Joe Bailey and Harriet Tubman

When Josiah ‘“Joe” Bailey was flogged for the first time by overseer William Hughlett, he fled the Maryland plantation where he was enslaved and took a small boat six miles across the river to seek help from Harriet Tubman’s father, Ben Ross.

When Harriet Tubman returned to Maryland, her father informed Bailey as promised. In November 1856, Tubman began another long journey to freedom accompanied by Bailey, his brother William, Peter Pennington, and Eliza Manokey. The plan was to get to Niagara Falls where they could cross the border into Canada and be free.

When Hughlett discovered that Joe Bailey was missing, he immediately offered a $1,500 reward for his capture and return to Maryland.

With police and fugitive hunters in close pursuit, Harriet Tubman and the others had to rely on the Underground Railroad. Along the way, they hid in potato holes in the fields and found refuge at several safe houses.

In Wilmington, Delaware, black bricklayers helped the group hide under a load of bricks in two of their wagons. As they left town, they created a diversion by loudly singing and shouting.

Joe Bailey was 28 years old. He was six feet tall, baldheaded, with chestnut-colored skin and “a remarkable scar on one of his cheeks." When he learned that advertisements for his capture had reached as far as New York City, and that the group still had over 300 miles to travel across the state, he became depressed and despondent.

At last, the group arrived by train at Suspension Bridge--the first such bridge to span the Niagara gorge from the United States to Canada. They were so close to freedom. While the others stared in awe at the beauty of Niagara Falls, Joe sat motionless with his head in his hands. He was still terrified of being apprehended and returned to slavery.

When Tubman “shook him as hard as she could” and told him he was free, Joe finally looked up and cried. They had safely crossed the bridge into Canada.

At that same moment, Joe started to sing in “loud and thrilling tones.” He kept singing as he leapt off the train and rejoiced with the others on free land. The only journey that remained for Joe, he exclaimed, was the one to heaven.

Harriet Tubman called him an “old fool” and said that he “might have looked at the Falls first, and then gone to heaven afterwards.

Hope L. Russell, Ph.D.