Last year , the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service buy 2600 acres of land to add to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore of Maryland . While the main finish was to give wildlife some in high spirits earth to inhabit as other areas yield to lift water stage , that particular ground had historical import , too .
Some of the land , now known as Peter ’s Neck , used to be the plantation of Anthony Thompson , the man who enslavedHarriet Tubman’sfather , Ben Ross . In his will , Thompson granted Ross two things : exemption , and 10 acres of Edwin Herbert Land from the plantation . Ross built a cabin on the property in the 1840s , and it was there that Tubman — born Araminta Ross — honed the wilderness accomplishment that would assist her during her twelvemonth as anUnderground Railroad music director . “ That landscape became her classroom , ” biographer Kate Clifford LarsontoldThe Washington Post . “ Those years she lived with her father were absolutely crucial to the evolution of Harriet Tubman . ”
The cabin is no longer stand , but the Modern land acquisition seemed like a gilded chance to endeavor to notice wherever it once was . So refuge director Marcia Pradines got in touch with Julie Schablitsky , the chief archaeologist of Maryland ’s State Highway Administration , who gathered a team and started drudge for artifacts last fall . “ After about a thousand holes , I was bring forth pretty disappointed , ” SchablitskytoldThe Baltimore Sun . She ultimately decided to try using a metal detector , and almost immediately turned up a half - dollar coin from 1808 — the same year Tubman ’s parents likelymarried .
The group did n’t chance the location of Ross ’s former abode right away , but the coin help direct their elbow grease . After a wintertime hiatus , they resumed in March and focalize their hunting in the part around where Schablitsky found it . About a quarter mile away , the squad unearth a trove of brick pieces , nails , bits of ice , a button , and clayware fragments with designs dating back to the 1820s . All the strong-arm grounds , combined with historical records send Ross ’s plot in the area , was enough to make the researchers palpate confident that they ’d pinpointed the site of the cabin . “ It ’s not just one artifact that state us we have something . It ’s the hookup . It ’s the multiple man , ” Schablitsky toldThe Washington Post . She shared photos of all the artifacts withTina Wyatt , Tubman ’s great - keen - large - grandniece , who toldThe Baltimore Sunthat reckon them helped her fancy what Ross ’s life was actually like . “ It think of so much to the family to see all of this , ” she said .
As for what ’ll happen to the site in the future , Pradines is tentatively plan to make a nature trail around it . That could become part of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway , a 125 - miletrailwith other important places associated with Tubman . We do n’t yet roll in the hay where the artefact themselves will end up — there is a full - fledgedmuseumalong the byway — but they might spend some clip in the nearby Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center until a decision is made .
[ h / tThe Washington Post ]
