Mar 10, 2017

Photos and text by Amy Davis

: Enslaved and free blacks had the formidable task of building Joseph Stewart’s Canal, visible from both sides of Parson’s Creek bridge on Route 16. The seven-mile canal, constructed between 1810 and 1832, was used to transport logs to ships from nearby timber operations, such as the one where Harriet Tubman father, Ben Ross, worked as a timber foreman. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Geese fly over the new Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitors Center, which opens to the public on March 11. The zinc-clad structures will weather to a faded patina to blend into the landscape. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: A portrait of Harriet Tubman, c. 1908, is displayed at the modest Harriet Tubman Museum on Race Street in downtown Cambridge. The museum has a lovely series of photographs depicting Tubman, who was revered as the “Moses of Her People.” (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Angie Crenshaw, assistant manager at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitors Center, is eager to tell visitors Harriet Tubman’s story, and to dispel the myth that the Underground Railroad was a secret underground rail system, rather than a network of routes by which slaves escaped to freedom. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The abandoned Malone’s Church, on White Marsh Road, was constructed after the Civil war by the African-American communities in the Harrisville-Madison area. Harriet Tubman was raised about 14 miles southeast of this Methodist Episcopal church, and two gravestones in the adjacent cemetery bear the Tubman name. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The Stanley Institute, a 19th century one-room school house, was moved to this location on Rte. 16 in 1867. It was used continually to education African-American students until 1966. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: White perch swim in a pail after being caught in the upper Choptank River by Denton resident Vernon Jackson at Daniel Crouse Memorial Park. This Caroline County waterfront was a destination for steamboat traffic in the 19th and early 20th century. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Vernon Jackson of Denton adds a white perch to his catch on the pier at Daniel Crouse Memorial Park. Steamboats plied the Choptank River, stopping at the wharves on the opposite shore. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: A mural under the bridge depicts the Avalon, one of the steamboats that made weekly stops in West Denton, a commercial maritime center. The river is deep here, preventing slaves from escaping without a boat. Today people fish along the Choptank River at Daniel Crouse Memorial Park. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: In the rear of the cemetery behind Malone’s Church, is a gravestone for Moses Tubman, who died in1891. It is likely that he was part of the extended family of Harriet Tubman’s first husband, John Tubman. John Tubman’s relatives lived in this community, according to Tubman’s biographer, Kate Clifford Larson. Next to this gravestone is one for Emeline Tubman. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The ubiquitous European variety of phragmites, a wetlands grass, is more invasive than the native grasses that would have been common in Harriet Tubman’s day. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: A confederate flag is displayed alongside a US flag at a home on Greensboro Road. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: A notice from the National Human Trafficking Center is posted on the stall doors of the women’s room at the Dorchester County Visitors Center. Human trafficking, deemed a modern-day form of slavery, is present in Maryland, where 158 cases were reported in 2016, according the hotline’s website. It is a chilling reminder that the evils of bondage that Tubman risked her life to fight against have not been vanquished. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Workers complete the exhibit hall installation at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in late February, shortly before the museum opened to the public on March 11. The Visitors Center shows how family, faith and the Choptank River region shaped Tubman’s early years. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Contrast the freedom of the American cowboy, roaming the Western plains, with the surreptitious, harrowing journeys conducted by fleeing slaves. The iconic Marlboro man is framed within the door to an old packing house near Long Wharf in Cambridge. The building is part of the Richardson Maritime Museum. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The replica Choptank River Lighthouse, the municipal marina and other developments have completely transformed Long Wharf from its 18th century appearance. Cambridge was a major destination for slave ships, until the practice was outlawed in 1808. The slave trade continued, however, as Eastern Shore slaveholders sold their human property at Long Wharf to plantation owners in the Deep South. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The idyllic tributary at the headwaters of the Choptank River, near Red Bridges Road, was a popular area for fugitive slaves to cross the Choptank River as they fled to Sandtown, Delaware. The state line is about three miles east of the stream. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: This shallow tributary near Red Bridges Road in Greensboro was a popular area for fugitive slaves to cross the headwaters of the Choptank River. One of Harriet Tubman’s preferred routes was along the banks of the Choptank to Sandtown, Delaware. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The front entrance to the Stanley Institute, a one-room schoolhouse on the outskirts of Cambridge that was in use for more than a century. In 1857, 28 enslaved people, including children, successfully escaped near here, and their escape was called a “Stampede of Slaves” in newspaper reports. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Slave markets operated on the grounds of the Caroline County Courthouse, pictured here, and at the Dorchester County Courthouse in Cambridge. This courthouse was reconstructed after the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, a jail at this location held captured runaway slaves and Underground Railroad conductors. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: This shallow tributary in Christian Park near Red Bridges Road was a popular area for fugitive slaves to cross the upper Choptank River via Underground Railroad routes to Delaware. Slaves using water routes were more likely to avoid recapture. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The small Harriet Tubman museum, located in downtown Cambridge at 424 Race Street, was started about three decades ago by local residents, and is still run by volunteers. The hours are Tuesday through Friday, 12-3pm, and Saturday, 12-4pm. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Harriet Tubman gazes out at visitors from a poster in the front window of the museum dedicated to telling her story of escaping slavery, and risking her life to help others as an underground railroad conductor, Civil War spy and nurse, and suffragist. The Harriet Tubman Museum in downtown Cambridge features memorable photographs of Harriet Tubman over the years. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: A cat perches on rocks in the Choptank River at dusk, as another cat remains partially hidden by the tall grass. In Harriet Tubman’s time, this river was teeming with herring, shad, bass, yellow perch and catfish. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitors Center opens to the public on March 11. The Visitor Center contains an exhibit hall, research library, and museum store. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: Looking east toward the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, which opens to the public on March 11. The area in the foreground will function as an amphitheater to introduce visitors to the site. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

: In this view of the Choptank River at sunset, the landscape appears as pristine as it was in Harriet Tubman’s lifetime. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitor Center opens to the public this weekend in Church Creek. It is near the birthplace of the heroic emancipated slave who led more than 70 others to freedom. The narrative of Tubman’s remarkable life extends beyond the 17-acre park, adjacent to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County. Her daring journeys as the Underground Railroad’s most famous conductor can be explored via a driving tour along the byways that connect to the woods and waterways Tubman skillfully navigated under cover of darkness as she led slaves to freedom (harriettubmanbyway.org).

Despite modern intrusions, the Eastern shore landscape is surprisingly unchanged from Tubman’s time. Her world can be glimpsed within the remaining tidal marshes, woodlands and farms that span the flat terrain, and from the eagles and geese that still soar overhead. The Choptank River still defines Caroline and Dorchester Counties as it flows from Delaware to the Chesapeake Bay.

The painful legacy of slavery and the Civil War is also evident along these byways where a confederate flag flutters next to the Stars and Stripes on Route 313. A short stroll from the Long Wharf in Cambridge, a site where slaves were once traded, leads to a notice from the National Human Trafficking hotline affixed to the bathroom stalls at the Dorchester County Visitor Center. According to the hotline’s website, 158 cases of human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery, were reported in Maryland last year. The new park honoring Harriet Tubman is long overdue, but nonetheless a timely tribute to Tubman’s unflinching resistance and courage.

Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore Legacy

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