Archaeologists Searching For Home Of Harriet Tubman's Father Near Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE, Md. (WJZ) -- Archaeologists will spend the coming days searching a property in Dorchester County to try to uncover the site of a house that was once home to Harriet Tubman's father, the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration said Tuesday.
The property crews are searching is part of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Cambridge. Officials said Tubman's father Ben Ross was provided the home and ten acres of land beginning in the mid-1830s. Tubman herself lived at the home around 1840.
If archaeologists find the house, it could be included in the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, the highway administration said.
"Any artifacts the archaeologists find will mean so much to the community," African American historian and community member Hershel Johnson said in a news release. "Even if they can't establish where Ben Ross's house is, any insight into how Harriet lived will be invaluable in understanding the history that led to her involvement with the Underground Railroad."
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