No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck . – Frederick Douglass
runaway notice claimed that witnesses had sighted Crompton near the Pennsylvania line in search of
tral Maryland and crisscrossed
Shippensburg , Pennsylvania , in their prey . Rueben Carley was a the company of 14 others “ who left Poolesville slave catcher , residing my neighbors at the same time .” there in 1832 . He not only hunted Williams said that the group was slaves , but operated as broker selling slaves for the southern market . headed for Lewistown . Shippensburg and Lewistown Whether Carley was involved in were both points on well-worn tracking the Poolesville escapees is escape routes for runaway slaves . impossible to say , but Carley ’ s evildoings were so widely known and
Whether or not the runaways had help is unclear . What would become known as the “ Underground modelled her slavecatcher “ Haley ”
reviled that Harriet Beecher Stowe
Railroad ” was not well developed after him in her best-selling Uncle at this early date . Yet in 1849 , after Tom ’ s Cabin . the Underground had gained steam Three decades after the 14 and was running at a steady clip , escapes , their story was still unfolding . A census of people eman- one “ William Edenboy ,” hailing from Shippensburg , was jailed in cipated in 1864 when Maryland Rockville on the charge of enticing abolished slavery shows that Dr . slaves to run .
Vinson still owned three slaves ,
Slave hunters scoured cen- including one named Tobias Martin . This is likely the same man who escaped in 1831 given that his name and age closely match those of the earlier fugitive . If so , this may indicate that Martin ’ s bid for freedom ended in failure .
But one small failure might reveal an ultimate success . In the 1870s Tobias Martin and his wife Ailsie , Emory Genus and Williams Davis — all formerly enslaved — founded an African American settlement along River Road a short distance from the Vinson farm . On roughly ten acres , and over several decades , they erected modest homes alongside a school for African American children and a house of worship and a burial ground .
The Martins named the settlement Tobytown after their son Tobias , who went by the nickname “ Tobe ,” as a place where their descendants could labor for themselves and be masters of their own destinies . Today names like Johnson , Jackson , Carroll , and Proctor still proliferate in the African American settlements surrounding the former plantations near Poolesville ; places born of a dream rooted in a tireless yearning for freedom .
Anthony Cohen and Steven Gillick are the authors of the forthcoming book Great Escapes : Journeys on Maryland ’ s Underground Railroad to be released by The Menare Foundation , Inc . in early 2021 . Menare operates the Button Farm Living History Center located near Germantown , MD . The Center is open to the public seasonally and features a museum garden , heritage breed animals , historic buildings and hands-on learning experiences , and interprets Maryland plantation life and the story of the Underground Railroad .
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