The Underground Railroad
After northern states began abolishing slavery during the Revolutionary era, fugitives from throughout southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina started to escape by ship from the Norfolk waterfront. With luck and determination, many succeeded in enlisting the aid of black crewmen working aboard northward-bound vessels. Two of the South’s most famous Underground Railroad fugitives, George Latimer and Shadrach Minkins, escaped from Norfolk, most likely by sea. A few ship captains were known by local Railroad agents as being sympathetic to fugitives or at least agreeable to transporting them secretly for a price. Captain William D. Bayliss of the Keziah and Captain Alfred Fountain of the City of Richmond bravely transported runaways from Norfolk during the 1850s when local sentiment against the Underground Railroad was at its highest. The City of Richmond docked at John Higgins’ wharf, east of the Berkley Bridge. Higgins was a former owner of Shadrach Minkins.
The City of Norfolk was placed on the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in 2004.
Marker can be reached from Waterside Drive.
Courtesy hmdb.org
