Rochester and its Lake Ontario port communities, including Carthage, Kelsey's Landing, and Charlotte, formed part of the final route by which escaped slaves reached freedom in Canada. Arriving in Rochester through the Underground Railroad, they sought captains willing to carry them across the lake on the last and most dangerous leg of the journey. Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass helped arrange safe passage through western New York to Rochester and north along the Genesee River, while sympathetic Northerners such as Myron Holley at Carthage, a free black family at Kelsey's Landing, ferry operator Richard Murphy at the river mouth, and abolitionist Benjamin Barney in Charlotte aided the cause. The journey to the boats often ended at Charlotte, where a house on the east side of Lake Avenue was rumored to be a safe house, and where the riverfront at Skunk Hollow allowed ships to be boarded unnoticed in the dark. George Ruggles, an inventor, ship captain, and later President of the Village of Charlotte, was believed by his descendants to have carried "precious cargo" to Canada on the schooner H.M. Ballou. Strong anti-slavery feeling in the Rochester area grew out of the religious revivals of the 1830s, and Rochester's marshals were uncooperative with the Fugitive Slave Act. During the summer of 1862, however, Charlotte's closeness to British Canada and fears of attack, along with concern that men might flee to Canada to avoid military duty, led to the posting of soldiers from the 26th New York Cavalry as port sentries for several weeks. In 1892, Frederick Douglass returned to Charlotte with President Benjamin Harrison and other dignitaries on their way to dedicate the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in downtown Rochester.
