The Choptank River could be a troublesome barrier to those without a boat, but it also served as a path to freedom for enslaved people seeking escape. Josiah Bailey, an enslaved logger and shipbuilder, rowed six miles up the river to Poplar Neck, where he alerted Harriet Tubman’s father, Ben Ross, that he wanted her help to escape. In November 1856, Harriet Tubman arrived to lead Bailey, his brother Bill, and their friends Peter Pennington and Eliza Manokey to Canada. Although they were hotly pursued and a reward was offered for his capture, Bailey escaped. With Tubman’s guidance, her brothers Ben, Henry, and Robert also escaped from Poplar Neck after she used coded messages to notify them of her plan to rescue them from their parents’ cabin. On Christmas Day 1854, she met them and several friends and guided them to Philadelphia and then to Canada. A $2,000 reward was posted for the capture of the three men, and such advertisements provide scholars with considerable information about the appearance and clothing of those who freed themselves.