Friday, May 14, 2021

The Ross Cabin


 Harriet Tubman's childhood home has been found. From Smithsonian:

“She would’ve spent time here as a child, but also she would’ve come back and been living here with her father in her teenage years, working alongside him,” says Schablitsky in a statement. “This was the opportunity she had to learn about how to navigate and survive in the wetlands and the woods. We believe this experience was able to benefit her when she began to move people to freedom.”

Per Brian Witte of the Associated Press (AP), Schablitsky and her colleagues returned to the site last month to search for additional artifacts. They uncovered a number of objects dated to the 1800s, including nails, glass, bricks, fragments of dishes and a button.

“This gives us insight into a time and place in Tubman’s life we know very little about,” biographer Kate Clifford Larson tells the Times. “The community really created this woman, and we can’t fully understand her until we understand the place she came out of.” (Read more.)


From NPR:

In November 2020, archaeologist Julie Schablitsky and a crew of experts waded through a muddy (and very buggy) portion of marshland on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

With rubber boots on their feet, mosquito nets on, and shovels in hand, the group searched near Blackwater River in Dorchester County for evidence that could possibly point to the location of "Ben's Ten" — 10 acres of property left to Ben Ross, the father of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman. Historians believe Ross acquired the property when Anthony Thompson, the man who enslaved him, died in 1836.

According to Schablitsky, a dozen archeologists dug and dug through the area along the Blackwater River — eventually digging 1,000 holes in the search for clues that might link the area to Ross' property.

When the digs brought up nothing, Schablitsky's frustration grew, and she turned to using a metal detector. She uncovered up a 50-cent coin from 1808 — the year Ben Ross and Harriet Tubman's mother, Harriet "Rit" Green, were married and started their family. As the search continued into March 2021, more discoveries— pipe stems, buttons from shirts, and old ceramics — pointed to Ross' past. (Read more.)


More HERE.

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