Philly Area Bicycle routes
Philly Underground Rail Road bicycle route Elevation gain is listed for all gain and gain of more than 5 feet.
Garmin GPS waypoints, tracks and route.
Lamott, Cheltenham township PA While not on the National park Serve list, http://www.historic-lamott-pa.com/ A rich history is on the preceding web link. "The first Negroes to live in the area were Davis' farmer, William C. Butcher, a native of Virginia, his wife Esther Ann, and their two daughters. The Butchers lived in a house on Oak Farm, built by Davis shortly after 1854 at the corner of Willow Avenue and Butcher Street. It is not far from the gatehouse to Roadside, part of which still stands, just inside the Latham Park fence (see photo). This structure served occasionally as the Mott's underground railroad station." Old York Road and Latham Park. Cheltenham PA N40 03.858 W75 08.121
Camp William Penn became the first recruiting and training center for Black soldiers to be operated by the United States Government during the Civil War.. Camp William Penn was established directly north of the city limits of Philadelphia, in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County. The site chosen for the camp was at Washington Lane and Church Road. N40 05.035 W75 08.526 http://www.historic-lamott-pa.com/camppenn.html
The Johnson House is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 6306
Germantown Avenue. It is open to the public.
The 1832 Carr School/Mt Pleasant Chapel was restored in 2002. It now serve the long existing black community as a "Kids First Now led by Kevin Stroman mrbreadman56@comcast.net Volunteer tutor from Cabrini and Villanova University provide individual and small group instruction. Computer and Internet access is also available for school related projects.
Patriot of African Descent Monument in Valley Forge National Park.
New Jersey Bicycle Route
Lawnside NJ to Greenwich NJ near Salem NJ
Use this link to find cue to Lawnside and return from Salem http://www.billcotton.com/Bill%20cotton%20cue%20sheets.htm
New Jersey
http://westjersey.org/sjh/sjh_chap_8.htm Exerts from this link;
Principal way stations of the Underground Railroad across South Jersey were located at Camden, Salem, and Greenwich. The most commonly used route from the South traversed Maryland and Delaware to Philadelphia, where the fugitives were sequestered by a freed slave, William Still, http://www.undergroundrr.com/ http://www.undergroundrr.com/stillbiofr.html until passage could be arranged across the river to Camden. The station master at the New Jersey city was the Rev. T. C. Oliver, who provided sustenance and cover for the fleeing slaves, while they paused before starting their journey across the New Jersey corridor to New York City, and northward. Fugitives who gathered at Dover, Delaware, were boated across the river to the relative safety of the Jersey shore at Salem, where Abigail Goodwin was in charge. An unknown number of them relinquished the opportunity to escape to Canada, choosing instead to take their chances at planting new homes in Salem County. Those who elected to go on were routed through Woodbury to Bordentown, then over the Railroad’s main line to New York.
At Greenwich, escape boats flashing blue and yellow signal lights were met by station master Levin Bond, or one of the Sheppards, or Stanfords, after which conductors guided the fleeing slaves through Swedesboro and Woodbury to Burlington County, where they picked up the route to New York. Homes at Town Bank and Cape May Court House are said to have been havens for slaves escaping to the North.