Through efforts including operating a women's shelter, supporting Sunday Schools and attending conferences, she became a leader in the abolitionist community.

Fleeing to Philadelphia in 1826[notes 1] with her daughter, Reckless sought help from the Abolition Society[1] claiming at first that she had been emancipated by her previous owner.

[2] She recounted that she boarded a stagecoach like any other passenger and rode without question from Salem to Philadelphia, resolved not to return because Johnson's wife had knocked out her front teeth with a broomstick and yanked out tufts of her hair.

[2] In Philadelphia, Reckless lived with Samuel and Eliza Clement, who were related to the Goodwins, the Quaker sisters who were pioneers of the Underground Railroad.

[7] September 1841 minutes of the PFASS show that Reckless reported that the Vigilance Committee had saved 35 enslaved people in a single month and recorded her request for additional funds of support.

Reckless felt it was important for the benevolent societies to support organizations which the African American community had created for themselves, but improve them with educational offerings.

[15] Reckless introduced Sarah Mapps Douglass, who was from a more privileged class, to women's vulnerabilities to prostitution because of their illiteracy and lack of skills.

Douglass was moved to invest funds in establishing the shelter and helped Reckless and Burr teach the women skills to broaden their economic alternatives.