From the website below:
"Stop 10 (page 15) Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway Driving Tour Guide.
Over a period of 20 years, 1810-1832, enslaved and
free blacks dug this seven-mile canal through the
marsh by hand. It was a grueling and sometimes
deadly endeavor.
The wealthy, powerful, and slave-holding Stewart family
owned large tracts of timber, shipyards, a store, and a
mill near here. Joseph Stewart, Anthony Thompson,
and nearby landowners designed this canal to float
their logs and agricultural products to the ships at
nearby wharves in Madison Bay.
Through her work on the docks and in the forests,
Harriet learned the secret networks of
communication that were the provenance of
African-American men, particularly those employed
as mariners, carrying timber and other goods to cities
and towns around the Chesapeake
Bay and into Delaware, Pennsylvania
and New England. Beyond the
watchful eye of white masters, they
spoke of freedom in the North, the
safe places along the way and the
dangers in between. Feeding her
own growing resentment of slavery’s
injustices, the free world beyond the
shores of Dorchester County
emboldened Harriet.
In December 1854, after she had
escaped to the north, Tubman
communicated to her three
brothers through Jacob Jackson, a
Madison resident and free black
veterinarian. Hearing through the
secret maritime communication
network that her brothers were
about to be sold, she let Jackson know
through a coded letter that she was
ready to rescue them. Jackson lived
south of this canal, and his former
home site is now protected as part
of the Harriet Tubman Underground
Railroad National Historical Park."
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