"Tubman spent part of her childhood in the cabin before escaping slavery and leading others to freedom on the Underground Railroad."
"CHURCH CREEK, Md. — Last fall a team of archeologists dug hundreds of small holes in a marshy, forested and buggy area of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. But there were no obvious signs of the historical site they’d set out to unearth. Frustrated, Julie Schablitsky, the chief archeologist at the Maryland Department of Transportation, grabbed a metal detector and began scanning an area along an old road.
“I got this beep, beep, beep,” she recalled, expecting it to be just another buried shotgun shell. “I dug, and what came up was this coin.”
Not just any coin. It was a 50-cent Liberty coin, dated 1808 - the year that American abolitionist Harriet Tubman’s parents, Benjamin and Harriet Greene Ross, were married and started a family in this remote area along Maryland’s shore. It’s also the year that the U.S. officially banned the importing of humans who would be forced into chattel slavery.
The coin ultimately led Schablitsky’s team to what they’ve concluded are the remnants of a cabin and homesite that Tubman’s father owned. It is where Tubman spent part of her childhood before she escaped and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad."
