Underground Railroad Sites in Norfolk and the Waterfront of Portsmouth 1. Higgins’ Wharf was located at the far end of Widewater Street near New Castle Street. The owner of the wharf was John A. Higgins, a commission agent and former owner of Shadrach Minkins, who worked on Widewater Street opposite Market Square. Steamships, such as the City of Richmond with Captain Mitchell and the Pennsylvania with Captain Teal, were Union Pacific Steamship Company vessels that left from Higgins’ Wharf every Tuesday and Thursday at noon throughout the 1850s. 2. Wright’s Wharf, located at south end of King’s lane, had steamships and schooners departing, sometimes with fugitives aboard. One steamship used to secret slaves to the North was the Augusta, captained by William C. Smith. This vessel left every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 6:30 a.m. from Wright’s Wharf. 3. Fugitives may have been assisted in their escape by the Norfolk and Western Railroad whose track ran down Widewater Street and past every major wharf along the waterfront in downtown Norfolk or by the all-Black crew operating the ferries that ran between Norfolk and Portsmouth. 4. The DeBree Home is where Shadrach Minkins, a fugitive slave in 1851, worked as a house servant. This home was located at 117 E. Main Street, a fashionable district near the Marriott hotel today. Formerly, Minkins was owned by John Higgins (who owned Higgins Wharf ) until 1849. Minkins escaped from John DeBree, a prosperous landowner and former navy man who worked as a purser at the Gosport Navy Yard. It is believed that Minkins departed Norfolk aboard either the Alvaro Lamphir or the Vesper schooners destined for Boston. Minkins eventually escaped to Montreal after he escaped from capture in Boston, living out the remaining years in Canada.
5. Slaveowner Dr. Charles F. Martin, dentist, had an office located at 31 E. Main, lived in the rear of 23 Holt Street (at the corner of Talbot Street). His slave and dental apprentice, Sam Nixon, alias Thomas Bayne, worked as a conductor on the UGRR. Sam was described as a darkcomplexioned slave who, because he substituted for the doctor in all aspects of the dental trade, was able to travel about the city at all hours without being questioned. Sam eventually came under the suspicion of the slaveholders, and escaped in 1855 and went to Philadelphia. Eventually, he moved to New Bedford, MA. He would later return to Norfolk, set up his practice as a dentist, and within four years, he was elected to the city council of that city. He opened an office in New Bedford, and sought to improve himself in his profession by studying medicine, served in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War, returned to Norfolk in 1865 and entered politics, serving as the Norfolk representative to the 1868 Virginia Constitutional Convention. 6. Slaveowner Andrew Sigourney lived in the rear at 70 W. Main Street. His slave, Eliza McCoy, escaped to Philadelphia in November 1854 to join her husband, Robert McCoy, who left a month prior. She escaped because of the many things she suffered. She had been a slave on the auction block and had endured cruelties under the hand of her slave mistress. Eliza was a beautiful 38-year-old mulatto who fretted “under hardships” so much that she “always wanted to be free.” She escaped from her owner seven months before she secured