The Trent House Association will host a talk by Dr. Timothy Walker, professor of history at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, based on his edited volume, Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad. This free virtual talk will be given on Saturday, February 9, 2025, at 2:00 pm in the Trent House Museum Visitor Center and simultaneously via Zoom at https://tinyurl.com/EscapeByWater. The Museum is located at 15 Market Street, Trenton, with free parking behind the museum property off William Trent Place.
Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known stories of freedom-seeking by sea and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad. While research on the Underground Railroad has focused almost exclusively on overland escape routes from the antebellum South, Sailing to Freedom expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea and what this journey looked like for untold numbers of African Americans.
This talk will describe the importance of enslaved African Americans’ maritime and waterfront labor in southern ports, and how escapes were managed along the East Coast, moving from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland to safe harbor in northern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, New Bedford, and Boston. With few exceptions, successful escapes from enslavement in the Deep South were achieved not overland, but by water.
Dr. Timothy Walker is a scholar of maritime history, colonial overseas expansion, and trans-oceanic slave trading. Walker is a guest investigator of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a contributing faculty member of the Munson Institute of Maritime Studies, affiliated faculty of the “Slavery North” initiative, and Director of the National Endowment for the Humanities “Landmarks in American History” workshops series for middle- and high school teachers, titled “Sailing to Freedom: New Bedford and the Underground Railroad” (2011–2025). He has taught maritime history aboard numerous traditionally-rigged sailing vessels, including the schooners Ernestina/ Morrissey and Lettie G. Howard, the brig Niagara, and the ship “H.M.S.” Rose.
The William Trent House Museum is a National Historic Landmark in the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area and on the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail and on the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail. The Museum is dedicated to sharing the authentic history of the house, property, and people with our communities, connecting the past with today and tomorrow. Owned by the City of Trenton, it is operated by the Trent House Association, which is supported by the generosity of its donors; by grants from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, the New Jersey Cultural Trust, the New Jersey Historic Trust, the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission with funding from the New Jersey Historical Commission, and the Bunbury Fund and the New Jersey Arts & Culture Renewal Fund of the Princeton Area Community Foundation; and by contributions from NJM Insurance Group and Orion General Contractors. For more information, visit www.williamtrenthouse.org.
