The Underground Railroad: Other Voices of Freedom

Join us for a one-hour lecture about our permanent exhibit on the Underground Railroad in the greater Upper Chesapeake Bay region. The National Park Service recently designated the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum’s exhibit, Underground Railroad: Other Voices of Freedom, as a National Underground Network to Freedom site.

Havre de Grace Maritime Museum President Bruce Russell was the head curator of this exhibit. Mr. Russell explains that “the exhibit focuses on the Upper Chesapeake Bay and Lower Susquehanna River watersheds and the role of the waterways as an impediment to escape as well as avenues to freedom. We tell the stories of both successful and failed escapes, black freemen and white abolitionists, bounty hunters and kidnappers, a murder, and an infamous court case that originated in Harford County, Maryland case and became a precursor to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.” Mr. Russell will discuss the research behind the exhibit and our overall approach in presenting these stories.