Before the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, some enslaved people freed themselves by escaping to the North. In 1856, Alfred Homer walked and ran more than 500 miles from this site to freedom despite the dangers of the Fugitive Slave Law. Dr. James Anderson's house stood on this site before the 1893 house built by his daughter. On May 31, 1856, Alfred Homer, enslaved by Anderson, escaped bondage by fleeing Rockville on foot, finding temporary refuge with the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee and finally gaining freedom in Canada. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 required the return of runaway slaves even from non-slavery states, and being caught meant severe punishment or being sold into worse conditions in the Deep South.
