Local legend of this African-American site has it that this house built ca. 1825-1850, was a part of the antebellum Underground Railroad by which slaves escaped to freedom in the North. The "Keziah Affair" in 1858, in which a Delaware schooner was caught smuggling five slaves out of Petrsburg, is another example of the active Undergound Railroad in Petersburg.
Pocahontas Island is recognized for having two verifiable stops on the Underground Railroad, the banks of the Appomattox thus serving as the last point of bondage for many enslaved individuals before they liberated themselves and began new lives above the Mason-Dixon Line.
Last Updated: 1/21/2015 10:20 AM