MD/PA: The Pilgrim's Pathway, 30mi.

My passion for research on pilgrimage has taken me to some pretty far-off places like Northern and Southern Spain, England, and Scotland. Our family had planned a pilgrimage this summer to return to our own family roots and walk the landscape our ancestors would have walked in the 1600s across the Scottish Borders and along the Cumbrian Coast. But COVID-19 cancelled those plans, including the research potential to visit Kinder Scout and the home of George Fox, Swarthmore Hall where we had planned to stay for two weeks. Instead I turned back to some research I'd started three years ago about the Underground Railroad and wondered if we couldn't put a local pilgrimage on the calendar.

Pilgrims leaving Deer Creek Meeting for the first day of the Pilgrim's Pathway Walk. 

The Pilgrim's Pathway is little known route of the UGRR that passes through northern Harford County, MD, across the Susquehanna River, and into Lancaster County, PA. One of three Lower Susquehanna routes, it is the only one that relied on the services of a stealth ferry from Free Black communities on the Lancaster County side to pick up and transport Freedom Seekers from the western shore to the eastern shore. From there Freedom Seekers would follow directions offered by area Quakers and Freemen, including the opportunity to rest in their homes, share meals, receive new clothes, and find safety from federal agents and slave catchers.

Visiting Hosanna School in Berkely Crossroads

Pilgrimage really is just a journey with intent and different religious traditions frame it according their own beliefs and customs.The idea of pilgrimage is important in the Quaker tradition of witness-bearing and Quakers are well known for their love of walking. I am no exception! The long walk in our tradition combines deep acknowledgment of past events and the remembrance of the historic work of people in the cause for peace and justice. After I had planned a route based on my research,  I invited a few local Quaker folks and friends from other traditions to join me in the walk. We started from our meetinghouse door to Zercher's Hotel and UGRR Center in Christiana.

The Mason Dixon Trail for several miles of hill-walking

I plan to write this experience up as an article for the Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies with a serious slant for environmental history. For the purposes of this blog post I'll just provide an overview of our walk. Know that the route is not a marked nor blazed, except for a short stretch on the Mason Dixon Trail. It is mostly road walking along secluded, shady roads and also out in the open, exposed to heat and sun through farm country.  There were stretches that were brutally hot and for that reason alone I don't recommend anyone doing it when we did in late June. Lesson learned.

Crossing Peddlers Run at the Glen Cove

The UGRR began as a disperse set of routes that led from slave-holding states in the U.S. South to reach destinations in the Northern States and Canada. It began in the 1700s and "traffic" increased steadily through the 1800s until the American Civil War. Freedom Seekers were often assisted by abolitionists and other sympathizers and given directions, sheltered and fed, escorted and  protected. Many more Freedom Seekers made the journey without help. Even with assistance the dangers of moving on the UGRR, often at night, were extreme. Slave catchers and stealers, bounty hunters, federal agents and their local deputies, and angry owners eager to reclaim their property were never far away. This was ever so true here on the Mason Dixon Line, the political boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania that has held so much interest for me personally. This most beautiful of Mid-Atlantic landscapes with its defining river and river hills was the most dangerous of all places for Freedom Seekers and even today the stain of that history continues to permeate this beautiful countryside with racist actions.

My rendition of the crossing at St. Peter's Creek

The Friends (Quakers) of Deer Creek Meeting, the meeting I attend, were very active abolitionists in this area. They were known to shelter Freedom Seekers in the old meetinghouse, in their barns, spring houses, and homes and did so quietly, abhorring violence and conflict being strict pacifists. It is believed but not confirmed (yet) that a gang of pro-slavery vigilantes learned of this meeting's activities and the original meetinghouse, built in 1745, was burnt to the ground in the 1840s as a sign of intimidation and threat. This action did not deter the activities of the Deer Creek Meeting, however, while their activity intensified along the Mason Dixon Line.  The present meetinghouse was rebuilt in 1887 and is where we began our three-day walk.

Gathered around the street sign for Pilgrims Pathway 

We stopped at Berkley Crossroads, a historical Free Black community and paid a visit to the Hosanna School where a small group of walkers were offered a short tour and talk about the history of the area. They learned about the language of symbols and code-talk, important aspects of communicating in this area. After the Fugitive Slave Act was put into law-of-the-land, helping Freedom Seekers became a federal crime. People had to signal the presence of those needing help, render aid, and not implicate themselves and others in doing so.  We continued on to the Mason Dixon Trail for a rugged few miles with expansive views across the mile-wide river. We ended Day 1 at Broad Creek Landing, exhausted and happy to see a shuttle driver had brought cold Gatorade!

National Park signage at St. Peter's Creek (now Peter's Creek) to note the river crossings.

On the morning of Day 2 we met at the Peach Bottom Marina in Lancaster County on the east side of the river. This was a former Free Black community site now submerged by the impoundment of waters behind Conowingo Dam, a sister village to the community just upstream at the mouth of Fishing Creek. Both Free Black villages provided assistance to Freedom Seekers on the York County side. Helpers lit torches to signal a crossing was requested and boatmen set out in the dark of night to bring people across. We followed the creek road up and out of the deep river hills valley to the Piedmont above. We passed homes and farms noted for the role they played in sheltering folks on the way to Christiana. Beyond the shady overhang of forested roads and out into the open farm country we really were feeling the heat! We made it to Theodore Parker Natural Area on our last ounce of energy after a longish soak in the creek.

Day 3 was a test of will!

Site of the Parker House, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired in 1851. 

At the start of Day 3 we made an executive decision to shorten the trek by four miles and started not at Theodore Parker Area where we left off the day before, but at Bart Elementary School which eliminated many miles of walking along busy roads with no tree cover.  With heat alerts in place and the prospect of miles of road walking through open Amish farm country, we think it was a wise decision. The path took us down shady hollows and across glaringly hot open vales.  We were invited to rest under stream-side trees, in a screen pavilion on an old Quaker farm, and finally, on the porch of Zercher's Hotel in Christiana at the end of our journey. We were greeted there by Lancaster County/ NPS/ UGRR historian Randy Harris and family, Darlene Quamony, descendant of Christiana Resistance participant,  Ezekiel Thompson (!), and several others who wanted to help us celebrate the completion of our pilgrimage.

Zercher's Hotel and Underground Railroad Center in Christiana, PA. 

Darlene Quamony, descendant of Ezekiel Thompson

While doing research of the area that I could relay to the pilgrims while walking, I was happy to consult with author Milt Diggins whose book Stealing Freedom Along the Mason-Dixon Line really made an impression on me. In an email exchange, Milt explained how this route may have been one of the most dangerous of the Susquehanna UGRR passages. "Spies were everywhere. Free black persons were stolen into slavery, sold not far away at the slave market in Baltimore for instant cash - a common occurrence.  Bounty hunters working for slave owners, catchers and stealers, all waited along the Line in droves." (See Notes below)

Deer Creek Friends on the road in Lancaster County

I also consulted the excellent work of Dr. Iris Barnes, a nearby neighbor and friend with whom I spent a day co-working on our doctoral dissertations years ago. She taught me the meaning of "gathering on the banks" and the importance of looking at the river as more than another barrier, but a gateway and pathway to freedom. She was my inspiration for uncovering this route of the UGRR that literally traverses our backyards and held the light of scholarship over our home ground so I could see the great importance our landscape on the Mason-Dixon Line holds for environmental history.  https://www.irisleighbarnes.net/

Quaker farmers who stood trial in federal court for treason at Christiana.

While researching the route of our walk,  I discovered the work of Randy Harris. He introduced me to new (to me) research on the Pilgrims Pathway and the Christiana Resistance.  Randy is doing amazing work with the National Park Service Underground Railroad Network. Through Randy I connected with Darlene and the Underground Railroad Center at Zercher's Hotel in Christiana. http://www.zerchershotel.com/  Until this COVID event has passed, this small but important museum is closed and their 170th anniversary celebration is under review. We are very grateful that they were able to open the day of our arrival and receive pilgrims.

From Spotts (1966) mapping the main route of Pilgrims Pathway

So while we wait to have adventures further afield, our pilgrimage walk to trace the route of the Pilgrims Pathway awakened us to the walks, nature, and history right out our front doors. Thanks to the hearty pilgrims who took this walk with me and the many historians who helped us map the way.

The main take-away for me, deep in the research weeds now on this route, is that we know so very little about the names and stories of the Black conductors and other helpers, free and enslaved,  who assisted Freedom Seekers on this route. Whose properties did we walk past that may have been once owned and worked by Free Black farmers, millers, tanners, lumbermen? Who were the enslaved of Northern Harford, Southern York, and Southern Lancaster Counties who assisted with or joined this path to freedom from here?

What was the relationship of Harford, York, and Lancaster Quaker Meetings (there were many) to Freeholder Communities? How did Quakers resolve their desire for pacifism with countering the often violent  activities of slave catchers, slave stealers, Federal agents, and their local deputies? What was the relationship of the UGRR Quaker meetings to each other? 

What is the relationship of the Mason Dixon Line to past and current racist activities, including the activities of gangs and organizations whose influence continues to be felt in this area? The rigors of the walk made this very clear and my field notes are full of questions.

The story so far is still so very simple. It needs much more work to pull it out of the muck of UGRR romanticism. We would like to make this route as walkable as possible for future pilgrims and to provide a richer, deeper experience of this ecologically and socially diverse landscape.

Looking south towards the Mason Dixon Line on the Susquehanna River

Notes:

Deer Creek Meeting House architectural history https://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDetail.aspx?NRID=623  Many people who visit our present meeting house learn that it originally was built across the road and relocated/rebuilt many years after its burning.

Hosanna School https://www.hosannaschoolmuseum.org/ 

Brenda Walker Beadenkopf, "The Christiana Resistance," in: Friends Journal, June 1, 2003. Retrieved from  https://www.friendsjournal.org/2003070/  This is written by a Quaker descendant of Isaac Walker, Quaker farmer and abolitionist, who helped Freedom Seekers near Christiana.

Milt Diggins (2015) Stealing Freedom Along the Mason-Dixon Line: Thomas McCreary the Notorius Slave Catcher from Maryland, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD.

Underground Railroad Origins in Pennsylvania, Randy Harris http://undergroundrroriginspa.org/

Charles Spotts, (1966), "Pilgrims Pathway: Underground Railroad in Lancaster County," in: Community Historians Annual, No. 5, Franklin and Marshall College.

MD C&O Canal: Biking Out and Back - McKee Beshers WMA to Great Falls, 25 mi.

Early morning on the Potomac

In my quest to complete the C&O Canal Towpath Trail this year I set out to do a section by bike. My plan was to go very early and beat the 97-degree heat forecast for the afternoon so I left home at 5:30am and turned in to the McKee-Bershers Wildlife Management Area off River Road in Montgomery County, MD, by 7:30 am. As I lifted my bike off the rack I was greeted by a very long-winded Yellow-Billed Cuckoo somewhere in the dense forest between me and the dry canal ditch.  The air was cool and a slight breeze lifted off the Potomac River creating the tiniest of riffles on its surface. I began a twenty-five mile out-and-back to reach Great Falls Tavern where my sister and I left off during our camp-out week. In my bike's rear pack two frozen solid liter bottles of water began to melt. 

Towpath through McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area (MD DNR) 

Unlike the groomed towpath from Georgetown to Great Falls, the towpath is more like an old dirt road full of lumps and bumps, dried up mud pits, and dips that hold pools of rainwater. With little rain these past weeks, the path was very dusty and I discovered another use for my pink flamingo face mask (thank you Slate Brewery!) to keep the dust and pollen out of my mouth and nose. I passed a crowded free camping area - open only to those hiking or biking the path - and sped south to find a nice pull-off in the woods near the boundary of the WMA. Immediately I was serenaded by another Yellow-Billed Cuckoo. He was joined by a Scarlet Tanager. Then a very close by - like in front of me in the woods but completely invisible - a Whip-poor-will repeated, repeated, repeated his call. I was thrilled! 

Phlox

Not so thrilled were three bikers who peddled slowly up to where I straddled my bike hoping to see the bird. "What the HELL is that?!" a very annoyed lady asked. She looked haggard, exhausted. Her partner, who never said a word, just looked at me sleepily. The third cyclist said that the bird sang right outside their tents All. Night. Long.  "It was brutal," he said. "Torture." I did my best to say something nice about the Whip-poor-will but my voice was drowned out by the bird. We peered into the trees. We looked so carefully. Nothing. Just a very loud bird. The bikers went on to finish the towpath at Georgetown. Not a bad start to my day, but a long hot finish for the cyclists peddling in the heat with very little rest. * A good birder friend of mine tells me that this WPW behavior could have been the bird being protective of chicks nearby. "They are LOUD and persistent in hopes that intruders will leave." 

Seneca Creek Aqueduct 

I was soon at Riley's Lock at the Seneca Creek Aqueduct and took another break there. Canada Geese and their nearly grown goslings occupied the muddy shores. The busted out arch held a number of swallow nests on the exposed I-beam but I didn't see any occupied. I suppose they've all fledged now. 

It was not yet 8am and a few kayakers were just putting in. I stayed long enough to watch them enter the river. A Bald Eagle cackled from the edge of the river near where they turned upstream.  I love the family history of Riley's Lock and roamed around imagining the Riley family at work and play here. One of the Riley's young children drowned here and this caused Mrs. Riley to move the family, minus Mr. Riley who worked the lock, to move up the hill away from the river to a tenant house they owned.

Potomac River

"My father came home in November and stayed until March. That was a real joy, to have him home all winter. My father just stayed at home and worked around the house. He had to go down to the lock every day to see that everything was all right and that the lock house was kept locked up. He walked down in the morning and came back. I don't know what other (chores) he had down there; you get up early and went to school, and you didn't know what your father did all day." 

- Helen Riley Bodmer, Riley Family History, 2009 NPS

Dry aqueduct over Seneca Creek

The aqueduct is a ruin, washed away in 1971. The National Park Service stabilized the surviving structure but it will never again hold water. This is a great stop to observe the Seneca Red Sandstone quarried locally. The canal served as a freight service to carry this Triassic sandstone to Washington where it was used to build the Smithsonian Castle on the Mall as well as hundreds of other buildings in the city. It quarries grey and over time will turn red with exposure to water and air. It is some of the most beautiful stone when highly polished. I have a little polished slab in my office. It simply radiates red. Somewhere deep in the woods on the other side of Seneca Creek is the ruin of the cutting mill but it's summer and I can't see in. Enough of my water was unfrozen to make for a long swig. 

Riley's Lockhouse 

A few miles on and I came to Violettes Lock also built of Seneca Red Sandstone. Here the canal is reliably watered again. Paddlers who enter the Potomac at this access point can catch a fair number of fast miles running the rapids and ledges downstream to Pennyfield Lock. They can take out at Pennyfield and paddle the canal back to Violettes Lock. I stopped at the flooded woods just before Pennyfield and added Green Heron to my list, again by call, not a sighting. Summer is when I bird almost entirely by ear when in or near the woods. The Green Heron's "skeewaulk!" is part of my summer's auditory landscape anytime I am near a wetlands or river. 

Violette's Lock

Bluffs of Blockhouse Point

It was almost 9am and the towpath was beginning to get a tad busy. I wore my mask dutifully all the way to Great Falls since I was passing more and more walkers. It wasn't bad at all and I really appreciated the dust and pollen protection. Seems I was not the only one trying to beat the heat and the pandemic. Everyone wore masks. The big bend on the wide canal gave great views of the massive bluffs at Blockhouse Point, the top of which served as a Union lookout station manned by the 19th Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War. No real action happened here, but when Union troops were called to Washington to reinforce the ring forts surrounding the city, Confederate soldiers were able to cross the river here undetected and set destroying the earth and timber fort. 

Starting to get busy

I rode into Great Falls and joined a Sunday morning crowd of beat-the-heat folks gawking at the river as it begins its drop through Mather Gorge. I gawked, too, and added a Cormorant to my list. It was getting hot so I didn't stay long. I took the last swig from waterbottle #1 and chomped down a sausage stick (thank you Grand View Farm!) and started the "uphill" ride back to McKee Beshers WMA. By the time I got to Violette's Lock I was pouring sweat but - LO! I added Kingfisher to my list while I draped my sweat soaked body over a boulder. 

Floodplain forest.

River view near Blockhouse Bluffs. 

My ride finished by 10:30am and I was soon on the road in my un-air conditioned car  to Pennsylvania. All the windows were down for the two hour drive home but LO! AGAIN! I added Turkey Vulture, Red Shouldered Hawk, Red Tailed Hawk, and Turkey to my day list while gasping for air out the window. Next section will be from McKee Beshers to Monocacy Aqueduct, a 15 mile walk or ride - hopefully beginning to catch some early fall migrants. 



Notes:

Riley Family History http://www.candocanal.org/histdocs/Riley-Family-History.pdf

Seneca Cultural History https://www.nps.gov/articles/975434.htm#4/35.46/-98.57

I never saw any of these birds. Summertime birding for me is usually by ear. Here's what I heard:

Scarlet Tanager https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Scarlet_Tanager/sounds

Yellow-Billed Cuckoo https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-billed_Cuckoo

Eastern Whip-poor-will https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Whip-poor-will

Green Heron https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Green_Heron/sounds

MD C&O Canal Section 2: Crossing the Fall Line, 6 mi.

We climbed out of my sister's air conditioned car at the Carderock parking area where we'd left off a few weeks ago. We were about to continue our walk on the C&O Canal yet the first thing I noticed was the wall of humidity that nearly knocked me over as I exited the car. The second thing was the sound of the Potomac. The C&O Canal follows the river closely for the five miles to Great Falls. It crosses the Fall Line through Mather Gorge, our destination. We figured the heat and humidity would affect our hiking plans and I'm glad we made some changes to our plans.

Canal and towpath elevated high above the Potomac.

Taken on the section we walked today - C. 1910, Library of Congress.

Hurry through the sunny patches and take your time in the shade!

The Fall Line runs from Trenton, New Jersey, to Richmond, Virginia, and along it are Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. This geophysical barrier prevented early explorers from sailing up most of the Mid-Atlantic's rivers. The drop in elevation from highlands to coastal plain, however, made perfect sense for erecting water-powered mills and industrial complexes and cities grew up around the hydro-power that came with the Fall Line. The building of the C&O Canal faced its greatest challenge here as engineers had to develop ways to lift and lower boats 75 feet in elevation.

Packet Boat on elevated canal over the Monocacy River. Courtesy NPS.

Freighter on the  re-watered ancient river channel. Courtesy NPS.

Disused packet boat in the de-watered, storm-damaged canal at Great Falls.

As engineers built all types of walls, dams, locks, and levies to make the lift up and over (or down and around) the gorge possible in the 1800s, they quickly learned that they had very little control of over the river. In high water and floods, disused river channels became torrents. Retaining walls and flood control measures leaked or failed. The abandoned and repurposed river channel at Widewater was difficult to keep watered when flood waters over-topped the canal caused multiple breaches across earthen towpath berms. It still gives the National Park Service troubles. The once-popular canal boat used for mule-pulled rides now sits high and dry in a unwatered section of canal that drained years ago during a hurricane-powered flood.

Widewater, an ancient river channel. 

Painted Turtles covered in Duckweed.

Blue Gill nests with males on guard!

Coming to Mather Gorge on the towpath. 

The Potomac flowed across this wide valley more than 2 million years ago but was slower and meandered around island outcrops of resistant metasedimentary rock. There were several major river channels and the river spread out across the hilly landscape for almost a mile. As ocean levels dropped when ice began forming during the Pleistocene Ice Ages, the water moved much more quickly carving deeper cuts and ravines through the bedrock. By 35,000 years ago - in the blink of a geologist's eye - the Potomac was actively down-cutting the Mather Gorge, abandoning ancient river terraces above and creating the dramatic scenes we see today.

Dry river channel abandoned 35,000 years ago.

Down-cutting revealed fault lines.

The Billy Goat Trail branches off the towpath in a few places in sections marked A, B, and C. Dogs were not allowed, but Amos was really feeling the heat so we decided to come back another day for that trail without him. We did take turns shade-sitting him so we could venture out on the boardwalk path to Olmsted Island. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Side channel in the Mather Gorge on the walk to Olmsted Island. 

Chutes and slides!

Drops and ledges!

Great Falls at Mather Gorge.

At several points along the Olmsted Island path you can stop to observe examples of  River Bedrock Terrace with it's stunted trees and grassland-like pockets of wet and dry plant communities. I wished I'd taken longer to observe for butterflies and birds but the heat drove me quickly back to the shady spot where my sister and Amos waited. We both agreed that a trip back in the fall with leaves turning and avian fall migrants streaming south from Canada might be a better bet.

River Bedrock Terrace - a unique and perilous habitat.

The enormity of the engineering problems required workers to build multiple lift-locks to raise sections of the canal. The rock is hard, ancient sea bottom, metamorphosed into welded and warped layers of metagreywacke shot through with quartz veins that attest to its proximity to volcanic islands. This shelf of molten, submerged rock was moving westward on a continental conveyor bringing together tectonic plates that closed the ancient Iapetus Ocean. Canal builders who worked these canyons and ravines during the 1800s had no idea about crustal movements or the deep forces that cause continents to move.  What they did know was how to blast it, shape and stack it, and move it using winched derricks and block & tackle. With sledge-hammered drills and black powder they carved out locks, built walls, and shored up the towpath.

Blasting holes

What is not as apparent to the walker or biker along this stretch is the herculean effort required to restore the canal in the 1960s and to keep it in good shape today - an ongoing and costly maintenance plan that requires intimate knowledge of old engineering techniques combined with modern safe-guarding. The Great Falls area is a showpiece of historic preservation, but we both agreed that any big storm or flooding event has got to cause every NPS site manager and park engineer great concern. The roar of the river is a constant reminder that at high levels the Potomac here is destructive and deadly.

Rope grooves at Lock 15

Though the coming of coal-carrying railroads were the main economic cause of the C&O Canal's demise, the physical end of the canal and all of its historic assets may one day be due to increasingly severe and long-lasting flood events. On average, floods damage parts of the canal somewhere along its 184 mile length to Cumberland every ten years, but managers of this and other Chesapeake Watershed river parks say that these storms are packing a more damaging punch with amplified volume over longer periods. Hurricanes and slow moving "rain train" storm systems that pull warm water from the Gulf of Mexico and dump it into the Mid-Atlantic region carry more water than ever.

Lock, dam, and spillway at head of Widewaters.

Flooding is part of the natural cycle of river environments, but the human-built infrastructure of historic towns, canals, and parkland along them is at great risk to damage caused by climate change. I emailed a friend who manages a Potomac River park upstream. She wrote back "We hold our breath and pray this one or the next doesn't break the bank for our repair budgets that seem to include less and less funding for upkeep each year." (Name withheld at manager's request)

Great Falls Lockhouse and Tavern 

We walked two days - slowly and with many breaks - just over 8 miles total. We had envisioned doing ten-mile day walks by spotting cars for each day's section. The heat however was brutal and it didn't make sense to push ourselves over distances we weren't sure were good for us and especially for Amos. Black dogs do not do Mid-Atlantic summers well at all.  So, we just out-and-backed both days, north from Carderock one day and south from Great Falls the next.

Our section for this trip - Carderock to Great Falls. 

Amos has had enough!

Amos defiantly let us know when he'd had enough both days by laying down in the path many times on the way back to the car. I was starting to worry I'd have to carry an 80 pound dog. At Great Falls we encountered an older woman in the midst of heat stress and offered to help. I emptied Amos' cold water bottle into her tiny squishy 10 oz. plastic bottle. Unable to walk very far before having to sit back down on the side of the towpath, she was pale, shaking, and weak.  I added a some Powerade to her bottle and she quickly drank it down. Her family and some passersby were able to help her get her car about a half-mile away. To a heat stressed person, however, that half-mile must have seemed like ten miles. It's no joke! We hope she is now recovered and doing well. We're glad we made the decisions we did to shorten our hikes and limit our exposure to this brutal heat and humidity. Amos is very happy about that and has now enjoyed a coonhound spa day with a cool bath, paw butter massage, and lounging on the sofa in the AC. Hurrah!


Notes:

An NPS excellent online resource, "The Workers Who Built the C&O Canal" sheds light on canal culture of immigrant workers and the every day life in workers camps along the way. Workers Who Built the C&O Canal


Singin' down the C&O by Eric Brace and Peter Cooper -