New York

Harriet Tubman (1821--1913), a renowned leader in the Underground Railroad movement, established the Home for the Aged in 1908. Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman gained her freedom in 1849 when she escaped to Philadelphia. Working as a domestic, she saved money until she had the resources and contacts to rescue several of her family members in 1850.

This marked the first of 19 trips back into Maryland where Tubman guided approximately 300 people to freedom as far north as Canada. Maryland planters offered a $40,000 reward for Tubman's capture at one point during her time as an Underground Railroad conductor. Active during the Civil War, Tubman aided the Union Army as a spy, nurse, cook, and guide. From Port Royal, South Carolina, in June of 1863, she directed a detachment of 150 African Americans in a raid up the Combahee River, destroying Confederate mines, storehouses and crops, and liberating about 800 slaves.

Dedicating her life after the Civil War to helping former slaves, especially children and the elderly, Tubman also became active in the women's rights movement and the AME Zion Church. With the help of the AME Zion Church, Tubman established the Home for the Aged in 1908 on the property that she had purchased at auction 50 years before from Governor William H. Seward. Tubman spent the last few years of her life at this house and died there in 1913 at the age of 93.

Though not directly associated with Tubman's activities with the Underground Railroad, the Tubman Home for the Aged, a designated National Historic Landmark, is a tangible link to this brave and remarkable woman who is known as "the Moses of her people."