Before the end of U.S. slavery in 1865, between 100,000 and 150,000 African Americans sought freedom in Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, or the northern U.S. by foot, wagon, boat, or railroad, and this relatively secretive and swift flight to freedom became known as the Underground Railroad. Syracuse was the "great central depot" of the Underground Railroad in New York State, where thousands of freedom seekers found help from a multiracial group of men and women centered in Methodist, Congregational, Unitarian, Quaker, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches. Many continued on to Canada, while many others settled in Syracuse and bought property on the north side or near east side. By the 1850s, the Underground Railroad operated openly in Syracuse in defiance of the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and people celebrated the city as "a free city" and "the Canada of the United States." After federal marshals captured Missouri freedom seeker William "Jerry" Henry in October 1851, many Syracuse citizens successfully rescued him, and the federal government never again tried to capture a freedom seeker locally. Newspapers regularly carried notices of fugitives passing through the city on "this valuable and mysterious Railroad," and in 1857 the Syracuse Standard reported that "this road was never doing a better business than at this time."