Maryland Official Visitors Guide • 2019 Maryland Official Visitors Guide • Discover The Story Of Freedom

Maryland’s lasting legacy in the quest for freedom can be traced across the landscapes with a scenic driving tour.

As far back as the “New World” and Civil War, many have pursued freedom. From the site of Frederick Douglass’ escape at Baltimore’s President Street Station to hidden locales of the Underground Railroad, discover the state’s significant role in America’s struggle for equality. Trace the story of freedom on historic byways across scenic Maryland landscapes.

Among the state’s most courageous native-born citizens, and an accomplished activist, Harriet Tubman led the abolitionist movement, stood among the suffragists, continually fought for human rights and was most famously a lead conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Born enslaved in Dorchester County in the early 1820s, Tubman emerged from a brutal childhood marred by adversity and a traumatic head injury that would afflict her for the rest of her life to become one of America’s most significant and revered historical figures. In her late 20s, Tubman escaped to the North and almost immediately began making return visits to Maryland, risking her own liberty and assisting enslaved family members and friends in pursuit of their freedom. Tubman came to be known as the “Moses of her people” for leading so many others to freedom.

Tubman’s life story is celebrated at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center and State Park in Church Creek and can be further explored on the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. This self-guided driving tour winds for more than 125 miles along the Eastern Shore, highlighting three dozen points of interest throughout Harriet Tubman’s life.

Regarded as one of America’s most prominent and influential orators, abolitionists, statesmen and chroniclers of the slavery experience (his autobiography is considered the definitive narrative on the subject), Frederick Douglass was born on a farm between Hillsboro and Cordova, Maryland, in Talbot County on the Eastern Shore. The child of a white slave master father and an enslaved African-American mother, Douglass was a self-educated, voracious reader and writer at an early age and credited his studies as a “pathway from slavery to freedom.” Douglass’ path can be traced on the Frederick Douglass Driving Tour, which includes stops at the Banneker- Douglass Museum, located near the State House in Annapolis. Named for Douglass and free African-American almanac author Benjamin Banneker, and located in the former Mount Moriah African-American Methodist Episcopal Church, the museum is considered the state’s premier collection of African-American history and culture.

Douglass is most often associated with his Eastern Shore birthplace, and Frederick Douglass Park on the Tuckahoe is close to the exact site where he lived in a cabin with his grandmother as a child, which serves as a great starting point on the Frederick Douglass Driving Tour. Douglass was sent to Baltimore’s Fells Point when he was just 8 years old, and his life in the city is well chronicled at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. The park also honors and interprets local African-American maritime history in one of the city’s longest-standing waterfront buildings.

Situated at the “Crossroads of Conflict” between the North and the South, and surrounding the nation’s capital, Maryland’s strategic location became a battleground that witnessed much of the war’s most intense fighting.

In southern Washington County, The Kennedy Farm National Historic Landmark marks the site in Maryland where abolitionist John Brown devised an armed slave revolt known as the Raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Take a drive to the very farm and headquarters where John Brown planned the revolt.

Infamously known as “The Bloodiest Day in American History,” the Battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg resulted in more than 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers being lost, wounded or listed as missing following September 17, 1862. The Antietam National Battlefield Visitor Center and Pry House Field Hospital Museum host a theater, an observation room and exhibits, while rangers give battlefield talks for a closer look at this ground-shaking event.

Two years after the Battle of Antietam, “The Battle that Saved Washington” was fought along the banks of the Monocacy River just south of Frederick. Today, you can see where the battle took place with a stop at Monocacy National Battlefield in Frederick, which has hands-on exhibits for kids and historic buildings that stood witness to the battle, about an hour’s drive west of Baltimore.

Maryland Civil War Trails include: The Gettysburg Campaign Trail, detailing both Confederate and Union routes and stops during the summer of 1863 that led up to the Battle of Gettysburg, the Baltimore Area Civil War Trail and the Baltimore Riot Walking Tour. Start at the Baltimore Civil War Museum, which is just a short distance from Fort McHenry, or the site of Baltimore’s defense during the conclusion of the War of 1812—and the place where Francis Scott Key penned his “Star-Spangled Banner” that would later become the country’s national anthem.

In 1632, nearly a century and a half before the American Revolution and more than two centuries before the Civil War, the first English colonists arrived in Maryland in pursuit of another type of freedom— the freedom to practice their own religious beliefs. Dating back to the mid-17th century, Historic St. Mary’s City near the southern tip of Maryland’s western shore came to be known as “the birthplace of religious tolerance” in North America and later as the state’s first capital.

The path of these early settlers can be followed along the Religious Freedom Byway beginning at Port Tobacco, a historic Potapoco Native American village by the banks of the Potomac River, where Jesuit priest Andrew White established a missionary outpost. Accessible off the Port Tobacco Loop along Maryland Route 6, Route 425 and Route 224, the Byway continues and includes other intriguing points of interest.

Trace Harriet Tubman’s life and learn about her courageous acts with a drive along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway.

Some of the most decisive battles of the Civil War were fought on Maryland’s soil. Take a tour across five unique Civil War Trails and historic sites throughout the state.