Event Is Rescheduled: New Dates for October & November COMING SOON!

September 14th & 28th - Chesapeake Water Tours

 September 22nd - Cecilton

The C&D Canal at Chesapeake City

815 Bethel Road, Chesapeake City, MD 21915

Before 1829, boats bound for Philadelphia from the Chesapeake Bay had to take the roundabout route, sailing down to the mouth of the Bay and then circling back up along the Atlantic Coast, into the Delaware Bay, and, finally, up the Delaware River.  The opening of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal made things much easier. With a 14-mile straight shot between the Elk River on the west and the Delaware River on the east, the C&D Canal slashed some 300 nautical miles and 15 hours of time off a trip between Baltimore and Philadelphia.  The Chesapeake Bay had lots of sheltered harbors to offer in bad weather, so it was a safer sail. It also had more ports of call, with each one offering boat captains the possibility of extra profits by way of deliveries and pickups. Quite a few boats taking this new route across the upper Delmarva Peninsula had passengers aboard as well, including passengers who were enslaved people trying to find a way to freedom.

Perryville Railroad Ferry and Station

Perryville, MD 21903

This location is close to where the eastern end of the Susquehanna River Rail Bridge joins the embankment carrying the tracks. Since colonial times, Perryville and Havre de Grace, its sister town located on the opposite bank, have constituted an important crossing point at the meeting of the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay.  The Perryville site has been added to the Network to Freedom because numerous enslaved persons have been documented as using the railroad and ferry to journey northward to free states and Canada. One of those freedom seekers was famed abolitionist, thinker and writer Frederick Douglass, who later in life recounted the details of his 1838 escape from slavery in Maryland via the newly built railroad and ferry.

Borrowing identification papers from a free African American friend who was also a sailor, Douglass dressed the part and boarded a train in Baltimore just as it was leaving. He recalled: “It was…an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to put in jeopardy his own liberty [by lending his papers] that another might be free…Had I gone into the station and offered to purchase a ticket, I should have been instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested.”

Turkey Point Farm & Light Station at Elk Neck State Park

4395 Turkey Point Road, North East, MD 21901

This site exemplifies the contrasting symbolism found along freedom seekers’ journeys. The Turkey Point Light Station was a beacon of hope and guidepost for those navigating the Chesapeake Bay and Elk River north to freedom. Meanwhile, people enslaved to fish and cultivate the Turkey Point Farm fled from the very land on which the light station sat.

 Union Bethel AME Church of Cecilton

161 Church Street, Cecilton, MD 21913

 Today’s church bears direct witness to its roots, which are traced back to the 1850s. In that tumultuous period, “Uncle Perry Hinson” ” built a small house of worship on the outskirts of Cecilton amidst the woods. As the only place where Black people could gather locally, faith and kinship aided freedom seekers and resistance, the modest sanctuary serving as a refuge for worship, education, fellowship, and the pursuit of equality.