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Slaves weren't allowed to have education. So Eliza was very lucky to read and write. the only reason she had education was because she had to rend to mistress...

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Slaves were not suposed to have education this is why Eliza is very lucky to be able to read and wright anf this causes Sir to be mad because he sais he that we Must reanforce the slave law. The reason Eliza can read and wright is because Mistriss is very ill and Eliza tends to her and she is going blind so she also needs to resd to her Sir lets this slide but he is still upset that this is happining

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1854-1855

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In 1839, a Washington newspaper reported an escaped slave named Jim had revealed, under torture, his plan to go north following an “underground railroad to Boston.”

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Sweet gum (the seedpod spiny prickly burr) pg 82

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Sweet gum (the seedpod spiny prickly burr) pg 82

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"The seedpod is a spiny, prickly burr and was everywhere I

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The slaves owner where strict and they where mean to their slaves. the only time they talked to the slaves, it was to tell them to work, or to punish them, or to sent them away. While the slaves are sad and their biggest nightmare is to be sent away, and do not see their families anymore. Usually slaves are with their families, but when some of them where sent away, everyone was sad. all slaves where nice to each other.

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"The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped slaves from the South. It developed as a convergence of several different clandestine efforts. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy in a less-secretive fashion."

The earliest mention of the Underground Railroad came in 1831 when slave Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky into Ohio and his owner blamed an “underground railroad” for helping Davids to freedom.

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Quaker Abolitionists

The Quakers are considered the first organized group to actively help escaped enslaved people. George Washington complained in 1786 that Quakers had attempted to "liberate" one of his enslaved workers.

In the early 1800s, Quaker abolitionist Isaac T. Hopper set up a network in Philadelphia that helped enslaved people on the run. At the same time, Quakers in North Carolina established abolitionist groups that laid the groundwork for routes and shelters for escapees.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church, established in 1816, was another proactive religious group helping fugitive enslaved people.

What Was the Underground Railroad?

The earliest mention of the Underground Railroad came in 1831 when enslaved man Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky into Ohio and his owner blamed an "underground railroad" for helping Davids to freedom.

In 1839, a Washington newspaper reported an escaped enslaved man named Jim had revealed, under torture, his plan to go north following an "underground railroad to Boston."

Vigilance Committees-created to protect escaped enslaved people from bounty hunters in New York in 1835 and Philadelphia in 1838-soon expanded their activities to guide enslaved people on the run. By the 1840s, the term Underground Railroad was part of the American vernacular.

How the Underground Railroad Worked

Most of the enslaved people helped by the Underground Railroad escaped border states such as Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland.

In the deep South, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 made capturing escaped enslaved people a lucrative business, and there were fewer hiding places for them. Fugitive enslaved people were typically on their own until they got to certain points farther north.

People known as "conductors" guided the fugitive enslaved people. Hiding places included private homes, churches and schoolhouses. These were called "stations," "safe houses," and "depots." The people operating them were called "stationmasters."

There were many well-used routes stretching west through Ohio to Indiana and Iowa. Others headed north through Pennsylvania and into New England or through Detroit on their way to Canada.

Fugitive Slave Acts

The reason many escapees headed for Canada was the Fugitive Slave Acts. The first act, passed in 1793, allowed local governments to apprehend and extradite escaped enslaved people from within the borders of free states back to their point of origin, and to punish anyone helping the fugitives. Some Northern states tried to combat this with Personal Liberty Laws, which were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1842.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was designed to strengthen the previous law, which was felt by southern states to be inadequately enforced. This update created harsher penalties and set up a system of commissioners that promoted favoritism towards owners of enslaved people and led to some formerly enslaved people being recaptured. For an escaped person, the northern states were still considered a risk.

Meanwhile, Canada offered Black people the freedom to live where they wanted, sit on juries, run for public office and more, and efforts at extradition had largely failed. Some Underground Railroad operators based themselves in Canada and worked to help the arriving fugitives settle in.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor for the Underground Railroad.

Born an enslaved woman named Araminta Ross, she took the name Harriet (Tubman was her married name) when, in 1849, she escaped a plantation in Maryland with two of her brothers. They returned a couple of weeks later, but Tubman left again on her own shortly after, making her way to Pennsylvania.

Tubman later returned to the plantation on several occasions to rescue family members and others. On her third trip, she tried to rescue her husband, but he had remarried and refused to leave.

Distraught, Tubman reported a vision of God, after which she joined the Underground Railroad and began guiding other escaped slaves to Maryland. Tubman regularly took groups of escapees to Canada, distrusting the United States to treat them well.

Frederick Douglass

Formerly enslaved person and famed writer Frederick Douglass hid fugitives in his home in Rochester, New York, helping 400 escapees make their way to Canada. Former fugitive Reverend Jermain Loguen, who lived in neighboring Syracuse, helped 1,500 escapees go north.

Robert Purvis, an escaped enslaved person turned Philadelphia merchant, formed the Vigilance Committee there in 1838. Former enslaved person and railroad operator Josiah Henson created the Dawn Institute in 1842 in Ontario to help escapees who made their way to Canada learn needed work skills.

New York City-based escapee Louis Napoleon's occupation as listed on his death certificate was "Underground R.R. Agent." He was a key figure guiding fugitives he found at the docks and train stations.

John Parker was a free Black man in Ohio, a foundry owner who took a rowboat across the Ohio River to help fugitives cross. He was also known to make his way into Kentucky and enter plantations to help enslaved people escape.

William Still was a prominent Philadelphia citizen who had been born to fugitive enslaved parents in New Jersey. An associate of Tubman's, Still also kept a record of his activities in the Underground Railroad and was able to keep it safely hidden until after the Civil War, when he published them, offering one of the clearest accounts of Underground Railroad activity at the time.

Who Ran the Underground Railroad?

Most Underground Railroad operators were ordinary people, farmers and business owners, as well as ministers. Some wealthy people were involved, such as Gerrit Smith, a millionaire who twice ran for president. In 1841, Smith purchased an entire family of enslaved people from Kentucky and set them free.

One of the earliest known people to help fugitive enslaved people was Levi Coffin, a Quaker from North Carolina. He started around 1813 when he was 15 years old.

Coffin said that he learned their hiding places and sought them out to help them move along. Eventually, they began to find their way to him. Coffin later moved to Indiana and then Ohio, and continued to help escaped enslaved people wherever he lived.

John Brown

Abolitionist John Brown was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, during which time he established the League of Gileadites, devoted to helping fugitive enslaved people get to Canada.

Brown would play many roles in the abolition movement, most famously leading a raid on Harper's Ferry to create an armed force to make its way into the deep south and free enslaved people by gunpoint. Brown's men were defeated, and Brown hanged for treason in 1859.

By 1837 Reverend Calvin Fairbank was helping enslaved people escape from Kentucky into Ohio. In 1844 he partnered with Vermont schoolteacher Delia Webster and was arrested for helping an escaped enslaved woman and her child. He was pardoned in 1849, but was arrested again and spent another 12 years in jail.

Charles Torrey was sent to prison for six years in Maryland for helping an enslaved family escape through Virginia. He operated out of Washington, D.C., and had previously worked as an abolitionist newspaper editor in Albany, New York.

Massachusetts sea captain Jonathan Walker was arrested in 1844 after he was caught with a boatload of escaped enslaved people that he was trying to help get north. Walker was fined and jailed for a year, and branded on his right hand the letters "SS" for Slave Stealer.

John Fairfield of Virginia rejected his slave-holding family to help rescue the left-behind families of enslaved people who made it north. Fairfield's method was to travel in the south posing as a slave trader. He broke out of jail twice. He died in 1860 in Tennessee during a rebellion.

End of the Line

The Underground Railroad ceased operations about 1863, during the Civil War. In reality, its work moved aboveground as part of the Union effort against the Confederacy.

Harriet Tubman once again played a significant part by leading intelligence operations and fulfilling a command role in Union Army operations to rescue the emancipated enslaved people.

Sources

Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad. Fergus Bordewich.
Harriet Tubman: The Road To Freedom. Catherine Clinton.
Who Really Ran the Underground Railroad? Henry Louis Gates.
The Little Known History of the Underground Railroad in New York. Smithsonian Magazine.
The Perilous Lure of the Underground Railroad. The New Yorker.

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Underground Railroad - Definition, Background & Leaders | HISTORY

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The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy.

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Civil War Timeline / Chronology for 1854. The bill that would become the Kansas-Nebraska Act is printed for the first time. ... Steven Douglas resubmits the Nebraska Act as the Kansas-Nebraska Act and extends the law of the United States to the territories.

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The 1850s were a period of commercial and industrial expansion as Alexandria emerged from the economic doldrums to find itself on the cusp of the industrial revolution. The town's population increased from 8,734 in 1850 to 12,652 in 1860. Statistics from the 1850 census reveal there were 6,390 whites; 1,301 free blacks and 1,061 slaves. In 1858, with the approval of a new charter, Alexandria officially became a city.

Between 1851 and 1854, Alexandria experienced a building boom as more than 700 houses were constructed. "The stagnation and dullness which had prevailed here before had given way to economic prosperity. Houses which erst went begging for occupants were filled to overflowing... The miserable skeletons of antiquated buildings are metamorphosed into large, neat and substantial edifices which are useful and ornamental. Many of these dwellings were commodious, 3-story Greek Revival town dwellings of pressed brick with ornate molded brick cornices. Examples of these may be seen in the 300 and 400 block of Duke, Prince and Cameron Street and in 300 block of South St. Asaph Street." [Ethelyn Cox, Historic Alexandria, Virginia Street By Street] In 1850 the assessed value of property in Alexandria was $2,850,935. By 1859 it had increased to $5,306,105, after a dip following the Panic of 1857.

The strongly Whig political and business leadership supported many publicly subsidized infrastructure improvements during the 1850s. "Among the many internal improvements which ornamented Alexandria during this era were a new gas and waterworks. The gas plant was situated on the southeast corner of Lee and Oronoco Streets and was completed around the end of 1851. Underground pipes supplied local denizens and street lamps with gas as Alexandrians were ushered into a new epoch of illumination.... Through the years Alexandria had suffered the scourge of typhoid and dysentery epidemics. To eliminate these maladies Benjamin Hallowell, a prominent Quaker teacher, proposed that a public reservoir be built atop Shuter's Hill. A water company was established, and Hallowell was named its first president. The work of laying pipes and constructing a reservoir was finished by 1852 and water let into town on June 15th of that year." [William F. Smith and T. Michael Miller, A Seaport Saga: A Portrait of Old Alexandria, Virginia]

Hoof's Run Bridge

It was also during the 1850s that Alexandria was transformed into a major railroad hub. The & Alexandria Railroad was organized in 1848. "Its charter stipulated that the company's track would be laid from Gordonsville to Alexandria via Orange Courthouse and Culpeper. On May 6, 1851, the first locomotive belched smoke and cinders and the shrill sound of its whistle could be heard as it chugged down Union Street to the Wilkes Street tunnel." [Smith and Miller] In the middle of the decade, the Orange & Alexandria constructed a tunnel on Wilkes Street, to carry the trains through the bluff at Lee Street and down to the waterfront, and a stone bridge over Hooff's Run.

Alexandria was also serviced by three other railroads. Incorporated in 1854, the Alexandria, Loudoun & Hampshire operated between Alexandria and Leesburg and the coal mining region in what is now West Virginia. The Manassas Gap Railroad, chartered in 1850, was primarily controlled by agricultural interests in Fauquier County. By the terms of a lease agreement, freight and passenger service was extended to Alexandria via the Orange & Alexandria. Friction soon developed between the two companies, and the Manassas line complained bitterly about the exorbitant freight rates it was charged. Thus, in 1852, the rail company received permission from the state of Virginia to construct a parallel line beside the Orange & Alexandria branch all the way to Alexandria. With the outbreak of the Civil War, this line, which was supposed to terminate at Jones Point, was never completed. "...Another major antebellum railroad was the Alexandria & Washington. Owned and operated by the dynamic James Strange French, this short line ran from its turntable at Princess and North St. Asaph Streets northwesterly to the east side of the Alexandria and Washington Turnpike until it reached the Fourteenth Street Bridge. From there the passengers alighted and took a horse drawn vehicle to Washington proper." [Smith and Miller]

Recognizing the importance of transportation, Council purchased stock in several of the railroad companies, considered extending the Alexandria Canal into the heart of the city, and made great strides in improving wharves and in grading, paving and draining streets (such as finally creating the 700 block of Cameron Street, cutting it through and around the north side of the Christ Church yard). [T. Michael Miller, Two Centuries of Leadership: Alexandria's Mayoralty, 1780 to 1998]

The railroads had a major economic, industrial and commercial impact on Alexandria. "Wheat and flour deliveries to Alexandria increased rapidly in the 1850s; during the year 1859 alone the city received 91,000 bushels of wheat destined for shipment to other ports, making it the second largest wheat exporting center in the state." [Hurst] In 1852, the Alexandria Steam Flour company erected one of the largest flour mills in the United States at the foot of Duke Street along the Potomac River. Known as Pioneer Mill, it was six-stories high, had twelve millstones and a 250-horsepower engine capable of turning out 800 of flour per day and consuming flour thousand bushels of wheat. [Smith and Miller] "At the same time freight trains laden with guano fertilizer from South American moved inland from the port carrying an item which was indispensable to the agricultural renaissance in northern Virginia..." [Harold Hurst, Alexandria on the Potomac: A Portrait of an Antebellum Town]

Alexandria became known as a national coal depot during the antebellum era as "old warehouses were turned into storage bins; vacant lots suddenly became coal yards; and crumbling docks were fitted up as new wharves to receive the produce of countless coal barges returning the Appalachian area." The Maryland Mining Company, Allegheny and Frostburg Mining Company, Cumberland Iron and Coal Company, and American Coal Company maintained extensive shipping facilities on the Alexandria waterfront. By the late 1850s, the coal trade had become so brisk that a shortage of transport vessels left between twenty and thirty thousands of the black gold on the docks. [Hurst]

"Beside [its] railroad facilities, Alexandria was home to the Smith and Perkins Locomotive Works. Located on the south side of Wolfe at Union Street, the manufactory covered 51,500 feet of ground fronting on the Potomac River. The company manufactured engines for the Manassas Gap Railroad, Baltimore & Ohio, and Hudson Valley Railroads. Indeed, all the cars utilized on the Manassas Gap Railroad and the Orange & Alexandria Railroad were constructed at this establishment. Smith and Perkins employed between 160 and 200 men..." [Smith and Miller]

The Green Steam Furniture Factory building still stands, at the corner of Prince and South Fairfax Streets.

Alexandria was also home to other industries such as machine shops and foundries. Isaac Entwistle and William S. Moore were the proprietors of a large manufactory on Union Street where they produced boilers, mill gearing, steam engines, iron fencing and other railroad equipment. Thomas Jamieson's plant which was advertised as "...fitted up with every facility and convenience for working in metals..." produced railroad cars as did John Summers, the proprietor of a factory on the 100 block of South Pitt Street. [Hurst] Alexandria's wealthiest and most successful entrepreneur in the pre-Civil War era was James Green, proprietor of the Green Steam furniture factory where he manufactured sofas, tables, chairs on the southeast corner of Prince and Fairfax Streets. Some examples of his furniture can be seen at The Lyceum: Alexandria's History Museum.

Alexandria's retail and wholesale businesses also blossomed during the decade:

Alexandria cannot with truth be called any longer a one-horse town. How much soever evil-disposed people may talk about its slow progress, all must admit that the old City is at this time in the march of steady improvement.... What man can say now that Alexandria is a small concern when she can boast of some of the first merchants in Virginia; men who are sustained by any amount of capital and who import their goods from the distant shores of Europe.... [ Alexandria Gazette 8/11/1857, quoted from the Warrenton Whig]

As most towns were, Alexandria was plagued by fires throughout its history. Following the destruction of the town's tobacco warehouse in 1853 and other incidents, the Common Council passed a very early zoning law on November 14, 1854, which prohibited the construction of wooden buildings in certain areas of town. And after Friendship Fire Company's old station house at 107 South Alfred Street burned, a new engine house was subsequently constructed on the site in 1855 with financial assistance from the town. In spite of these efforts, a serious fire erupted at 213-217 King Street in November 1855. Seven firemen were killed when the burning building collapsed on them. [Miller]

Jones Point Lighthouse

Alexandrians enjoyed a wide variety of entertainment during the 1850s. They attended theater performances at Serepta Hall on the 400 block of King Street or frequented lectures at the Lyceum where renowned orators such as George Washington Parke Custis, John Quincy Adams, and Caleb Cushing lectured. Other speakers mesmerized audiences at American and Liberty Halls [north side of the 400 block of Cameron Street] as they debated political issues of the day. During hot sultry summers, Alexandrians promenaded to Jones Point where they visited the newly constructed federal lighthouse (1855).

Not all entertainment was so high-minded or genteel. In 1854 Council saw fit to "protect the public morality" and enacted blue laws which outlawed the sale of liquor on Sunday. Municipal authorities believed "that the sale of spirituous liquors on the Sabbath day like many other trades while it is an infraction of divine law, it exerts a most prejudicial and baneful influence upon the morals of the community." Therefore be it enacted "that all bar rooms connected with hotels, taverns or other houses shall be kept closed on Sunday... That any person violating this Act shall forfeit and pay the sum not less that $200..." [Miller]

On June 26, 1850, the Common Council passed a resolution whereby it agreed to take charge of and make all necessary provisions for the support and care of the poor within the city. No longer would citizens be levied against to support the poor of Alexandria County. [Miller]

About ten percent of Alexandria's 12,600 residents were free African Americans in 1860. They made their living in a number of ways, but most were laborers, domestics and laundresses. Poor free blacks could be hired out as laborers by the City if they could not pay their head taxes. Among the more affluent was carpenter and builder George Seaton, already prominent and respected in the community. [ Alexandria Gazette 2/12/1858; Miller] Slavery was a declining institution in antebellum Alexandria. Whereas in 1790, slaves constituted approximately one-fifth of the city's population by the 1850s, they accounted for a little more than one-tenth of the total number, because of in-migration of whites and the stagnation of local agriculture.

"Many slaves also worked along the waterfront at Fishtown cleaning and gutting thousands of tons of shad and herring. One account describes a female fish cleaner as covered from head to toe in scales as they performed their tasks with wonderful alacrity and skill." [Hurst] Because fish were inexpensive, they formed an essential component of African American's diets.

For the most part there were few racial disturbances in Alexandria during this period with the exception of a riot which occurred between whites and "persons of color" in December 1853. "Stones were thrown, pistols fired, and services at the African Methodist Church were disrupted." [Hurst]

The decade was a violent one elsewhere, however. The polarization over slavery was reaching a crisis. The Compromise of 1850 struck blows at the institution by outlawing the slave trade in the District of Columbia and by admitting California as a free state. On the other hand, it also tightened enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Acts, which infuriated abolitionists. In addition, the western territories were permitted to choose whether to permit or prohibit slavery, in violation of the agreement made in 1820. In Kansas, the issue erupted into a bloody Civil War in 1856.

The decade ended on an ominous note when one of the veterans of "Bleeding Kansas," abolitionist John Brown, led a raid on the arsenal at Harpers' Ferry on October 16, 1859. Although his efforts to provoke and arm a slave uprising failed, Brown's attack "was a fire bell in the night," that caused consternation among the Southern States. Alexandria's militia units, under orders from Virginia Governor Wise, repaired to Harpers Ferry to quell the disturbance. Brown was later hanged, but the incident served as a prelude to the catastrophic Civil War which enveloped the country during the 1860s, but led to the final destruction of American slavery.

The Alexandria Custom House and Post Office, was built in 1858, having been designed by Ammi Young, architect for federal public buildings, who produced many public structures between 1849 and 1860. Located on the southwest corner of Prince and St. Asaph Streets, it was a completely fireproof structure, made of granite with cast iron doors, window frames and stairways. The Post Office was on the first floor, the customs rooms on the second, and a courtroom on the third. As originally constructed, it consisted of three bays on each street facade, but it was later enlarged to five bays on the St. Asaph Street side. [Smith and Miller]

Travelers Accounts of the Alexandria Waterfront provides additional information on Alexandria's early history.

Discovering the Decades was created as a series in Alexandria Archaeology's newsletter, in honor of the City's 250th Birthday in 1999. A number of City staff contributed to this project, including Al Cox, Pamela J. Cressey, Timothy J. Dennee,T. Michael Miller, and Peter Smith. Some of the original articles have been updated based on new research.

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The 1850s were a period of commercial and industrial expansion as Alexandria emerged from the economic doldrums to find itself on the cusp of the industrial revolution. The town's population increased from 8,734 in 1850 to 12,652 in 1860. Statistics from the 1850 census reveal there were 6,390 whites; 1,301 free blacks and 1,061 slaves.