Thomas Garrett

Along with Ohio's Levi Coffin, Thomas Garrett of Delaware remains among the most famous of the Quaker abolitionists and Underground Railroad operators. A Wilmington iron merchant, Garrett is believed to have assisted over two thousand fugitive slaves throughout the four decades preceding the Civil War. In neighboring Maryland, which, like Delaware, was a slave state, a $10,000 reward was posted for Garrett's capture. In 1848 the U.S. Circuit Court charged Garrett with the crime of assisting runaways. He was found guilty and ordered to pay a hefty fine of $5,400 that forced him to declare bankruptcy.

Yet Garrett refused to recant his life's work, proclaiming before the presiding judge, "I say to thee, and to all in this court room, that if anyone knows a fugitive who wants shelter . . . send him to Thomas Garrett and he will befriend him." Garrett's many...