Freedom seekers in the Niagara Frontier used many means to reach Canada, including canal boats, lake steamers, hidden wagon transport, and most often travel on foot at night along creek beds to avoid detection and reach safe houses such as the McClews' farm. Abolitionists Charles and Anna Maria McClew were part of a secret network that helped people fleeing slavery move through the region, while abolitionists across Niagara also pursued the end of slavery through political action. After moving to this property in 1850, the McClews built the house and barns with native wood, bricks made on site, and stones from the Erie Canal excavation capping the foundation wall. Beneath the barn, a concealed room gave people escaping slavery a place to rest and recuperate. Escapes to Canada also took place by rowboat across the Niagara River and, after the first Suspension Bridge was built near the Whirlpool Rapids in 1847 and replaced by the Suspension Railway Bridge in 1855, by stealthy passage on foot across the bridge or by hiding in train baggage or cattle cars. Creek beds and vegetation provided cover, and some people were hidden in produce wagons going to market in Lockport or Niagara Falls. These journeys unfolded amid changing laws and events from the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act through the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the abolition of slavery in 1865.