The shores of the Chesapeake Bay have been well-established as a pivotal region for enslaved people’s journeys to freedom, but there is even more history that many of us don’t know about. The National Park Service (NPS) just added five historical sites in Maryland as new listings in their National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program.
The five new sites add on to 92 Network to Freedom sites NPS has already established. There are 800 sites, facilities and programs included in the network nationwide. The mission of the Network to Freedom is to “to honor, preserve, and promote the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, which continues to inspire people worldwide.”
The five new Maryland sites include a farm where enslaved people sought refuge, an Eastern Shore home where a well-known enslaved man escaped and later wrote an autobiography about the experience, a church near Maryland’s northern border where enslaved people escaped during the British occupation, a Southern Maryland plantation, and a canal that was believed to be used by freedom seekers.
In Annapolis, NPS says Goshen Farm provided crucial escape routes and refuge for enslaved individuals, including Jack Green and the Johnson family. The Goshen Farm Preservation Society constructed Henson-Hall Slave Garden to be like the small garden grounds often given to the enslaved workers on a property for their own gardening. The garden pays tribute to the 12 enslaved people who worked on the farm in the early 1800s…