Caroline County was a center of Underground Railroad activity until slavery was abolished in Maryland in 1864, aided by a population with more free than enslaved blacks and by sympathetic Quakers. At busy wharves along the Choptank River and at mills where wheat was ground, slaves, free people of color, and whites came into frequent contact, allowing news, gossip, and secret information to circulate about those who would help freedom seekers traveling north. Harriet Tubman’s parents were accused of involvement in these underground efforts before she rescued them from their home at Poplar Neck. Buildings from that era along the byway include the home of freeman James Webb, the Linchester Mill, Jacob Leverton’s safe house, and the slave quarter where the Still family lived before fleeing around 1806. The Stills’ youngest son, William, was born free in New Jersey and later worked in Philadelphia for an organization that aided escaped slaves, where he first met his brother Peter, who had been sold to the Deep South years earlier. William Still later compiled records and descriptions of the experiences of more than 1,000 escaped slaves in The Underground Railroad, published in 1871.