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Wilmington – Old Town Hall
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Wilmington – Old Town Hall

When Old Town Hall opened in 1799 as the seat of government for Wilmington, Delaware, captured freedom seekers were held in the basement cells during the same period that the Abolition Society was allowed to meet in the building free of charge. Unfortunately, no known sources tell us whether African Americans were involved in the...

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Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park and Market Street Bridge

The unique partnership between Harriet Tubman and Quaker abolitionist Thomas Garrett is commemorated in this park with interpretive signage and an engaging sculpture dedicated in 2012.  The Market Street Bridge over the Christina River was frequently used by Tubman, freedom seekers, enslavers and bounty hunters to enter the city of Wilmington. While it is unclear...

Peter Spencer Plaza
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Peter Spencer Plaza

Significance: Reverend Peter Spencer is best remembered as the founder of the first fully-independent Black church denomination in the country in 1813.  He and his fellow trustees accomplished this in Wilmington Delaware, where the Plaza bearing his name is located.  From this institution, initially called the Union Church of African Members, Spencer and the congregants...

George Wilmer House
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George Wilmer House

The Wilmington Underground Railroad network included residents with vastly different backgrounds, living in all neighborhoods of the city. The Black agents clustered between the city core and west to Quaker Hill, as well as the East Side of the city. George Wilmer was enslaved by Eben Welch, a farmer living near Georgetown Crossroads, near the...

Severn Johnson Home Site
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Severn Johnson Home Site

The Wilmington Underground Railroad network included residents with vastly different backgrounds, living in all neighborhoods of the city. The Black agents clustered between the city core and west to Quaker Hill, as well as the East Side of the city. Severn Johnson lived on the East Side at Taylor and Buttonwood Streets, a dense, working-class...

The Rocks – Fort Christina Park
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The Rocks – Fort Christina Park

The natural landing of the Christina River known as “the Rocks” was a clandestine place for maritime Underground Railroad captains to deliver freedom seekers from Tidewater Virginia to Black operatives within the city’s extensive resistance network of the 1850s. Among the five known maritime Underground Railroad agents operating in Wilmington, resident Captain James Watson Fountain...

Delaware City
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Delaware City

Significance: Delaware City’s location on the Delaware River, the C&D Canal, and the river road offered pathways to freedom seekers and the possibility of assistance, as well as the danger of capture. [More] The settlement originally called Reybold’s Landing flourished after the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal opened in 1829, cutting hundreds of nautical miles from...