From the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway Driving Tour Guide website:
"Old State House - Stop 38 (page 43) Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway Driving Tour Guide
ALSO: First State Heritage Park Welcome Center, 121 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Dover, DE 19901
In 1847, Samuel D. Burris, a free black
Underground Railroad conductor, was
arrested, tried, and convicted in the
courtroom of the Old State House for
aiding the escape of slaves. In addition to
large fines and jail time, a free African
American convicted of such a crime
risked sale into slavery. Spared that fate,
Burris moved his family to California
in the 1850s, where he continued to
support the fight for African-American
freedom. On November 2, 2015,
Delaware Governor Jack Markell
pardoned Burris in the same court
room where he was convicted 168
years earlier. Tours and programs at The
Old State House explore Delaware’s
legislative debates on slavery and
freedom.
The park also highlights the dramatic
escape story of the “Dover Eight,” a
group of freedom seekers and friends of
Harriet Tubman, who fled from
Maryland in 1857. They were betrayed
by a black Underground Railroad agent,
Thomas Otwell, who lured them into
the Dover jail for a $3,000 cash reward.
The group broke out of the jail in a
dramatic altercation with the sheriff."
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