An Illegal Activity: The Underground Railroad in Delaware exhibit to close Dec. 7
Sunday, Dec. 7 marks the last chance for visitors to enjoy the exhibit An Illegal Activity: The Underground Railroad in Delaware. The exhibit, on display at the First State Heritage Park Welcome Center and Galleries at 121 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Dover, has been open since Oct. 16, 2013. Operating hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday, and 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call 302-744-5055.
Planned and created by the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs in partnership with the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway Management Organization and the Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware, the exhibit explores the First State’s role in the pre-Civil War network of secret routes and safe houses used by black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The exhibit focuses on two Delawareans, Samuel D. Burris and Thomas Garrett, who played important roles in this illegal and clandestine enterprise.
Born Oct. 16, 1813, in the Willow Grove area near Dover, Burris was the educated son of George Burris, a free black man. As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Samuel Burris is known to have successfully led several enslaved people from Maryland and Delaware to freedom. After an 1847 attempt to bring a young woman, Maria Matthews, out of Kent County to Pennsylvania, Burris was found guilty of aiding in the escape of a slave and was fined, sentenced to prison and thereafter sentenced to be sold into slavery. After being “purchased” for $500 by Wilmington abolitionist Isaac S. Flint, he was taken to Philadelphia where he was reunited with his wife, children and friends. He continued to work for the abolitionist cause until his death in San Francisco in 1863.
Garrett was born Aug. 21, 1789, to a prominent Quaker family in Upper Darby, Pa. After moving to Wilmington, where he was an iron merchant, Garrett operated as the stationmaster on the last stop of the Underground Railroad in Delaware, collaborating with a number of noted conductors including Harriet Tubman and Samuel D. Burris. He is credited with helping over 2,500 fugitive slaves escape to freedom. In 1848, Garrett was tried in Federal District Court meeting at the New Castle Court House under the jurisdiction of United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. After being convicted of trespass and debt for aiding and abetting in the escape of runaway slaves, Garrett was fined several thousand dollars, resulting in his financial ruin. Nonetheless, he continued to work for the abolitionist cause. He died in Wilmington in 1871.
