"Some time about 1840-45, when residing at Langhome, we had a party of six stout fugitive slaves arrive, whose experience had been somewhat different from that of ordinary fugitives. They had escaped in a small boat, used in connection with the lighter service on Albemarle Sound. Their trusted leader or captain, having a small compass and knowing something of the inlets of the coast, had piloted them slowly northward, having secured some provisions, before starting, and they succeeded in working their little craft up the Delaware Bay and up the river, landing only for short periods until they passed Philadelphia, and then they accidentally found a friendly adviser who directed them to our village. On arriving there, they found shelter for the night among some colored people. The next day their case was made known to our antislavery friends and I was chosen to convey them to Trenton."

“In a good covered wagon, in which all were placed, I was advised to report them to Benjamin Plumly, then a merchant there. On arriving at the store I spoke to Rush and he, seeing the situation, said drive them to the yard, and get them under cover of the barn, as there were slave agents then in town, looking for victims and we might arouse suspicion. He furnished ample provision for the party, but advised me, if possible, after feeding the horses, although storming, to push right on to Princeton, where there was a safe rendezvous."

Charles L. Blockson, Temple University, 1999
New Jersey was closely allied with Pennsylvania and New York as a center in the fugitive slave network. The main route of the Underground Railroad led across the Delaware River to Camden, through Mt. Holly, Bordentown, Perrington, Hopewell, Princeton and New Brunswick, where slavecatchers carefully watched for runaways across the bridge over the Raritan River to Jersey City. New Brunswick was considered one of the most dangerous branches on the system because slave hunters in search of runaways operated headquarters there.

At the Raritan River Bridge, east of the city, railroad trains were sometimes stopped by these hunters of slaves. To prevent the apprehension of fugitive slaves, local conductors served as lookouts, warning their co-workers when to transport slaves in boats to Perth Amboy. Some sea captains risked taking on fugitive slaves and hired them to pump water from their canal boats. Others used their schooners to transport runaways to ports in New England.
Charles L. Blockson, Temple University, 1999

Harriet Tubman (c. 1820 – 1913)
The most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad and the secret network’s most celebrated figure, Harriet Tubman, whose original name was Araminta Ross, was born a slave on a plantation in Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In 1849, when she was about 30 years old, her owner died, and she learned that she and her town brothers were to be sold to a Georgia slave trader. This prompted her, guided by the North Star, to escape from slavery and travel to Philadelphia. During the summer of 1849, and for the ensuing summers up to 1852, she worked as a cook in hotels in Cape May, earning money to fulfill her promise to help unshackle other slaves. Between 1850 and 1857, she used her innate intelligence and courage to make 19 trips into Maryland and help over 300 slaves escape to freedom in the North, probably passing through New Jersey on some of her trips, both from Maryland and back. She guided many of her charges to Canada where, between 1854 and 1859, she resided in the small community of St. Catherines, Ontario. In 1857, on one of her last trips, she led her aged parents to safety. Her success as an Underground Railroad conductor resulted in a reward of $40,000 being offered in Maryland for her capture.
Source: New Jersey Historical Commission

Abigail Goodwin of Salem
Among those in southern New Jersey who took the most active part in aiding escaping fugitives was a courageous Quaker woman named Abigail Goodwin, of Salem. With the assistance of her sister Elizabeth, Goodwin was active in the antislavery cause as early as 1836.

Goodwin was one of the devoted Underground Railroad station keepers who suffered for her loyalties. Her clothes were often more ragged than those of the runaway slaves who knocked on her door. She saved and borrowed money and organized sewing societies to support the Underground Railroad. On February 10, 1858, she sent the following letter to William Still:

"Dear Friend:
Thee will find enclosed, five dollars for the building fugitives, a little for so many to share it, but better than nothing, oh that people, rich people, would remember them instead of spending so much on themselves, and those who are not called rich, might if there was only a willing mind, give too of their abundance, how can they forbear to sympathize with those poor destitute ones --- but so it is --- there is not half the feeling for them there ought to be, indeed scarcely anybody seems to think about them. ‘In as much as ye have not done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have not done unto me.’
Thy Friend,
A. Goodwin.”

History of the Underground Railroad in New Jersey (1830-1860)
Between 1830-1860, people escaping from slavery using the Underground Railroad came mainly from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. They fled to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York or to the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Most of the fugitive slaves who reached New Jersey were from the eastern portions of Maryland and Virginia. Most of them were boys and men, ages 15 to 30, often on the run. In the three decades the Underground Railroad operated, about 40,000 slaves fled to freedom and no more than 20,000 sought help in New Jersey, Pennsylvania or New York. When the Civil War began in 1861, four million Black people remained enslaved in the South. Once in New Jersey, fugitive slaves found White abolitionists and free Blacks in no less than 38 towns and settlements in 19 counties ready to assist them. They were willing to guide the fugitives along strange and sometimes dangerous roads or provide shelter, food, clothing, shoes or traveling money. Many of the abolitionists were Quakers.

The Underground Railroad in New Jersey
One of the most successful Underground routes in southern New Jersey led from Delaware Bay across Cumberland County through Woodbury and Westville in Gloucester County, Gloucester City and Camden in Camden County, south from Medford through Mt. Holly. Trenton was an important stop on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves on a route from Philadelphia that led into Staten Island. From Trenton, another connection of the invisible train led overland into Jersey City, Newark, and finally New York City.

Source: The National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1999