Underground Railroad

Look at a map of the eastern U.S. and you will see southern New Jersey is south of the Mason-Dixon Line.In the years before the Civil War,Pennsylvania and N.J. were Free states.But they were also Border states,as Maryland and Delaware were slave states.Runaway slaves making their way north were often caught by paid bounty hunters just over the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.The pine barrens of southern N.J. were so isolated and little-populated as to offer a safer way to journey towards New York City and New England where abolitionist feeling was strongest.