On Saturday June 18, 2022, the Recreation Dept of Upper Darby Township held a tour of prominent Underground Railroad sites in the township to honor Juneteenth. Even though I have lived in Upper Darby for 37 years and was aware that the township had a history in the Underground Railroad, I was not aware of how vital this area was in the network of Underground Railroad operatives in the Delaware Valley.

The Underground Railroad included secret networks of people who assisted
escaped enslaved people seeking freedom. In Upper Darby township, members of the Garrett, Sellers, Pennock, and Rhoads families were particularly involved in this movement. Many of the people involved in this movement were Quakers.

At one stop on the tour I attended, Robert E. Seeley, a descendent of Thomas Garrett, spoke about the extensive network that the large Garrett family had with other families in Delaware County, Chester County, and Wilmington, Delaware. In 1822, Thomas Garrett moved from Upper Darby to Wilmington, Delaware (where slavery was legal). Harriett Tubman often stopped at his home in Wilmington with freedom seekers. Thomas Garrett would then send the freedom seekers to his brothers in Upper Darby where the freedom seekers would be assisted to get to Canada as they were still not safe even in a state where slavery was illegal due to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. Together they helped over 2,700 people find freedom. In 1848, Thomas Garrett was prosecuted in Delaware under the Fugitive Slave Law; he was fined $5,000, lost his business and his home. This only caused him to increase his efforts to help freedom seekers. In 1858 for example, Thomas Garrett assisted Ann Maria Jackson and her seven children, aged 2-16, to relocate to his brother Edward's house in Upper Darby.

Another member of the Underground Railroad movement from Upper Darby, Abraham Pennock became the first president of the West Chester Turnpike which gave him knowledge of approaching fugitive hunters from the south ; besides providing these hunters with false leads, he would also inform the families hiding the freedom seekers of their presence in the area so that extra precautions could be taken.

Thomas Garrett and Abraham Pennock are just two examples of the many people and families from Upper Darby who took great risk to assist freedom seekers on their own risky, dangerous journey north.

This event was very worthwhile and I encourage all to learn more about the Underground Railroad which was very extensive in Chester and Delaware Counties.

To take Upper Darby Township's Underground Railroad Walking Tour, go to https://www.upperdarby.org/UndergroundRailroadWalkingTour. Submitted by Rosanna Ceresini