Tilly Escape

"[1] It was a risky trip because Tubman and Tilly would not have been able to travel directly from Baltimore to Philadelphia without proof that they were free women.

[3] Tubman sought to evade capture by going south, before heading north, and using different modes of transportation over water and land.

[2] Tubman arranged for a letter of passage from a steamboat captain in Philadelphia that identified her as a free woman from the city of brotherly love.

They traveled south through Chesapeake Bay for 40 mi (64 km) and then north-east via the Nanticoke River and landed in Seaford.

"[2] In point of courage, shrewdness, and disinterested exertions to rescue her fellow-men, by making personal visits to Maryland among the slaves, she was without her equal.

[1][3] In Camden they met up with William Brinkley who was a free black man, an Underground Railroad conductor, and Tubman's friend.

[5] Mary Thompson Bayly placed an advertisement in the Baltimore Sun newspaper with a reward for the capture of "Laura" who had fled on the same day that Tilly ran away.

[6] A historical marker about the Tilly escape site is located at the corner of North Market and High Streets at Gateway Park in Seaford.

Harriet Tubman
A poster created after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Map of the Chesapeake Bay . Tubman traveled south from Philadelphia to Baltimore where she met up with Tilly. They took a steamboat south through Chesapeake Bay and then northeast on the Nanticoke River , landing at Seaford (in the center of Delaware). They walked north to Bridgeville took a train to Camden , and a carriage to Wilmington . Then they traveled north to Philadelphia