While a teenager, Ann Maria Weems escaped enslavement in MD by disguise as a driver for an abolitionist going to Philadelphia.

Bridget (Biddy Mason) was the enslaved African American of Mormon Robert Smith, who brought Biddy and other African Americans to California in 1851.

Elizabeth Keckley was seamstress and friend to Mary Todd Lincoln and founder of the Contraband Relief Society.

The experience of freedom seekers William and Ellen Craft suggest a dramatic mix of individual initiative and organized assistance.

When President Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he reportedly remarked, "So, this is the little lady who wrote that book that made this...

The Underground Railroad’s most famous conductor, Harriet Tubman brought dozens of individuals out of bondage to northern states and Canada

African Americans Jane Elizabeth Whiting and children sailed from Virginia on June 1, 1856, as the property of a Mr. Thompson.

Nelson Gant was tried for stealing his enslaved wife. Despite a trial, they were absolved and moved to OH.

Mary and Emily Edmonson tried to escape slavery on the Pearl. They escaped sale South through the efforts of their father and abolitionists.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893) is best known for "The Provinicial Freedom", a newspaper she helped to found and edit for freedom seekers.

Mary Ellen Pleasant was a New England Underground Railroad agent who fled to California to avoid prosecution under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

In 1851, Reverend John Gregg Fee purchased the enslaved Juliet Miles from his father to keep her from being sold.

Slaveholder Nathaniel Ford came to Oregon in 1845, bringing Robin Holmes, an enslaved man, and an enslaved woman named Polly.

Sojourner Truth, born into slavery, became one of the most outspoken proponents of freedom and women's rights, both before and after the Civil War.

In 1854 Anthony Burns, a twenty-year old freedom seeker, stowed away on a vessel bound from Virginia to northern ports.

Benjamin Lundy was perhaps the greatest of the early abolitionists.

African American abolitionist David Ruggles became involved in the Underground Railroad because of his association with William Still...

Guided by his own experiences in bondage, Frederick Douglass became America’s leading African American abolitionist.

Oral history chronicles the amazing story of Augustus "Gus" West.

Harriet Jacobs and her daughter Louisa were in Alexandria, VA, from 1863-65 in order to help newly freed refugees.

Jim Pembroke wrote The Fugitive Blacksmith.He described his early life on the Rockland estate and his escape from slavery.

For forty years, John and Jean Rankin led their Ripley, Ohio neighbors in feeding, clothing, and sheltering hundreds of freedom seekers.

Fiery abolitionist John Brown dedicated his life to slavery’s destruction.

Born into slavery in Spanish Florida in 1812, John Horse eventually became one of the greatest chiefs of the Black Seminole.

Freedom seeker Josiah Henson and his family came to Cincinnati in the 1820s.

Leonard Grimes was arrested for helping an enslaved family escape. Convicted, he spent 2 years in a VA penitentiary. Afterwards, he moved to MA.

A staunch Quaker, Levi Coffin was widely recognized as the "President of the Underground Railroad," with his home known as "Grand Central Station."

The establishment of separate regional churches and the organization of African American churches in the North helped consolidate northern...

Owen Lovejoy, an influential abolitionist politician, lived here from 1838 until his death in 1864.

Reverend John Todd was amongst a group of abolitionists who moved to Western Iowa from Oberlin College and set up an important depot on the UGRR.

Robert Smalls was born enslaved in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839.

In 1837, runaway Simon was last seen heading south from the Creek Nation.

William Chaplin was tried in DC and Maryland in 1850 for being an Underground Railroad conductor.

William Lloyd Garrison is one of the best-known abolitionists, and published the widely read antislavery journal, The Liberator.

William Still, a freeborn African American, was one of the legendary leaders of Philadelphia’s extensive Underground Railroad network.

Constructed in 1854-56, this house was the residence of Wilson Bruce Evans, a leading African American abolitionist and successful member of...