Bel Air Site Gains National Recognition for Underground Railroad Link

A Bel Air property has been officially recognized as a site from which a slave escaped in the 19th century using the Underground Railroad, Harford Community College announced Wednesday.

The Hays-Heighe House, a home built in 1808 that in present-day features cultural and historical exhibits on the Harford Community College campus, is the first site included in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in Harford County, according to a statement from the college.

To be included in the Network to Freedom, a site must have a documented connection to “freedom seekers,” the statement said.

Hays-Heighe House Coordinator Iris Leigh Barnes discovered the story of Sam Archer—an enslaved man living on the property who successfully escaped—while putting together the exhibit “Faces of Freedom: The Upper Chesapeake, Maryland and Beyond.” The exhibit was on display this spring to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Constitution of 1864, which ended slavery in Maryland.

Archer’s escape in 1860 from slaveowner Thomas Hays was included the book The Underground Railroad by William Still, a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad who wrote stories of many he helped to freedom, Harford Community College reported.

In the story about the Harford County freedom seeker, the author said that Archer “grew very tired of Bell Air” and was particularly “tired of rough treatment” by Hays, so he set out for Canada on the Underground Railroad, according to the report, which said his journey was detailed as far as Philadelphia.

The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom is an initiative of the National Park Service designed to create a “mosaic of community, regional and national stories”; provide technical and programmatic assistance to those in the network; and promote research and preservation efforts, according to the National Park Service.

See other sites on the network here, including the peach plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where Harriet Tubman helped two men escape in 1856.

Hays-Heighe House is located at 401 Thomas Run Road in Bel Air on the campus of Harford Community College.

Pictured are Hays-Heighe House Director Carol Allen and Coordinator Iris Leigh Barnes. Photo Credit: Harford Community College.