Overview
Delaware's location between the slaveholding South and free Pennsylvania made it a dangerous and consequential landscape for people seeking freedom. This route begins at The Old State House in Dover, a National Park Service Network to Freedom site associated with the 1847 conviction of Samuel D. Burris, a free Black Underground Railroad conductor who repeatedly assisted freedom seekers through Delaware. Travel north to Historic Odessa's Corbit-Sharp House, where the preserved house tells the story of an 1845 freedom seeker hidden by Mary Corbit and the Corbit family's anti-slavery connections. The route ends at New Castle Court House Museum, where Thomas Garrett and John Hunn were tried in 1848 for aiding the Hawkins family. Linking these places creates a focused journey through personal risk, clandestine assistance, prosecution, and the legal system that enforced slavery even as Delawareans challenged it.
