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.