Venue Information

Park in Wilmington, Delaware. Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park honors two friends and collaborators of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett. Born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania in 1789, Garrett moved to Wilmington in the 1820s and immediately began to assist enslaved and free people of color. He became known as “stationmaster” and, according to biographer James McGowan, assisted about 2,300 enslaved people to freedom over four decades. Garrett’s extensive family ties and connections with Black Underground Railroad operatives across Southeastern Pennsylvania proved essential to Wilmington’s Underground Railroad network. A member of the Society of Friends, Garrett served as the inspiration for the Quaker character, Simeon Halliday, in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pivotal novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.