Latest Network Members of 2026

Discover the newest members of the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom! Our member sites help us to understand the significance of the Underground Railroad and the broader history of the United States. Through preservation, commemoration, interpretation, and education these resources offer a comprehensive overview of the people, places, and events associated with the Underground Railroad. Learn how to become a part of the Network to Freedom Program.

The network’s new sites, facilities, and programs that joined in 2026 are listed below. Some of the sites may be privately owned and not open to the public. Please respect the privacy of the owners. Explore past Network to Freedom places and participants.

California

Hackett House - Archy Lee Escape Site
Sacramento, California

The Hackett House, a Black-owned hotel in Sacramento, served as a pivotal Underground Railroad site where the 1858 arrest of Archy Lee ignited a landmark legal battle and a massive mobilization of California’s Black community, ultimately resulting in a federal ruling that secured Lee's freedom.

Colorado

Riverside Cemetery
Denver, Colorado

Denver’s Riverside Cemetery serves as the final resting place for Barney Ford, Henry Wagoner and Silas Soule, three prominent figures who collaborated with abolitionist leaders like John Brown and Vigilance Committees to facilitate daring escapes before migrating to Colorado during the gold rush.

Delaware

Perils of the Journey: Flight and Clash at the Todd Hotel
Centreville, Delaware

Canby Grove Park marks the site of a violent 1857 confrontation at the former Todd Hotel, where a group of approximately 18 freedom seekers, potentially advised by Harriet Tubman, bravely fought off a mob during their perilous journey from Maryland through Delaware toward freedom. 

District of Columbia

Escape, Service and Memory, Archer Alexander and the Empancipation Memorial
Washington D.C.

The Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., honors the formally enslaved community that paid for as a tribute to Lincoln after his assassination and the legacy of Archer Alexander. Alexander’s daring 1863 escape and intelligence work for Union forces served as the real-life model for the monument’s figure and a symbol of the thousands of enslaved people who achieved self-liberation through wartime resistance.

Georgia

McDonough Memorial Cemetery
McDonough, Georgia

The cemetery is the final resting place of two documented freedom seekers, Anthony Crockett and Halloway Crockett. Records show that both men were born enslaved in Henry County. Both escaped from enslavement and subsequently served in the United States Colored Troops.

The 1526 San Miguel de Gualdape Slave Uprising
Darien, Georgia

In 1526, approximately 100 enslaved Africans brought to the short-lived Spanish settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape staged the nation's earliest known slave revolt, in what is today Southeast Georgia, by burning buildings and escaping into the nearby woods to live in an early form of marronage amongst the Native Guale people.

Illinois

Midwest Underground Railroad Network
South Holland, Illinois

The network is a community based educational program that preserves and shares Midwest Underground Railroad history through immersive public tours, performances, and educational projects.

Rev. John and Lucinda Cross Home
Batavia, Illinois

The Batavia family home of Reverend John and Lucinda Cross stands as an interpretation place that highlights John Cross’s involvement with creating a physical network across Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois and was arrested multiple times for assisting freedom seekers. (Not open to the public)

St. Charles History Museum
St. Charles, Illinois

The St. Charles History Museum is a research facility preserves primary and secondary documentation that supported antislavery and abolitionist activity where, beginning in 1842, hundreds of freedom seekers utilized the town's strategic infrastructure and proximity to Chicago to secure their liberty or establish new lives within the community.

Iowa

Burial Site of Samuel Luke Howe and Charlotte Perrin Howe in Old City Cemetery
Mount Pleasant, Iowa

The cemetery is the final resting place of Samuel Luke Howe (1808-1877) and Charlotte Perrin Howe (1811-1896) who, beginning in 1841, were abolitionists and Underground Railroad operatives in southeast Iowa.

Kentucky

Catlettsburg Riverfront
Catlettsburg, Kentucky

During the Civil War, the Union supply hub of Catlettsburg served as the launch point for one of Kentucky’s largest successful slave escapes. The group "Piketon 59", aided by abolitionist officers and future U.S. President James A. Garfield, survived an armed pursuit to reach freedom in Ohio aboard a government-contracted steamer.

Maine

James Matthews Burial Site
Hallowell, Maine

The grave of James Matthews in Hallowell, Maine, serves as a lasting tribute to a man who escaped enslavement in South Carolina via a maritime route in 1837 and lived the remainder of his life supported by a local community that documented his testimony, funded his burial and continues to honor his journey as an example of the Underground Railroad’s cooperative networks.

Maryland

Brown-Cummens Escape Site
Hagerstown, Maryland

This house, once owned by enslaver Jacob Hollingsworth, was the site of two group escapes to Pennsylvania: In 1847, Lloyd Brown, Ann Brown and Hester Norman escaped. In 1854, Daphne Cummens, her two children and Charles Moody fled using Hollingsworth's carriage.

Casselman River Bridge on The National Road
Grantsville, Maryland

The Casselman River Bridge, a historic 1813 stone bridge on the National Road, serves as a vital site for interpreting the Underground Railroad's history, as it was traversed by countless travelers and freedom seekers, including Josiah Henson, who utilized the road as a corridor between Maryland, Virginia, and the free soil of Pennsylvania.

Michigan

Henry Bibb in Detroit
Detroit, Michigan

Henry Bibb was a self-emancipated abolitionist born in Shelby County, Ky. He was a strong advocate for both abolition and Black migration to Canada. Bibb is perhaps best known for his self-published 1849 autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave, in which he recounted his early life as an enslaved person, his multiple attempts to gain freedom and his commitment to ending slavery in the United States.

Homesite of Asher and Catherine Aray
Ypsilanti, Michigan

Asher Aray, a free Black abolitionist from Michigan, used his farm as an Underground Railroad station to safely transport dozens of freedom seekers to freedom in Canada with the help of his wife, Catherine.

William Lambert Homesite
Detroit, Michigan

William Lambert, a free-born tailor and prominent Black leader, utilized his Detroit home and business to coordinate a sophisticated Underground Railroad network, leading the Colored Vigilant Committee and collaborating with national figures like John Brown to transform the city into a critical terminal for freedom seekers crossing into Canada.

Woodstock Manual Labor Institute
Addison, Michigan

Prior Foster, a free-born Black activist and Underground Railroad conductor, established the Woodstock Manual Labor Institute in 1844 as a rare, Black-operated school in Michigan where freedom seekers could pay tuition through labor to gain the education and vocational training necessary for success in a free society.

Minnesota

Eliza Winston Exhibit
Minneapolis, Minnesota

The exhibit chronicles the story of Eliza Winston’s successful bid for freedom in the summer of 1860. Eliza Winston achieved her freedom after local abolitionists, including Emily and Ralph Grey, filed a legal claim on her behalf and the Hennepin County Court declared her free.

Missouri

Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church and Cemetery
Wildwood, Missouri

The Mount Pleasant Baptist Church and Cemetery in Wildwood, Missouri serves as a vital commemorative site for eight men who fled nearby plantations in 1864 to enlist in the 68th United States Colored Infantry, several of whom returned after the Civil War to help establish the church and were eventually interred in its cemetery.

Ohio

David Adams and the Underground Railroad in Hancock County
Findlay, Ohio

The Ohio Historical Marker, "The Underground Railroad in Hancock County," in downtown Findlay commemorates David Adams, a free Black barber and Underground Railroad conductor. In an 1894 interview corroborated by historical records, Adams detailed how his family operated a multigenerational Underground Railroad network in Ohio that guided freedom seekers from Urbana through Hancock County toward Canada.

George and Sarah Gammon House
Springfield, Ohio

Despite the dangers of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, George and Sarah Gammon utilized their brick cottage, which still stands today, in Springfield, Ohio, to provide vital aid to freedom seekers along the Underground Railroad.

James M. Ashley Residence Historical Marker
Portsmouth, Ohio

A historical marker in Portsmouth, Ohio, commemorates the residence of James M. Ashley, a lifelong Underground Railroad conductor who, during his early years in Scioto County, collaborated with both Black and white allies to guide freedom seekers across the Ohio River toward safety.

Johnston House and Post Office
Burlington, Ohio

The Johnston House, which functioned as the village post office and Underground Railroad hub, remains the appropriate extant site for interpreting how the postmaster, Black and white residents of Burlington, Ohio, collaborated to assist freedom seekers traveling from the Ohio River to inland settlements such as Poke Patch.

Lewis Brooks and Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church
Proctorville, Ohio

The Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church stands as the primary surviving landmark of the Red Hill Settlement, a free Black community where conductor Lewis Brooks famously risked his life to defend freedom seekers from slave catchers, eventually helping to found a congregation that embodied the spirit of refuge and resistance for those crossing the Ohio River.

Portsmouth Steamship Landing
Portsmouth, Ohio

Documented through first-person narratives and legal records, Portsmouth’s Steamboat Landing served as a critical international gateway and intermodal hub where high-profile abolitionists like Josiah Henson and Henry Bibb, along with countless unnamed freedom seekers, transitioned from river travel to inland routes on their journeys toward freedom in Canada.

Oklahoma

Black Creek Freedmen’s Museum
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Indian Territory Museum of Black Creek Freedmen shares histories of freedom seeking by Black Creek freedmen in its exhibits and public programs, as well as provides access to its research materials related to freedom seeking.

Pennsylvania

William and Deborah Wright House
Borough of Columbia, Pennsylvania

The 1795 Wright home in Columbia, Pennsylvania, served as a foundational Underground Railroad safe house where Quakers William and Deborah Wright coordinated river crossings, provided legal and physical refuge, and established Black settlements that integrated with the private railroad networks of wealthy Black merchants to support a multi-state system of self-liberation. (Not open to the public)

West Virginia

Asbury Parker's Passage to Freedom
Huntington, West Virginia

After fleeing a Kentucky iron furnace in 1857, freedom seeker Asbury Parker utilized the natural gateway of the Ohio River corridor near modern-day Huntington to escape to Canada, eventually returning to the region as a free man after the Civil War.