Underground Railroad

The history of a people, with all the grief, faith and determination that entails, can be heard in the simple strains of spirituals, one of the most enduring and endearing genres of American music. This week, stellar soprano Kathleen Battle will join the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Morgan State University Choir in the premiere of a spiritual-filled program she developed celebrating the Underground Railroad. No voice in recent times is more associated with this music than Battle's.

Harriet Tubman was one tough lady. She escaped slavery, fleeing an Eastern Shore plantation. She was a leader in the Underground Railroad, traveling at night under the North Star — probably along the Choptank River — hiding at safe houses along the path to freedom. During the Civil War, she saw duty as a spy, assisting Union forces that raided plantations and freed slaves along the Combahee River in South Carolina. Tubman played an outsized role in American history, a contribution that is recently (and belatedly)

Maia Woods had long wondered about the strange-looking house on Rolling Road in Rockdale, the one that sits off Liberty Road, boarded up and neglected. On Saturday, she found out about its years as a station on the Underground Railroad, how it's been moved twice in its 200-plus-year history by family members well aware of its historical importance, and how it was bought by a couple 30 years ago determined to see it preserved — even though it's been so contaminated by pesticides that no one will ever be able to live in it again.

Harriet Tubman has long inspired a deep sense of pride among Marylanders, especially in the rural communities of the Eastern Shore, where the former slave was born and led dozens to freedom on the Underground Railroad. While her story is taught to schoolchildren across the country and a small storefront museum here pays homage to Tubman, descendants and historians have been waiting to see her memorialized in a grander fashion. The state announced Tuesday that it had secured enough money for a state park and visitor center bearing Tubman's name, cheering advocates for the long-planned project.

Under the watchful eye of Underground Railroad "conductor" Harriet Tubman, more than 300 slaves were led to freedom on Chesapeake Bay waterways. It is one of many little-known facts about the bay's role in the Underground Railroad - the network of anti-slavery Northerners that illegally helped fugitive slaves reach safety in the free states or Canada before the Civil War. That piece of history is on display this month for another type of traveler....

Think about it: The place where crowds watch outdoor performers between the two Harborplace pavilions was once a station on the fabled Underground Railroad.The Underground Railroad, the secret route that shepherded thousands of slaves out of bondage to freedom, sliced through Baltimore. One of its spurs was the old Philadelphia steamship packet line whose boats docked at the corner of Pratt and Light streets.Consider this too. One day there might be an official Underground Railroad tour that will meander throughout the Inner Harbor's well-known tourist attractions and some that are not so well known.

As she walked around the two former slave cabins in Elkridge, Paulina Moss rubbed her fingertips over the rotted wood of the pre-Civil War shacks."We come from a strong people," said Ms. Moss, who photographed and took notes on the buildings as part of a research project on Howard County's place in the Underground Railroad network for fugitive slaves. "I knew it all along, but this really proves it."Fascinated by slaves who sought freedom, Ms. Moss, a resident of Columbia's Owen Brown village, is one of nine volunteers brought together in August, by the Columbia-based Howard County Center of African American Culture, to document Underground Railroad stops in the county.

WASHINGTON -- In the days of slavery, American blacks made their way north to freedom in Canada through the Underground Railroad, a loose chain of safe houses and abolitionist enclaves they found by word of mouth."

$100 REWARD -- Ran away from the subscriber on Saturday, 7th August [1858], a NEGRO WOMAN, called Emeline, aged about 31 years, dark color, 5 feet high. She took with her a female child aged 22 months. I will give the above reward if they are returned to me, or lodged in jail within the State so I can get them. Henry Devries Marriottsville, Carroll county, Md. In pre-Civil-War Baltimore, runaway slaves such as Emeline found aid, rest and direction with the largest population of free African-Americans in the United State and a small but dedicated band of abolitionists.

CINCINNATI -- Runaway slave John Ellsley wrote to his friend in Louisiana on June 23, 1841: "Tell all your colored friends, in whom you have confidence, that if they can once get to Cincinnati, they can get liberty."Ellsley's letter, intercepted by Southern whites and published in numerous newspapers, described a clandestine network in which abolitionists, black and white, smuggled slaves from Southern states to the North -- out of bondage toward freedom.So secretive were the networks' conductors that the system, known today as the Underground Railroad, remains an elusive part of American history, shrouded in mystery and myth.

Maia Woods had long wondered about the strange-looking house on Rolling Road in Rockdale, the one that sits off Liberty Road, boarded up and neglected. On Saturday, she found out about its years as a station on the Underground Railroad, how it's been moved twice in its 200-plus-year history by family members well aware of its historical importance, and how it was bought by a couple 30 years ago determined to see it preserved — even though it's been so contaminated by pesticides that no one will ever be able to live in it again.

John Hanson's spot in the U.S. Capitol is secure, but Harriet Tubman's chances of securing one are spotty. The General Assembly has been weighing whether to swap in Tubman, who helped slaves travel to freedom on the Underground Railroad, for Hanson, a Southern Maryland merchant and former president of the Continental Congress, in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Each state is allowed only two statues in the collection. Maryland has been represented since 1903 by Hanson and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The history of a people, with all the grief, faith and determination that entails, can be heard in the simple strains of spirituals, one of the most enduring and endearing genres of American music. This week, stellar soprano Kathleen Battle will join the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Morgan State University Choir in the premiere of a spiritual-filled program she developed celebrating the Underground Railroad. No voice in recent times is more associated with this music than Battle's.

It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom. - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass He had always loved the Chesapeake Bay and enjoyed history, but for the longest time, when Vince Leggett tried to blend his twin passions, he was left with some haunting questions. "I'd read of all the shipbuilders, boat captains and shipping magnates who supposedly made bay history, most of them members of the majority community," says Leggett, a public historian and former schools administrator who lives in Annapolis.

It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom. - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass H e had always loved the Chesapeake Bay and enjoyed history, but for the longest time, when Vince Leggett tried to blend his twin passions, he was left with some haunting questions. "I'd read of all the shipbuilders, boat captains and shipping magnates who supposedly made bay history, most of them members of the majority community," says Leggett, a public historian and former schools administrator who lives in Annapolis.

Baltimore is set to designate President Street Station, an 1850s train depot with chapters in the histories of both the Underground Railroad and the Civil War, as a city landmark. But the city's plan to also seek a long-term tenant to revitalize the vacant building has a group of history buffs fearful that the building's past will get swallowed up in any future use. This summer, the Planning Department expects to issue a request for proposals on how to reuse what is believed to be the oldest surviving urban train station in the country.

As the nation begins a new political chapter with President Barack Obama, there is renewed momentum to honor a Maryland-born heroine who also sought to bring change to America: Harriet Tubman. Bills are once again before Congress to create state and national parks that would celebrate the life of Tubman, who was born a slave named Araminta Ross on Maryland's Eastern Shore. "We believe she was born in early 1822, February or March, based on several documents that have been unearthed in the past 10 years or so," said historian Kate Clifford Larson, author of the 2003 biography Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero.

Reprinted from The Sun of Monday, February 25, 1861. Mr. Lincoln's Secret Passage through Baltimore - Immense Gathering at Calvert Station - Arrival of the Special Train from Harrisburg - Disappointment - The Republican Committee - Mrs. Lincoln and Family on the Train - Their Departure for Washington - Mr. Lincoln's Appearance at Washington - Interviews with Mr. Buchanan and Gen. Scott. Saturday was the day appointed for the passage of Mr. Lincoln, President elect, through Baltimore, and as a matter of course curiosity was on tiptoe to behold the man who had been chosen to stand at the helm of the ship of State.