(From Wikipedia) Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was born a slave in Talbot County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In September 1838, he escaped slavery by boarding a northbound train in Baltimore, MD (not far from where we currently live!). It comes as little surprise that he did it all for the love of a good woman, later his wife. Anna Murray was a free black woman living in Baltimore, and she both encouraged his quest and supplied him with the necessary money and aid. The latter included the sailor’s outfit he wore while carrying the protection papers of a free black seaman. He traveled by rail and steamboat, passing through Wilmington and Philadelphia, en route to the safe house of David Ruggles (who opened the first African-American bookstore in 1834) in New York City. He later had this to say about his newfound freedom upon arrival:
“I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: ‘I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.’ Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.”
Great Exudations 