Join us for a one-hour lecture about our permanent exhibit on the Underground Railroad in the greater
Upper Chesapeake Bay region. The National Park Service recently designated the Havre de Grace
Maritime Museum’s exhibit, Underground Railroad: Other Voices of Freedom, as a National
Underground Network to Freedom site.
Havre de Grace Maritime Museum President Bruce Russell was the head curator of this exhibit. Mr.
Russell explains that “the exhibit focuses on the Upper Chesapeake Bay and Lower Susquehanna River
watersheds and the role of the waterways as an impediment to escape as well as avenues to
freedom. We tell the stories of both successful and failed escapes, black freemen and white
abolitionists, bounty hunters and kidnappers, a murder, and an infamous court case that originated in
Harford County, Maryland case and became a precursor to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.” Mr. Russell
will discuss the research behind the exhibit and our overall approach in presenting these stories.