Highway to Freedom

Highway to Freedom. Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. , Church Creek sits along MD Route 16, which follows an ancient Indian trail between the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. More enslaved people were able to escape from farms, homes, and businesses along this northbound road than from other parts of Dorchester County., Church Creek was a thriving shipbuilding center in the 1830s. Free and enslaved workers in the maritime trades mingled on the waterfront with black watermen and sailors who traveled from port to port. These men circulated news, information, gossip, and ideas about freedom to communities around the Chesapeake Bay and beyond. They were part of a vast, secret communication network along the Atlantic seaboard from Canada to the Caribbean and played a role in the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman often relied on this network to plan and carry out her rescue missions., [Captions:] , Above: Shipyards, like this one in Baltimore, thrived around the Chesapeake before the late 1900s., Right: Skilled black sailors, both free and enslaved, plied the waterways around the Chesapeake and along the Atlantic coast.,