Known Freedom Seekers Who Fled With Harriet Tubman 1850-1860

Based on extensive research in archives, libraries, historical societies, interviews with Harriet Tubman (some published, others not published) and Tubman relatives and descendants of freedom seekers, letters, diaries, account journals, and many other primary documents, the following people are known to have fled with Tubman. Harriet Tubman is quoted by contemporaries at least six times in 1858-1859 that she made approximately 9 trips and brought away 50-60 people. I have determined that she made approximately 13 trips, but Tubman may have called some trips as one trip because, on a few occasions, she returned to the Eastern Shore from either Wilmington or Philadelphia in quick succession. A second list will follow soon, which will identify the individuals who are known to have fled using Tubman’s instructions and directions. Each trip, by the way, cost a great deal of money - anywhere from $30 to $100 each time she traveled to the Eastern Shore. Sometimes Tubman was fortunate to raise enough money, other times she was not.

Tubman’s very first trip was to rescue her niece (not her sister, but they were very close in age), Kessiah Jolley Bowley, the daughter of Tubman’s sister Linah. Kessiah was about twenty-six years old when she was placed on the auction block at the Court House in Cambridge, Maryland in December 1850. Her free husband, John Bowley, made arrangements with Tubman to rescue Kessiah from being sold to the Deep South. He successfully bid on her and their two young children, James Alfred and baby Araminta, but when the auctioneer called for payment, John had already fled with Kessiah and the children. He secretly put them on a boat and sailed them up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore where Tubman was waiting on the waterfront amongst friends and relatives already living and working there. Tubman successfully brought them on to Philadelphia and freedom. Eventually the Bowleys settled in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.

Name Date

Kessiah Jolley Bowley December 1850
James Alfred Bowley
Araminta Bowley

Moses Ross (Tubman’s brother) spring 1851
2 unidentified men

Unidentified group late fall 1851
(possibly 4-5 people)

(In late 1851, Tubman supposedly brought 11 people to Canada because of the danger caused by the Fugitive Slave Act. She most likely stopped at Frederick Douglass’s house in Rochester, NY. This trip may have included the above groups of people. It is unclear at this point.)

Unidentified 9 fall 1852

Winnebar Johnson spring 1854

Robert, Ben and Henry Ross Christmas 1854
(aka, John, James, and William Henry Stewart)
Jane Kane (aka, Catherine Kane nee Stewart)
Peter Jackson (aka Staunch [Tench] Tilghman)
John Chase (aka Daniel Lloyd)
Also possibly George Ross and William Thompson
Possibly one other

Harriet Ann and early 1855
William Henry Ross Jr.
(and possibly John Henry Ross Jr. – these people
are the wife and children of Henry Ross,
aka William Henry Stewart)

Henry Hooper December 1855
(and possibly Joseph Cornish) “

4 unidentified men May 1856

Francis Molock, Cyrus Mitchell, Sept. 1856
Joshua Handy, Charles Dutton,
Ephraim Hudson

Tilly October 1856

Joe Bailey, Bill Bailey, November 1856
Peter Pennington, Eliza Manokey

Ben and Rit Ross (Tubman’s parents) May-June 1857
They were free, but under suspicion for aiding slaves
to escape, when Tubman brought them away.

Stephen and Maria Ennals and their Nov.-Dec. 1860
3 children, Harriet, Amanda, and a 3 month old
infant; and a man named John