This rare image depicts a family escaping from enslavement in Kent County. Taken from the 1872 book The Underground Rail Road, it illustrates the extraordinary story of Harriet Shepherd: a slave, a mother, and a rebel. In 1855, Shepherd and ten others were helped by the Underground Railroad, a network of abolitionists who assisted them in reaching Canada and freedom.

Little is known about Shepherd’s life, but we do know that she successfully escaped the horrors of slavery and helped others to do the same. She was enslaved by George W.T. Perkins near Chestertown where she lived with her five children: Anna Maria, Edwin, Eliza Jane, Mary Ann, and John Henry. According to the 1872 book, the fact that her children were condemned to the wear the “miserable yoke of Slavery, as she had been compelled to do,” strengthened her desperation and determination. As a mother, she sought nothing more than the safety and well-being of her children. Together with five other enslaved people, she and her family took two carriages and four horses and escaped by night on the road to Wilmington, Delaware.

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