Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman

Two men come out of the house. One, a fashionably dressed man, goes to the barn and rides away on a horse. The other, dressed in Quaker garb, approaches Harriet, introducing himself as Ezekiel Hunn. He explains that the man was a trader in enslaved people, trying to buy some hay, but that Harriet is safe. He escorts her into the house and calls for the woman, who turns out to be his wife, Eliza, to bring Harriet some breakfast. Afterward, Eliza takes Harriet to a bedroom to sleep. When Harriet wakes up in the beautiful room, she marvels at the comfort of the bed. That night, Ezekiel drives her close to Smyrna. He directs her to walk along the road until she reaches Middletown, where she can find his brother John’s house. Harriet is filled with excitement at how far she has come and how soon she might find freedom. At John’s house, Harriet is again warmly welcomed, fed, and given a place to sleep.

John tells her that Thomas Garrett will be expecting her next but warns her that she will need to pass through Wilmington, which is only 80 miles from the Pennsylvania border and heavily patrolled. She will need an escort, but John cannot do it himself, as he has already gotten into trouble for sheltering freedom seekers and will only draw unwanted attention to Harriet and Thomas. He tells her to walk to the Wilmington Bridge and hide in the nearby cemetery until a conductor comes for her. He will give her the code phrase: “I bring you a ticket for the railroad” (78). Harriet begins the long walk to Wilmington; at one point, she is overtaken by one of her sleeping spells, and she wakes to find herself leaning against a tree. A group of mounted patrollers are nearby, and from their conversation, she learns that they are looking for her. She freezes in terror. Finally, the men decide that it is too dark to continue their search. They plan to catch her as she nears Wilmington in the morning.

Harriet leaves the road and makes her way north across fields and bogs, not daring to stay on the road. Just after dawn, she sees the bridge in the distance. She finds the graveyard and sinks to the earth, exhausted. A hand taps her shoulder; before she can react, a man whispers the code phrase. The conductor has Harriet dress in men’s clothes and carry a rake. Together, they cross the bridge, looking like two men on their way to work. The conductor leaves her outside Thomas’s house. 

Harriet knocks and is admitted to the famous abolitionist’s home. Thomas welcomes her and takes her to a secret room. He cautions her to be quiet while she hides, as it is directly above his shoe shop. Thomas tells her that on Sunday, when the patrollers are all in church, he will drive her to the outskirts of Wilmington. From there, she will need to walk to the Pennsylvania border. He cautions her to stay alert, even once she is in a free state, because there will be people there who might kidnap her to get the reward for her capture. On Sunday, Thomas leaves her outside Wilmington. She has freshly washed and mended clothes, new shoes, and a silver dollar from Thomas when she finally walks into the free state of Pennsylvania.

Harriet walks along the highway, unsure of what to do. She is tired and thirsty but has nowhere to go. Still, she is overjoyed to be free and vows that she will find a way to bring her family into the North, where she will make them a new home. When she enters Philadelphia, she immediately begins looking for work. She knocks on the back doors of houses, and at the third house, a woman gives her two weeks’ work cleaning. She earns $4 before moving on to look for more work. Over the next weeks, Harriet does laundry, works as a seamstress, and cooks and cleans for various people. Near Christmas, she uses part of her earnings to buy herself a silver pistol. She tours the sites of Philadelphia. At Independence Hall, she makes her first friend: William Still, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In his work with the Society, William keeps records of all the freedom seekers arriving in Philadelphia through the Underground Railroad. His stories inspire Harriet, and she confides her dream of bringing her “people” to the North (88). William, thinking that she means her family, tells her that the Railroad might be able to help her bring her family to Pennsylvania—but Harriet tells him that all the enslaved people in the South are her people and that she will, like Moses, go back into the South to lead her people to freedom. William cautions her about the dangers, suggesting that, as a woman, she is more vulnerable than the male conductors the Underground Railroad uses. Harriet says that she has done men’s work all her life and that she is not afraid.

A year later, Harriet returns to Maryland. She learned that Mary Ann slipped away from the auction where she was about to be sold and is hiding in Baltimore with her husband and two children. Harriet travels to Baltimore and leads her sister’s family and three young men north to Philadelphia. Late that same winter, Harriet’s brother James gets a message to her: He is ready to travel north. Harriet meets him and two of his friends near Wilmington. They are closely pursued by hunters and their dogs when they come to a river. Harriet insists that they must cross, but the men are afraid. Harriet plunges ahead, and once the men see that she has crossed safely, they gather their courage and follow. Harriet falls ill on this journey, and by the time the group reaches Philadelphia, she takes several months to convalesce. That fall, Harriet goes deep into Maryland, near her old home, for the first time. She hopes to persuade her husband, John, to follow her north, but she learns that he has married another woman in her absence. She gathers 10 other people from her former community instead and successfully leads them to freedom.

In the winter, she returns for her brother William Henry. William is thrilled to see her. He tells her that their parents are well but that all their other siblings were moved to various locations around the Eastern Seaboard. He also tells her that her exploits as a conductor are becoming well-known and that, if she hadn’t just suddenly shown up, he would have found a way to get a message to her. He; his girlfriend, Caroline; and nine of his and Harriet’s old friends are all ready to follow Harriet north. During the enslavers’ Christmas celebrations, Harriet and her latest group of passengers leave the farm and struggle through the cold to get to their first station. Unfortunately, they find that the man who could offer them shelter was run out of town for harboring freedom seekers—they hurry away before anyone can raise the alarm, and Harriet leads them to a hiding place in a swamp. The next day, a Quaker appears at the edge of the swamp. He announces to no one in particular that his unattended wagon and horse are at a nearby farm. Harriet understands this as a message to her, and she heads for the farm to collect the horse and wagon. Soon after, Harriet has the entire group safe and warm at John Hunn’s house. Harriet returns to Maryland in the spring, hoping to find her remaining brothers. Before she can locate them, she has a group of people begging for her help, and she leaves with them, promising her brothers silently that she will return for them soon. When she has the passengers safely escorted into Philadelphia, William Still tells her that she has now led 40 people to freedom.

Harriet gets a message to her brothers—Robert, Benjamin, and Henry—that she will soon be in Maryland to help them leave. Her trip is just in time: Her brothers are being allowed one last Christmas dinner with their parents before being sent south to cotton plantations. Harriet tells her brothers to come to meet her instead of going to their parents’ house. Benjamin, the first to arrive, argues that they should say goodbye to Rit and Ben, but Harriet refuses to let this happen, knowing that it will endanger the whole family. Robert brings along two men and a woman whom Harriet does not know, saying that they are eager to go north with the group. Henry is delayed in meeting the group because his wife, Jane, is about to give birth. Henry wants to go north with the group as soon as the baby is born; he does not want the child to grow up in slavery, and he reasons that if he is free, he will have more opportunity to save both Jane and the baby. When Harriet realizes that the group might be delayed because of Henry, she sends the two men whom Robert brought with him over to her parents’ house to ask for some food. Ben comes just outside the door and whispers, “Harriet, honey […] here’s food for you all, and the blanket from my bed” (105-06). He says that he will not come any further, as when he is questioned about where his sons have gone, he wants to honestly be able to say that he has not seen them.

Just after dawn, Henry finally appears. Jane has delivered a son, and he intends to be able to “raise him up to be a Yankee” (106). As evening approaches, Ben comes back outside and approaches the fodder house where the group is hidden. He ties a blindfold around his eyes and says that he will walk with the group a little ways but will not look at them. Harriet throws her arms around her father, noticing how old he has grown during her years away. Harriet and Benjamin link arms with their father and lead him for a while until Ben says that he should get back to the cabin. Harriet tells him that she will come back soon, and Ben heads home. It takes several more days, but Harriet successfully leads the group back to Philadelphia.

Harriet is always thinking about how to get her parents to the North. She worries that since they are both past 80 years old, they will not be physically able to make the long journey on foot. She gets a message that her father is in trouble for helping some freedom seekers and has been put in jail. She asks the Anti-Slavery Society for money to help her free her father, but they have no money to give her. Harriet sits down in a chair by the door and proclaims that she will not leave until she has a way to rescue her parents. People begin to arrive with donations to her cause. By nightfall, she has $60. Harriet slips back into Maryland and goes straight to her mother. After eight years, they are delighted to be reunited, but they quickly turn their attention to planning. A friend of Ben, Jacob Jackson, offers to saw a hole in the shack where Ben is being held, liberating him under cover of darkness. Harriet tells her mother that, in the morning, she must take Ben some breakfast and warn him of what will happen later that night. Rit protests that the sheriff will hear any message she tries to pass to Ben. Harriet teaches her mother a song that will serve as the message. She asks to use Jacob’s horse, promising that either the horse will be returned or she will pay Jacob for it. She also asks that Jacob send some of the local children to scavenge some wheels and boards so that she can build a carriage.

In the morning, Rit sings to Ben, “Good news, the chariot’s coming” (112), and he understands that this means that Harriet has arrived to rescue them. All day, Harriet supervises the building of the makeshift carriage that will carry her parents. When night falls, Jacob leaves to free Ben from jail. When Ben arrives, Harriet bustles her parents into the carriage and explains that they must leave the state quickly. Near the Delaware border, she has arranged for a Quaker railroad agent to sell them train tickets, and they will ride to Wilmington on the train. Once Harriet has their tickets and forged papers, she explains that she cannot go with them—from here to the border of Pennsylvania, her picture is everywhere, and people are always looking for her. She explains how to find Thomas Garrett’s home in Wilmington, promising to meet them there on the following day. From Thomas’s house, Harriet and her parents travel in Thomas’s carriage into Pennsylvania and to the office of the Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1850, the same year that Harriet begins working as a conductor for the Underground Railroad, the United States passes the Fugitive Slave Act. This law requires law enforcement officials to find freedom seekers who have reached the North and return them back to enslavement in the South. This creates fear in the Black residents of the North who have self-emancipated from enslavement; although they have built new lives and a new community, they could be ripped from their new lives and sent back to the South. Large numbers of people begin to emigrate to Canada, a place where they are guaranteed freedom. Abolitionists begin breaking into jails and removing captured Black individuals and helping them get to Canada. Newly self-emancipated people no longer stop their journey in Philadelphia: Instead, they journey another thousand miles into Canada.

Harriet begins leading people all the way into Canada, too. She meets many more Northern abolitionists along the way, including Frederick Douglass. On her first trip to Canada, escorting William Henry and Catherine, Harriet discovers the small community of St. Catharines, Ontario. Here, self-emancipated Black people are building a community together. It is bitterly cold, and the people lack warm clothing. Harriet encourages them to believe in their own abilities and strength. She helps in every way she can—chopping wood, cooking, and nursing the sick. By springtime, they have built a small collection of homes and started fields full of crops. Later, Harriet returns with her other brothers. St. Catharines has grown to 6,000 residents, and it now has a railroad stop. When she leads Rit and Ben north, Harriet brings them to St. Catharines and builds a house for them. The whole family is now together, living as free citizens of St. Catharines. Harriet begins splitting her time between St. Catharines and the United States: A few months of each year, she is with her family, and for the rest of the year, she continues making trips into the South to help freedom seekers find their way to the North.

Harriet becomes famous for her work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. She is known as “Moses,” and people believe mythical stories about her, such as that she is the “tallest woman you ever did see” and that she can see in the dark, like a cat (127). Enslaved people eagerly wait for news that she is coming to their area, and enslavers furiously make plans to stop her, including offering an enormous reward for Harriet’s capture. Harriet is very careful, however, and she is not caught on any of her trips to the South. She knows the countryside well, creates effective disguises for herself, and creates passwords and codes in the colloquial speech and spiritual songs of her community. She is strategic, planning her trips for times when enslavers are distracted with holidays and Saturday-night parties. Harriet conducts her groups of freedom seekers with generosity and strict discipline: She helps carry children for exhausted mothers and makes sure that her “passengers” are fed before she feeds herself, but she also uses her pistol to prevent anyone from turning back and exposing the group to danger. However, the sleeping spells that continue to happen at unpredictable and often inconvenient times present challenges. Harriet makes her last trip as a conductor on the Underground Railroad in December 1860, just months before the beginning of the Civil War.