Gunpowder Chronicle posted on August 4, 2007 9:35 PM | Rating:
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I have been reading the railroad historical volume Triumph VI by Charles Roberts and David Messer, a great Christmas gift from my mom and her boyfriend. This volume details the years 1827-2003 in the epic struggle between the Baltimore and Ohio and the Pennsylvania Railroad. One chapter is dedicated to the Northern Central Railroad, which at its height, ran from Canton through the Gunpowder River valleys straight through to Lake Ontario.
Of course, the Northern Central was founded in 1854, just four years after the passage of the horrific Fugitive Slave Act. The route of the Northern Central -- out of the Jones Falls valley and up through central Baltimore County -- was oddly also the same route for the Underground Railroad. It is one of the oddities of history that several of the station managers -- Cockeysville, White Hall, and Parkton -- served as agents on the Underground Railroad.
However, the official policy of the railroad was to return any fugitive slaves found to be riding the rails. To this effect, they kept and entire string of stock cars available at the Freeland siding-- less than a mile from the Pennsylvania border, where they certainly would have found freedom. Of course, Freeland was actually named for a farmer, but the irony is all the same.