Black children escape by placing them with northern families.\u00a0 In 1855 local Underground Railroad activists helped 15-year-old Anna Maria Weems escape with the aid of a white agent sent south by Black Philadelphian Underground Railroad leader William Still.\u00a0 Between 1854 and 1857 Jacob Bigelow, a local white attorney who was originally from Massachusetts, organized group escapes, working with Still and several local black families.<a href=\"#_edn13\" name=\"_ednref13\"><sup>[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4828\" style=\"width: 730px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-20-at-7.57.56-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4828\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4828\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-20-at-7.57.56-PM.png\" alt=\"Bigelow\" width=\"720\" height=\"986\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-20-at-7.57.56-PM.png 720w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-20-at-7.57.56-PM-219x300.png 219w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4828\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Previously unpublished photograph of Jacob Bigelow (Courtesy of Bill Bigelow)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>With the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 and the start of the Civil War in 1861, the status of slavery in Washington began to change.\u00a0 Initially Lincoln pledged to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and was reluctant to move against slavery anywhere in the Border South.\u00a0 Yet almost immediately the Lincoln administration transformed government policy concerning slavery and Black rights in Washington.\u00a0 In April 1862 a Republican-controlled Congress emancipated the slaves in the District of Columbia.\u00a0 One month later it repealed the local black code.<a href=\"#_edn14\" name=\"_ednref14\"><sup>[14]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 and the final Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863.\u00a0 In 1864 Congress repealed the fugitive slave laws, and Lincoln successfully pressed Maryland to abolish slavery within its borders.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4737\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4737\" class=\"size-large wp-image-4737\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM-1024x846.png\" alt=\"DC map\" width=\"629\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM-1024x846.png 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM-300x248.png 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM-768x635.png 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM-900x744.png 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM-1280x1058.png 1280w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-3.25.10-PM.png 1452w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4737\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Region around District of Columbia, c. 1850s (House Divided Project)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Even as these changes occurred, Washington\u2019s biracial Underground Railroad continued.\u00a0 Its actions included providing transportation for freed people, or \u201ccontrabands\u201d as they were known during wartime, who were threatened with reenslavement.\u00a0 For example, in 1862 the predominantly white National Freedmen\u2019s Relief Association planned \u201cto send a col[ored\u2019 brother to Phil[Adelphia] &amp; N.Y. to obtain a vessel to transport at least 100 Contrabands <em>quietly <\/em>to the North to get them out of the clutches of southern hounds.\u201d\u00a0 In response to another one of the Freedmen\u2019s Relief Association\u2019s efforts, in June 1863 local constables arrested three women and four children who had escaped into the city from Prince George\u2019s County, Maryland.\u00a0 The following September, slaveholders recaptured a band of 30 enslaved people attempting to escape from the same county.<a href=\"#_edn15\" name=\"_ednref15\"><sup>[15]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Meanwhile, as the war drew to a close, white abolitionists continued to cooperate with local Black activists in sheltering freedom seekers in their homes.\u00a0 Those Black and white activists who had come before them had set an example with lasting impact.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><strong>Further Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Fields, Barbara Jeanne. <em>Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century<\/em>.\u00a0 New Haven:\u00a0 Yale University Press, 1985.<\/li>\n<li>Harrold, Stanley. <em>Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War<\/em>.\u00a0 Chapel Hill:\u00a0 University of North Carolina Press, 2010.<\/li>\n<li>Harrold, Stanley. <em>Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1<\/em><em>828-1865<\/em>.\u00a0 Baton Rouge:\u00a0 Louisiana State University Press: 2003.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Pacheco, Josephine F. <em>The <\/em>Pearl<em>: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac<\/em>. Chapel Hill:\u00a0 University of North Carolina Press, 2005.<\/li>\n<li>Phillips, Christopher. <em>Freedom\u2019s Port: The African America<\/em><em>n Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860<\/em>.\u00a0 Urbana:\u00a0 Illinois University Press, 1998.<\/li>\n<li>Torrey, Fuller. <em>The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey<\/em>. Baton Rouge:\u00a0 Louisiana State University Press, 2013.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Citations<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a> Joseph C. Lovejoy, <em>Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey,<\/em> 2<sup>nd<\/sup> ed. (1847; reprint New York:\u00a0 Negro Universities Press, 1969); Thomas Smallwood, <em>A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood (Colored Man)<\/em> (Toronto: James Stephens, 1851).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a> Smallwood, <em>Narrative<\/em>, 17-18.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a> Samivel Weller Jr. [Smallwood] to Editor, November 19, 1842, in <em>Tocsin of Liberty<\/em>, December 8, 1842; Smallwood, <em>Narrative<\/em>, 17-28.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a>[Torrey], \u201cFirst Annual Report of the Albany Vigilance Committee,\u201d <em>Tocsin of Liberty<\/em>, December 22, 1842.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a>Weller to Editor, November 19, 1842, in <em>Tocsin of Liberty<\/em>, December 8,, 1842; Weller to Printer, April 12, 1843, in <em>Albany Patriot<\/em>, April 27, 1843; Smallwood, <em>Narrative, <\/em>23\u201428, 30-33, 37-38.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\"><sup>[6]<\/sup><\/a>Lovejoy, <em>Torrey<\/em>, 283; [Chaplin to <em>Albany Patriot<\/em>, February 3, [1845], February 12, 1845; John F. Cook Sr. to Myrtilla Miner, July 31, 1845, Myrtilla Miner Papers, Library of Congress<strong>; <\/strong>\u201cMark Caesar\u201d and \u201cWilliam \u2018Bill\u2019 Wheeler,\u201d Archives of Maryland, MSA SC 5496-0036, 5496-15256.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref7\" name=\"_edn7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a>Chaplin to Gerrit Smith, March 25, 1848, Smith Papers, Syracuse University Library.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref8\" name=\"_edn8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a><em>True Wesleyan<\/em>, September 23, 1848; Horace Mann, <em>Slavery: Letters and Speeches<\/em> (1851; reprint New York: Burt Franklin, 1965), 116-17; <em>National Intelligencer<\/em> (Washington), April 19, 1848; <em>North Star<\/em> (Rochester, N.Y.), May 28, 1848.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref9\" name=\"_edn9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a><em>Daily Union<\/em>, April 19, 1848; <em>Daily National Intelligencer<\/em>, April 19, 1848.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref10\" name=\"_edn10\"><sup>[10]<\/sup><\/a>E. S. H., editorial correspondence, April 17, 1848, in <em>Daily True Democrat<\/em>, April 26, 1848; <em>New York Herald, April 21, 1848<\/em>; Chaplin to Gerrit Smith, November 2, 1848, Smith Papers; <em>Non-Slaveholder<\/em> 3 (July 1848): 165.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref11\" name=\"_edn11\"><sup>[11]<\/sup><\/a>Daniel Drayton, <em>Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity\u2019s Sake) in Washington Jail<\/em> (New York:\u00a0 American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1855), 25-26, 36, 46, 61-69, 99-100, 115-19.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref12\" name=\"_edn12\"><sup>[12]<\/sup><\/a>David A. Hall to Salmon P. Chase, June 27, 1848, Chase Papers, Library of Congress; <em>National Era<\/em>, October 17, 1850.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref13\" name=\"_edn13\"><sup>[13]<\/sup><\/a>Samuel Rhoads to Miner, March 17, 1853, Miner Papers; Still, <em>The Underground Railroad<\/em> (1872; reprint New York:\u00a0 Arno, 1968), 187-89.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref14\" name=\"_edn14\"><sup>[14]<\/sup><\/a><em>National Republican<\/em>, June 10, 1863; <em>Daily Morning Chronicle<\/em> (Washington), September 16, 1863.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref15\" name=\"_edn15\"><sup>[15]<\/sup><\/a>Danforth B. Nichols to Simeon S. Jocelyn, June 2, 1862, J. R. Johnson to George Whipple, July 4, 1862, American Missionary Association Archives, Amistad Research Center.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Author Profile<\/h2>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Harrold.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2345\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Harrold-230x300.jpg\" alt=\"Harrold\" width=\"230\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Harrold-230x300.jpg 230w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Harrold.jpg 340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 230px) 100vw, 230px\" \/><\/a>STANLEY HARROLD\u00a0<\/strong>is an emeritus professor of history at South Carolina State University. Harrold received a B.A. in history from Allegheny College, and holds a M.A. and Ph.D. in nineteenth century American history from Kent State University. Harrold received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities for two of his publications. Harrold is a coauthor and coeditor of the world\u2019s bestselling African-American history textbook series, <em>The African-American Odyssey\u00a0<\/em>(University Press of Florida). Harrold is also the editor of the high school version of the textbook,\u00a0<em>Southern Dissent,\u00a0<\/em>that consists of 28 books, six of them having won awards. Harrold was awarded with a faculty research award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his book\u00a0<em>Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War<\/em>\u00a0(University of North Carolina Press, 2010).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Banner image:\u00a0A group of 28 armed freedom seekers successfully fled from Cambridge, Maryland in October 1857, original illustration by Wilbur Osler, colorized by Amanda Donoghue (House Divided Project) Download PDF version of this essay (coming soon) See related Timeline entries The two most important things about the Underground Railroad in and around Washington, DC are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2535,"parent":1609,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-1920","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3804,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1920\/revisions\/3804"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}