Episode 4: The Other Tradition and Harriet Tubman's Fifth Cousin

Lex Musta tells the story of how Barbara Talley's Fourth Great Grandfather had a son Benjamin in 1787 in Dorchester County who would be manumitted from enslavement when he turned 45 and saved to liberate his wife from her concentration camp as well. He then became a station master on the interracial underground railroad. After helping with the escape of the "Dover Eight," Benjamin's daughter Harriet Tubman came to liberate her at-risk parents in 1857, reaching William Still's station with them in June of that year. They reached Freedom North in St. Catherine's, before moving to the famous Harriet Tubman home in Auburn, New York in 1859. Benjamin's six year younger brother Dani who helped with Harriet's escapes from Baltimore (20:05). Dani's son John T. Ross moved back to St. Michaels before the end of the war (29:30). His son Frank Ross continued to live in his father's house in St. Michaels since his birth in 1857 (29:40). His son Percy Ross was born on the 12th of June in 1902 in St. Michaels (30:05). In 1940 he was working on Alghman Farm on Route 1 for 84 hrs/week, 50 weeks of the year to help raise his daughter Dorothy Naomi Ross who had been born on the 4th of January in 1930 (30:40). Dorothy was the mother of Barbara Talley Ross who was born on the 19th of September 1954 and became a champion of Race Amity in America (30:55).