Nat

iona

l Par

k S

ervi

ceU

.S. D

epar

tmen

t o

f th

e In

teri

or

The

Und

ergr

ound

Rai

lro

ad: N

ew B

edfo

rd

A Near Approach to Freedom

left: An engravingin Life and Times ofFrederick Douglass(1881), his thirdautobiography,depicts his and hisnew wife’sencounter withNew Bedford’s

Joseph Ricketsonand William C.Taber in Newport,Rhode Island,after his escapefrom slavery.

right: FrederickDouglass, ca. 1848.

After a sojourn of a day or twoin Philadelphia, Samuel andhis companions left for NewBedford. Canada was namedto them as the safest place forall Refugees; but it was in vainto attempt to convince “Sam”that Canada or any otherplace on this Continent, wasquite equal to New Bedford.– William Still, The UndergroundRailroad (1871)

When Samuel Nixon escapedfrom slavery to New Bedford,Massachusetts, in the earlysummer of 1855, he took thename Thomas Bayne and found“many old friends” from hisnative Norfolk, Virginia, alreadyliving in the small but bustlingport city. By that time NewBedford was considered “oneof the greatest assylums [sic]of the fugitives,” as whalingmerchant Charles W. Morganput it; to runaway slaves likeGeorge Teamoh, the city was“our magnet of attraction.”

People who claimed to knowsomething of the UndergroundRailroad’s operation at the timeestimated that from three hun-dred to seven hundred fugitiveslived in New Bedford betweenthe mid-1840s and 1860. In acity whose official population ofcolor hovered around one thou-sand persons, the number offugitive slaves in New Bedfordwas large even by the moreconservative estimate.

They had come to the city by theUnderground Railroad, neither“underground” nor a “railroad”but rather a loose network ofassistance to persons escapingAmerican slavery. This networkwas “underground” only in a figu-rative sense. The activities of run-aways and those who aidedthem were kept as secret as pos-sible, and this very secrecy hasmade it difficult to estimate pre-cisely how many southern slavesescaped to the North and toCanada between the 1780s andthe Civil War. Surely they num-bered in the tens of thousands.In the 1850s alone, when thepassage of the Fugitive Slave Actgave federal sanction to southernslave owners’ efforts to retrieve

escaped slaves, more than twentythousand are believed to havemade their way into Canada.

New Bedford was attractive tofugitive slaves for four main rea-sons. First, whaling, the third mostprofitable industry in Massachu-setts at mid-century, had madethe city both wealthy and in con-stant need of labor at a time whenthe higher wages and steadierwork factories offered—exclu-sively to white men and women—had begun to draw workers awayfrom whaling ships and wharves.The maritime trades had histori-cally been more welcoming toblack participation than other en-deavors, and whaling may havebeen the most open of all.

Second, the city was an activepart of an extensive coastal trad-ing system. New Bedford mer-chant vessels carried oil, whale-bone, apples, hats, shoes, andother food and factory productsto southern ports and the WestIndies and returned with cotton,naval stores (lumber, turpentine,pitch, and tar), flour, rice, beef,and pork. Fugitive slave narra-tives document that runawaystook advantage of this commer-cial network. Often aided bycrew members and dock work-ers of both races, they stowedaway amid ships’ cargoes;sometimes sympathetic vesselcaptains brought them north.Many, like Frederick Douglass,traveled over both land and wa-ter to New Bedford, while others,like Joseph M. Smith, traveledentirely by vessel to the port.

Third was New Bedford’s “liberalspirit,” as U.S. Senator CharlesSumner called it. Quakers, whocontrolled the city’s political andeconomic life into the 1820s,had taken an early stand againstoppression and any form of forc-ible resistance, an inclinationthat remained strong among asignificant group of the city’santislavery leaders until the CivilWar. Though some early Quak-ers had held slaves, individualQuakers, and many Unitarianswho had once been Quakers,were among the city’s staunch-est abolitionists.

Finally, the city was home to alarge population of color. In1850 people of color were 6.3percent of the city’s population,a greater proportion than pre-vailed in Boston, New York City,and Philadelphia. Between 1850and 1855, when the threat ofcapture after the Fugitive SlaveLaw had diminished the blackpopulation of many cities, NewBedford’s actually grew, from6.3 to 7.5 percent of the totalpopulation. And fully 30 percentof New Bedford’s people ofAfrican descent in 1850 wereborn in the South, compared toonly 15 percent of New York’sblack population and 16 percentof Boston’s at the time.

This African American commu-nity was active in antislaveryreform since at least the 1820s.When Frederick Douglass arrivedin 1838 he found New Bedford’speople of color “much more spir-ited than I had supposed theywould be. I found among them adetermination to protect eachother from the blood-thirsty kid-napper, at all hazards.” In 1855he wrote:

This brochure takes visitors ona tour of sites related to theUnderground Railroad in andaround New Bedford WhalingNational Historical Park. Thoughsome buildings and streets havelong since disappeared from thelandscape, they remain signifi-cant in public and private recordand in memory.

I waited until the captain wentdown below to dress for goingashore, and then I made a dashfor liberty. . . when the ship tiedup at the wharf at the foot ofUnion Street. . . I was over theedge and in the midst of anexcited crowd. “A fugitive, afugitive,” was the cry as Isprung ashore. . . Had neverheard the word “fugitive” beforeand was pretty well scared outof my wits. But a slave had littleto fear in a New Bedford crowdin slavery days. . . they stoodaside and let me pass.

Having escaped from Maryland earlyin 1842, John W. Thompson came toNew Bedford after lack of maritimeexperience kept him from securing aberth on a New York City merchantvessel. “I was advised to go to NewBedford, where green hands weremore wanted,” he wrote. Upon hisarrival he came to these wharves tosign on as the steward of the whalerMilwood, which left New Bedfordthat June. At sea Thompson con-fessed to the vessel’s captain:

No colored man is really freein a slaveholding state. Hewears the badge of bondagewhile nominally free, and isoften subjected to hardshipsto which the slave is astranger; but here in NewBedford, it was my goodfortune to see a pretty nearapproach to freedom on thepart of the colored people.

JOH

N R

OB

SO

N

1 State PierYou stand now on what was onceGeorge Howland’s and laterMerchants’ Wharf, one of morethan twenty slips and wharves inNew Bedford in the late 1840s.Both whaling and coasting vesselswere repaired and outfitted for theirvoyages at these wharves. Herefugitives who escaped slavery oncoasting vessels first set foot onfree soil. And runaway slaves whocame to labor-hungry New Bedfordstepped from these wharves ontowhaling vessels. At sea from sixteento sixty months, they virtuallyassured that they would not bepursued and returned to slavery.

In 1911, on his one hundredth birth-day, Joseph M. Smith told a local re-porter that he had escaped fromNorth Carolina on a lumber vessel toNew Bedford about 1830:

I am a fugitive slave fromMaryland, and have a familyin Philadelphia; but fearing toremain there any longer, Ithought I would go on a whalingvoyage, as being the placewhere I stood least chance ofbeing arrested by slave hunters.

Such a motive may have inspiredothers who escaped slavery, butonly a handful have been identifiedamong whaling crews to date.

New Bedford Waterfront

CO

UR

TES

Y N

EW

BE

DFO

RD

WH

ALI

NG

MU

SE

UM

CO

UR

TES

Y C

HE

STE

R C

OU

NTY

HIS

TOR

ICA

L S

OC

IETY

, WE

ST

CH

ES

TER

, PA

right: Born in Rich-mond, Virginia,perhaps into sla-very, Lewis Templehad settled in NewBedford by 1829.He was a vicepresident of NewBedford UnionSociety, an anti-slavery societyformed by peopleof color in 1833.The toggle har-poon he inventedin 1848 vastlyincreased the

efficiency of thewhale hunt. WhenHenry “Box”Brown came toNew Bedford hefound “manyfriends here whoformer[ly] lived inRichmond,” nodoubt includingTemple, PeterNelson, andWilliam HenryJohnson, whoescaped from aplantation nearRichmond in 1833.

Passageway to Freedom

Pathway to Freedom

This brochure was funded bythe Underground Railroadinitiative of the National ParkService, Northeast Region.To learn more about theUnderground Railroadinitiative, visit ParkNetat www.cr.nps.gov/history/ugrr.htm.

Underground Railroad/New Bedford Map and Guide

2 The Four CornersThe junction of Union and WaterStreets was the heart of theshoreside district that supportedwhaling. Along the streets closelyparalleling the waterfront and thoserunning from the shore to aboutSecond Street was a vast industrialand commercial district of rope-walks, candle and oil works, saillofts, coopers’ and blacksmiths’shops, ships’ bread and biscuit bak-eries, clothing stores and tailors thatoutfitted sailors, dozens of restau-rants and “rum shops,” and scoresof boardinghouses.

The boardinghouses and their keep-ers were critical to the whalingindustry. Keepers helped prospec-tive crew register for a protectionpaper and find a suitable vessel onwhich to ship out; vessel ownersand agents visited these lodgingsto recruit crew. At a waterfrontboardinghouse he did not identify,John W. Thompson met an injuredship’s cook who instructed him inthe rudiments of stewardship.

Two black boardinghouse keepershad notable careers in the Under-ground Railroad. By the mid-1830sWilliam P. Powell operated a“seamen’s temperance boardinghouse” at 94 North Water Street.An avowed Underground Railroadconductor, Powell witnessed theprotection papers of numerousblack sailors who had come to shipout on a New Bedford whaling ves-sel; no doubt some were fugitivesfrom slavery.

Mansion House in June 1857.Bush’s wife, Lucinda Clark Bush,is believed to have helped bring thehopeful escapees to Drayton’sschooner. Poor, discouraged, andbroken by more than four years inprison, Drayton was buried in NewBedford’s Rural Cemetery. The per-petual care of his burial lot wasfunded in part by New Bedfordpeople of color.

3 Carney Plaque, Union StreetThis plaque commemorates WilliamH. Carney Jr., the first African Ameri-can to receive the CongressionalMedal of Honor for his heroism duringthe Union assault on Fort Wagner in1863. One newspaper account notedthat Carney, who had been workingin the coasting trade in his nativeNorfolk, “confiscated himself” andcame to New Bedford in 1859, soonafter his father, who had also escapedslavery, had purchased the freedomof his mother. Loum Snow, a NewBedford merchant who had arrangedfor the enslaved Isabella White to beshipped to his home from the Southin a barrel marked “sweet potatoes”about 1850, helped secure NancyCarney’s release.

4 Joseph Ricketson Home SiteUnion StreetOn the north side of Union Streetbetween Pleasant and Sixth Streetsstood the home of Joseph RicketsonSr. and Jr. It was probably JosephRicketson Sr. who, with William C.Taber, met Frederick Douglass andhis wife on the Newport wharves andbrought them to New Bedford. Here,at what was then 179 Union Street,Ricketson’s son Joseph housed thefamed Henry “Box” Brown. CharlesMorgan wrote that Brown had es-caped “packed up in a box about 3 ft2 in long 2 ft 6 in wide & 1 ft 11 indeep and sent on by express fromRichmond to Philadelphia—marked‘this side up.’ . . . He was twiceturned head downwards & onceremained so on board the steamboat while she went 18 miles—whichalmost killed him and he said theveins on his temples were almost asthick as his finger.”

The Philadelphia Vigilance Commit-tee sent Brown on to New York City,and from there to Ricketson in NewBedford. “I received your very valu-able consignment of 200 pounds ofHumanity last evening and as mer-chants say will dispose of it to thebest advantage,” Ricketson wrote toNew York abolitionist SydneyHoward Gay on March 30, 1849.Ricketson housed a male runaway atthe time and in 1851 wrote a friend

about “the Slave woman & childconsigned to me.” How manyfugitives from slavery Ricketson mayhave housed is unknown, but hisinvolvement in the UndergroundRailroad is the best documented ofany of the city’s white abolitionists.

5 Nathan and Mary JohnsonProperties, 17-21 Seventh StreetOn September 17 or 18, 1838, ayoung man of color named FrederickJohnson (Frederick Augustus Wash-ington Bailey in slavery) arrived withhis new wife Anna at the 21 SeventhStreet home of Nathan and MaryJohnson. The front part of the househad not yet been built, and thecouple lived in the older, now rear,section. Nathan Johnson paid thefreight charge for the pennilesscouple’s baggage and took them in.Because there were many Johnsonfamilies of color already in the city,Frederick wrote, “I gave Mr. Johnsonthe privilege of choosing me a name.”From then on he was known asFrederick Douglass, one of the mostpowerful and persuasive advocatesof equal rights in nineteenth-centuryAmerica.

The Johnsons were among thebest known and most active blackabolitionists in New Bedford. NathanJohnson had involved himself withfugitive slave issues in the city sinceat least 1822. How and when hecame to the city is not preciselyknown, nor is his status. Johnsonwas a delegate to most of the earlyconventions of free colored peoplein the United States, but he mayhave been a fugitive himself. LikeRicketson, Johnson is known tohave sheltered others who escapedslavery in his home. Twenty-oneSeventh Street is now the headquar-ters of the New Bedford HistoricalSociety, dedicated to preserving andinterpreting the history of people ofcolor in the city and region.

The frame, double house next doorto the Johnsons’ home also be-longed to them. Built in 1785, it hadbeen the first meetinghouse of theSociety of Friends in New Bedfordand was moved diagonally acrossSpring Street by 1822, when Quak-ers built their second, brick meet-inghouse on its site. It was here in1828 that Benjamin Lundy, founder

of one of the nation’s first antisla-very newspapers and cohort ofWilliam Lloyd Garrison, gave whatmay have been New Bedford’s firstantislavery lecture.

6 Liberty Hall, corner of Williamand Purchase StreetsOn this site stood Liberty Hall, ini-tially the city’s first CongregationalChurch. Its first floor was convertedto shop space and its upper floors toan auditorium and meeting rooms in1838. The nation’s most prominentabolitionists—William Lloyd Garrison,Charles Lenox Remond, Lucy Stone,William Wells Brown, Wendell Phillips,and Frederick Douglass—all spokehere in the 1840s and 1850s.

But Liberty Hall is most famous foran incident that occurred here inMarch 1851. Frustrated by the failureto return Shadrach Minkins to sla-very from Boston, the U. S. DeputyMarshal was said to be planning “theseizure of and carrying away of fugi-tive slaves from New Bedford.”Upon sighting a strange vessel in theharbor, abolitionist Rodney Frenchrang Liberty Hall’s bell (whose largestsubscriber in 1795 had been a manof color) to alert fugitive slaves living

Numerous accounts have alsoidentified William Bush, a free blackman from Washington, D.C., as aboardinghouse keeper whoserooms were always open to escap-ing slaves. During the 1850s Bushoperated boardinghouses at 36and 691/2 South Water Street andat 6 Coffin Street, running fromSouth Water Street to the AcushnetRiver. Bush housed GeorgeTeamoh, who escaped indirectlyfrom Norfolk, and helped him findwork in the mid-1850s.Teamohwrote of him in the 1870s,

Quite a large number of fugitivesfor a time stayed at his houseand received the same hospital-ities as did his regular boarders,notwithstanding the formerwere not able to pay their way.If any reliance may be placed inthe statement of many of theolder citizens of N.B. DeaconBush . . . has been one of themost zealous, hard working andliberal friends the fugitive everfound.

William Bush was the last personwhom Daniel Drayton, the marinerwho attempted the unsuccessfulrescue of seventy-seven slaves fromWashington, D.C., aboard the Pearlin April 1848, visited before he tookhis own life at New Bedford’s

New Bedford in 1807, oil on canvas byWilliam Allen Wall, 1855

CO

UR

TES

Y N

EW

BE

DFO

RD

WH

ALI

NG

MU

SE

UM

Daniel Drayton, frontispiece fromPersonal Memoir of Daniel Drayton,for Four Years and Four Months aPrisoner (for Charity’s Sake) inWashington Jail (Boston and NewYork, 1853)

“The ‘Resurrection’ of Henry ‘Box’Brown,” engraving in William Still,The Underground Railroad (1871)

William H. Carney, Jr. in his 54th

Regiment uniform and bearing thestandard from the assault on FortWagner

Nathan and Mary Johnson House,21 Seventh Street

in the city. The raid, however, neveroccurred, and while Boston wasinflamed by the return of ThomasSims and Anthony Burns to bondagein the 1850s, no fugitive is known tohave been taken back to slaveryfrom New Bedford.

This first Liberty Hall was destroyedin October 1854 by a fire so intensethat it melted the famed bell. Partsof the metal were recast into minia-ture bells, one of them given byRodney French to the Rev. WilliamJackson, the pastor of the city’sSecond and, later, Salem BaptistChurches. Jackson was a free man,but his journal and correspondencedocument that in both Philadelphiaand New Bedford he assisted innumerous escapes.

On this block of William Street,between Pleasant and PurchaseStreets, several people of color hadbusinesses in the years before theCivil War. One of them was the dentistThomas Bayne, an escapee fromNorfolk who made his way to theNew Jersey coast by boat, walked toPhiladelphia, and settled in NewBedford.

Liberty Hall with its 1795 bell 54th Regiment MassachusettsVolunteer Infantry Plaza

Other Underground Railroad Sitesin New Bedford:

Daniel Drayton’s GraveNew Bedford Rural CemeteryDartmouth StreetRev. William Jackson House (1858)198 Smith StreetLoum Snow House (1852)465 County StreetSecond Baptist Church201 Middle StreetJohn Briggs Home (ca.1836)29 Allen Street: Briggs’s daughterMartha kept school in this home forescaped slavesWilliam H. Carney Home (ca.1850)128 Mill Street: Now Martha BriggsEducational SocietyLewis Temple House (ca.1830)54 Bedford Street

For more information,contact the New BedfordHistorical Society, PO Box40084, New Bedford,Massachusetts 02740, (508)979-8828, or visit the NewBedford Whaling NationalHistorical Park visitor centerat 33 William Street, (508)996-4095. You can also visitthe Park’s web site atwww.nps.gov/nebe.

7 54th Regiment MassachusettsVolunteer Infantry PlazaOn this site was the local recruitingstation for the 54th Regiment, the firstAfrican American regiment ever com-missioned. Some fifty New Bedfordmen of color enlisted in the 54th andthe 55th, the regiment formed fromthe surplus of recruits, and some ofthem are known to have escapedslavery. William Carney was one. Sowas John L. Wright, a married laborerwho enlisted eleven days after Carneydid and whose name in slavery wasStethy Swons. Wesley Furlong, whohad worked as a ship’s steward inNew Bedford since about 1860,stated in his 1910 application for aveteran’s pension that he had beenborn “in slavery.” The Rev. WilliamJackson became the chaplain of the55th Massachusetts Volunteers andwas the first chaplain of color in theUnited States Army.

The city of New Bedford built anddedicated this plaza in February 1999as a memorial to New Bedford peopleof color who fought the Union in theCivil War. All told, more than 350 NewBedford men of color served in theUnion forces between 1861 and1865 in the 54th and 55th Regiments,the Fifth Cavalry, and the U.S. Navy.

CO

UR

TES

Y U

NIV

ER

SIT

Y O

F M

AS

SA

CH

US

ETT

S D

AR

TMO

UTH

CO

UR

TES

Y C

AR

L C

RU

Z

CO

UR

TES

Y T

HE

TR

US

TEE

S, N

EW

BE

DFO

RD

FR

EE

PU

BLI

C L

IBR

AR

Y

123

67

4

5

Mill St.

Mill St.

Kempton St.

Middle St.

William St.

Rose Alley

Hamilton St.

Rodman St.

Spring St.

School St.Arnold St.

Clinton St.

Walnut St.

Madison St.Madison St.

Cherry St.

Elm St.

Eig

hth

St.

Sev

enth

St.

S. S

ixth

St.

N.S

ixth

St.

Ple

asan

t S

t.P

leas

ant

St.

Pur

chas

e S

t.

N. W

ater

St.

John

ny C

ake

Hill

/Bet

hel S

t.

Fron

t S

t.

Acu

shne

t A

ve.

Mechanics Lane

Center St.

S. W

ater

St.

S.W

ater

St.

Kempton St.

Union St. Union St.

Cou

nty

St.

Cou

nty

St.

N. S

econ

d S

t.

RO

UTE 18

RO

UT

E 1

8

ROUTE 6

MAC

ARTHU

RD

R.

MA

CA

RT

HU

RD

R.

MA

CA

RT

HU

RD

R.

ZeiterionTheatre

Spring St.Quaker Meetinghouse

WhalemanStatue

Lewis TempleStatue

New BedfordFree Public Library

New BedfordArt Museum

New BedfordCity Hall

PostOffice

BusStation

Nathan and PollyJohnson Properties

To New BedfordFire Museum

Ferry Schamonchi(to Martha's Vineyard)

To Fairhaven

Ferry Alert (to Cuttyhunk)

Rotch-Jones-Duff House and

Garden Museum

New BedfordWhaling Museum

Seamen's Bethel

U.S.CustomHouse

ParkVisitorCenter

Sundial Building

BourneCounting House

Mariners' Home Schooner Ernestina

DoublebankBuilding

RodmanCandleworks

Waterfront Visitor Center(Wharfinger Building)

AC

US

HN

ET R

IVE

R

ELM STREETPARKING

WATERFRONTPARK

TONNESSENPARK

54TH MASS.REGIMENT

MEMORIAL PARK

FISHERMAN'S WHARF

STATE PIER

PIER 3

North

0

0

500 Feet

100 Meters

Parkingarea

Traffic light

Building

Point of interest

Historical Parkboundary

UndergroundRailroad

95

95

91

91

90

90

93

95

495

195

495

6140

24 25

3

Providence

New London

Hartford

Worcester

Boston

New BedfordCT

NY

RI

MACape Cod

Nantucket I.

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Long Island

Martha'sVineyard

0

0 50 Miles

50 Kilometers