Transit Technologies of the Underground Railroad

“George pointed at a wire, and told his wife it was a telegraph-wire, at which she dodged back, and for a moment seemed as badly frightened as though her master had been in sight.”

–Laura Haviland, A Woman’s Life-Work, 1881

“He was shown the map of New York State, and the track of the railroad, for more than three hundred miles to Niagara, where he would cross the river, and be free. But the way seemed long and full of dangers.”

–Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet, the Moses of Her People, 1869

“ten bales of humanity, in a thriving condition, late from three plantations in Virginia!”

— Emily Catharine Pierson, Jamie Parker: The Fugitive, 1851.

“This covered market-wagon was a safe car, that had borne many hundreds to his own depot, and was now ready for more valuable freight before the city should be filled with slave-hunters.” 

—Laura Haviland, A Woman’s Life-Work, 1881 

“While stopping at Windsor, I went again to Detroit, with two or three friends, when, at one of the steamboats just landed, some officers arrested three fugitives, on pretence of being horse thieves.”

—William Parker, The Freedman’s Story, 1866

“Seven days they had rowed in that frail skiff, exposed each moment to the danger of discovery and seizure by some one of Slavery’s numerous spies. Seven nights had chilled their limbs, and well nigh exhausted their energies, both of mind and body….”

–Kate Pritchard, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, 1856