This station on the Underground Railroad was a destination for many fugitive enslaved people, including Ellen Craft (1826-97) and her husband, William. In 1848 she disguised herself as her master, bandaged as if ill, and tended to by her husband as if he were enslaved. They escaped from Georgia by taking the train and steamer to Boston. After two years in Boston where they were active in the anti-slavery cause, they sailed to England, staying until after the Civil War because the new Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 endangered their lives.
Harriet Hayden (ca. 1816-93) and her husband, Lewis Hayden, both born enslaved, owned this house for more than forty years. They worked with Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), known as the “Moses of her People,” in moving enslaved people to safe havens. Harriet Hayden bequeathed a scholarship for “needy and worthy colored students” at Harvard Medical School.
