A Philadelphia home was once a refuge for hundreds of escaped slaves, two historians and preservationist advocates revealed.
The two-bedroom, one bath townhouse, located at 625 South Delhi Street, looks like an ordinary home but in the 1850s it provided shelter to runaway slaves seeking freedom in the North.
‘The hardest problem of trying to retrieve the story of the Underground Railroad is finding documentation that the sites existed,’ Jim Duffin, one of the preservationists, told The Washington Post.
The house was one of the stops slaves made on their way to the North for freedom
The home belonged to African American businessman and abolitionist William Still
The home – now called the William & Letitia Still House – is located at 625 South Delhi Street
‘This is one of the incredibly rare opportunities where we absolutely know that this site had a connection to the Underground Railroad.’
Duffin, and preservation activist Oscar Beisert, said the South Delhi home used to belong to William Still, a well-known African-American businessman, abolitionist and a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
Still famously documented his stories of helping hundreds of escaped slaves, including Harriet Tubman, in their flight to freedom in a book titled ‘Underground Railroad’. Still died in 1902.
Duffin and Beisert said the slaves Still wrote about in his book sought refuge at the home he shared with his wife, Letitia Still.
The house – know called the William & Letitia Still House – has been remodeled several times, the last update being in 1920.
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Source: Daily Mail
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