[1] Still, The Underground Railroad, 325-334.
[2] “Steamboat Sunk,” Cecil Whig, January 5, 1856.
[3] “Local Affairs,” Cecil Whig, February 2, 1856.
Stealing Freedom along the Mason-Dixon Line |
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Still had an additional narrative that indicated the use of the canal by these two captains. The harsh winter conditions for the first months of 1856 turned this route into a trap. On March 23, 1856, Thomas Garrett wrote to Still to announce that Captain Fountain arrived in Wilmington from Norfolk with fourteen passengers: Rebecca Jones, and her three daughters, Sarah Frances, Mary, and Rebecca; Isaiah Robinson; Arthur Spence; Caroline Taylor, and her two daughters, Nancy and Mary; Daniel Robinson; Thomas Page; Benjamin Dickinson; and David Cole and his wife. Garrett arranged their transportation to Philadelphia. Still received two groups of passengers, Fountain’s, and a second group that had arrived with Captain Baylis. Still reported that Fountain and Baylis had arrived less than twelve hours apart, but did not state where Baylis sailed from, only that “both had likewise been frozen up on the route for weeks with their respective live freight on board.” In his book and journal, Still recorded those who arrived with Fountain, but omitted names of those arriving with Baylis. As Garrett stated, Fountain sailed from Norfolk. Baylis may have departed from Norfolk as well, but Still’s narrative remained unclear about Baylis’s point of origin for his voyage. Still commented that, “without a doubt, one of these Captains left Norfolk about the twentieth of January, but did not reach Philadelphia till about the twentieth of March, having been frozen up, of course, for the greatest part of that time.”[1] The Atlantic Ocean and the wide salt-water mouths of the Chesapeake and Delaware bays could not freeze as solidly or as extensively for two months as the brackish waters of the narrowing Elk River and the constricted canal waterway. An Elkton newspaper described weather conditions that explained a two month delay along the canal route. In early January the Cecil Whig reported the following: “The steamboat Union, Capt. Pierson, belonging to the Ericsson Line, was cut through by the ice on the 1st inst. on her way from Baltimore to Chesapeake City. She reached the latter place but sunk after being brought into the canal.”[2] A month later, the Whig reported that “the ice on the Elk river about Courthouse Point is from 15 to 18 inches thick.”[3] Courthouse Point is where ship captains would turn their ships northwest and enter the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
[1] Still, The Underground Railroad, 325-334. [2] “Steamboat Sunk,” Cecil Whig, January 5, 1856. [3] “Local Affairs,” Cecil Whig, February 2, 1856.
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Freedom Seekers and Freedom Stealers along the Mason - Dixon LineAuthorMilt Diggins, M. ed., an independent scholar, author, public historian, and public speaker. Archives
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