Family home of Harriet Tubman believed to be found in eastern Maryland

Archaeologists found a coin dated from 1808 on the Maryland Eastern Shore that portrays a woman with her hair blowing in the wind, wearing a hat that reads "Liberty."

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
(photo credit: ANDREW KELLY / REUTERS)
(photo credit: ANDREW KELLY / REUTERS)
An archaeologist found what they believe to be the site where Harriet Tubman lived with her parents before escaping slavery, according to The Washington Post.
Archaeologist with the Maryland’s State Highway Administration Julie Schablitsky found a coin dated from 1808 on the Maryland Eastern Shore that portrays a woman with her hair blowing in the wind, wearing a hat that reads "Liberty."
Tubman had grown up in slavery in Maryland, until she escaped in 1849. She was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, which secretly smuggled slaves out of slave states into free states throughout the mid-1800s using a network of secret routes, guides and safe houses leading to free territories.
Tubman guided 13 of those trips herself, freeing dozens from slavery in the process.
Upon further investigation, the Post report said that both state federal officials gave announcement at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, in Church Creek, Maryland, that they believe Schablitsky found the site where Tubman lived with her family, a place which has alluded historians for years up until now.
Citing experts, the Post said that on the spot, a cabin once stood, which purportedly housed Tubman's family.
Nineteenth century Bricks, pottery, a button, a drawer pull, a pipe stem, record and a unknown structure, helped officials date the site and come to the conclusion that it is a likely site for the family home.
“A lot of us think we know everything … about Harriet Tubman," Schablitsky told the Post. "This discovery tells us that we don’t, and that we have the opportunity to... understand her not just as an older woman who brought people to freedom, but... what her younger years were like.”
Schablitsky worked off of old records and a general starting point to find the location of Tubman's father's cabin, after being contacted to do so by someone who manages a sizeable plot of land where the cabin was believed to have been, the report said.
After a 1,000 test pits dug and no luck, Schablitsky grabbed a metal detector and began walking down an old road where she eventually found the coin.
After sifting the area, the place where the cabin once stood was found about a quarter-mile from the location of the coin. The team knew it was the correct place when the bricks, pottery and pieces of the original structure were found, according to the Post.
“It’s not just one artifact that tells us we have something," Schablitsky concluded to the Post. "It’s the assemblage. It’s the multiple pieces.”


Related Tags
slavery