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 New Castle, Kent and Sussex counties in Delaware |
"When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything." Harriet Tubman. All along the Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad, there remain signs of those who passed secretly through. Historic homes, barns, meetings and roads stand as a tangible legacy to the courage of those who escaped and those who helped them. Although many landmarks have unfortunately been razed in the years since the railroad operated, museums and historical organizations continue to collect and display what is left to evidence this time in history. |
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 View of Wilmington, Delaware from a pasture, 1870 |
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The three counties of Delaware are a microcosm of the United States. The northernmost county, New Castle, is an urban and suburban industrial area; Wilmington, a city that is home to the world's largest chemical companies and credit card banks, represents a typical American metropolis, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. Kent County lies in the middle of the state and straddles agrarian and industrial interests; the capital of the state, Dover, resides there. Sussex County is the southernmost county and is comprised largely of rural, farming interests. |
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These characteristics were at work during the 19th century. The period before the Civil War augmented these differences in the state because of the divergent stances which agrarian and industrial populations took on the issue of slavery. Geographically, the state was divided by pro-slavery and abolitionist interests. |
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Artist's
Rendering of Wilmington, Delaware and the Christiana River, 19th c.
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 Thomas Garrett |
This division is evident in the facts of Thomas Garrett's trial of 1848, in which a New Castle County abolitionist was convicted by a stacked jury of Sussex County farmers who relied on slave labor. It is not an accident that grass roots abolitionist movements began in both New Castle and Kent County Quaker meetings. With Lancaster County's pacifist Amish community, Chester County, Pennsylvania's Quaker strongholds, Kent and New Castle Counties' Methodist and Quaker populations and Philadelphia's progressive Anti-Slavery offices nearby, the Great Awakening met with enthusiasm in the region. Delaware became the bridge to freedom for fugitives and the site of the last attempt at capture for slave hunters. |
 Longwood Meeting and it's Members 19th c. |
 Wilmington Friends Meeting in Quaker Hill |
The city of Wilmington, with Thomas Garrett, myriad seaman, stevadores, and willing conductors, served as the final stop to freedom before Philadelphia and New Jersey. After the second Fugitive Slave Law passed in 1850, requiring free citizens and lawmen alike to aid in the capture of escaped slaves in the free states, the city could not be seen any longer as the last stop before freedom, but an important resting point before the second leg of a very long journey to Canada. |
 President Abraham Lincoln, circa 1860 |
Delaware,
Lincoln and a Unique Proposal Lincoln proposed that the state legislature move to emancipate all of the state's slaves. In return, the federal government would reimburse slaveholders $500 for each slave set free. Because this proposal was never brought to a vote by the legislature, Lincoln's attempt at the use of diplomacy in the struggle to liberate slaves failed in Delaware and throughout the nation. As Lincoln had expressed to a Sussex County, Delaware slave holder, Benjamin Burton, "If I can get Delaware to undertake this plan, I'm sure the other border states will accept it. This is the cheapest and most humane way of ending this war and saving lives." Instead, the war continued for four more years and modern estimates for the death toll reach 500,000 with some scholars assigning a number as high as 700,000 men. Further demonstrating Delaware's precarious geographic position are these facts: The state legislature failed to pass a law abolishing slavery on two separate occasions. Both failures were by only one vote! In addition, for slave states like Delaware, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky that sided with the Union, but remained slave-holding, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply. For their loyalty to the Union, the slaveholders of these states were rewarded with the use of their slaves until the end of the war. In fact, Delaware did not formally abolish slavery until 1903! |
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Treacherous
Terrain |
 Nanticoke River |
| Lifesaving
Waterways Delaware's waterways served as paths to safety when followed by runaways who stealthily avoided horse-trodden roads and pedestrian paths. Rivers like the Choptank, Nanticoke and St. Jones provided cover and the means to hide one's tracks. On the other hand, these same waterways were treacherous. Patty Cannon's gang in the southernmost county of Delaware trolled the rivers seeking innocents to capture and sell into bondage for profit. In a time when waterways were an excellent means of travel, rivers were used for commercial purposes. Some of that traffic could have been comprised of slave buyers and sellers as well as slaves themselves as they were transported throughout the south. |
 Harriet Tubman used the Choptank River to make her way north |
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Choptank River, which originates south of Dover at the Maryland and Delaware
borders, provided fugitives from Maryland's eastern shore with a route to
the north—to the safe houses of Kent and New Castle Counties in Delaware. The Nanticoke River, which flows south and eventually empties its tributaries in the Chesapeake Bay, could be followed from as far south as Vienna, Sharptown and Federalsburg, Maryland. Its main branch flows southwest of Salisbury and finds its origin in Kent County, Delaware near Harrington—not far from Odessa, Camden-Wyoming and friendly Quaker Meetings. The St. Jones River flows from northwest of Dover, Delaware through the heart of the state's capital and east to Bower's Beach, where it empties into the Delaware Bay. As it passed Wildcat Manor in Lebanon, Delaware, the St. Jones provided many fugitives with a stopping point where they could safely regroup and press northward. |
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 Market Street Bridge, Wilmington, circa 1867 |
Last Stop
to Freedom |
 View from Above 3rd and Market Streets, Wilmington, circa 1870 |
 Old Town Hall |
Delaware
History Museum/Historical Society of Delaware
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Peter Spencer
Plaza |
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Quaker Hill Historic Neighborhood including
Wilmington Friends Meeting House
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 St.
Peter's Church
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Abolitionist Thomas Garrett attended meetings there; his grave in the meeting's cemetery is marked by its place beneath a large oak tree and a simple stone. As the Hill became more populated, the streetscapes became the most varied in the city with traditional brick rowhouses and neo-Gothic detached homes standing together. In the late 19th century, Quaker Hill became a more working class neighborhood, but many prominent citizens including the Mayor still lived there. The 20th century has brought decline. Newer areas of the city have attracted residents and the "urban renewal" efforts of the 1970s cleared the area south of 4th Street of all 18th century structures. Quaker Hill was registered on the National Register as a Historic District in 1970. For more information about the Quaker Hill Historic Neighborhood click here. |
 Thomas Garrett's Gravestone |
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Old New Castle Courthouse The site of Thomas Garrett's 1848 trial. The courthouse's authentic appearance offers a real perspective on the events of the trial and the judicial system of the time. Exhibits in the museum section of the courthouse include displays about Garrett and his associates as well as other significant trials which took place there. The
Courthouse is open: |
| The Appoquinimink
Meeting House and the Corbit-Sharp House
The Friends Meeting is another example of the role Quakers played in the Underground Railroad in the east. A tiny meeting house, Friends' historically preserved appearance affords the visitor the opportunity to imagine a fugitive hiding there. The Corbit-Sharp House, owned and managed by the Winterthur Museum, was built by its original owner, William Corbit, by the Appoquinimink Creek in 1774. Corbit hid runaway slaves in cabinets on the third floor. In 1938, Corbit's family sold the house to H. Rodney Sharpe. Today it remains one of four locations in the Historic Houses complex in Odessa, Delaware. |
 Corbit-Sharp House |
| Both
places are open: Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays from 1 p.m. to four p.m. Admission is $4 per person for one location and $6 for both. Senior, student and children's discounts are also available. For more information, call (302) 378-4069. |
 Appoquinimink Meeting House |
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Woodburn Admission
is free, |
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The John Dickinson Plantation This
National Historic landmark is open to the public: |
 John Dickinson Plantation |
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Delaware Governor William Henry Ross'
Plantation Guided
tours are available: |
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Other landmarks in the area include:
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 Wildcat
Manor
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Click
here to learn more about the scenic Quaker Hill area in Wilmington, Delaware. |
