During the Underground Railroad era, an estimated 30,000 African Americans made the dangerous journey to Canada in pursuit of freedom from slavery, and for many the mile-wide Detroit River was the most logical point of entry. Sandwich became a new home for freedom seekers as early as 1807, and by the early 1830s the town, capital of the Western District and a thriving commercial centre, had a sizable Black population made up of both formerly enslaved and free Blacks seeking relief from oppression in the United States. Jobs were plentiful, labourers were in demand, Black farmers and business owners could easily access Detroit markets, and some Black residents found work as dock workers or on Great Lakes steamships. Freedom seekers who came to Sandwich included Caroline Quarlls and Allen Watkins, progenitors of the Watkins family that remains part of the community today. Anti-slavery activists also used Sandwich as a base for cross-border work because it offered relative safety while remaining close to American networks. Among them were Henry and Mary Bibb, who founded the Voice of the Fugitive newspaper in Sandwich in 1851, and Henry Bibb regularly reported refugee crossings into Canada West at Sandwich ranging from fifteen per week to as many as sixty-five in one day. By the census of 1851, more than 400 people of African descent lived in Sandwich. In 1851, Sandwich First Baptist Church was erected on Peter Street from lumber hewn by its congregation and bricks they made by hand from Detroit River clay, and today it remains the only building in the City of Windsor built by Underground Railroad survivors.