Mark Leslie "Underground Railroad in Midcoast Maine"

Midcoast Maine’s connection to the Underground Railroad that helped scores of runaway slaves on their way to freedom ran deep-much further than even the extraordinary contributions of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
“A number of Brunswick and Topsham families and others up through the coast all the way to the Passamaquaddy Indians around Eastport ran an extraordinary network of ‘safe houses,’” Leslie said. “If caught breaking the law - the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 - these Underground Railroad ‘conductors’ and ‘station managers’ faced heavy fines and jail time.”
Leslie points out that Bowdoin College President and war hero Joshua Chamberlain and his then-fiancé, Fanny, were close to Harriet and Professor Calvin Stowe, and Harriet would read from her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when they got together.
Leslie’s novel, True North: Tice’s Story, which is a Publishers Weekly Featured Book, weaves the tale of the brave families who housed, fed and hid slaves in secret rooms, attics and elsewhere. A number of real people involved in the Underground Railroad appear in the novel, and half of the book takes place in Maine.
“The state’s Underground Railroad itself was a marvel of secret connections from churches to hack stands, second-hand clothing stores and people’s homes,” Leslie said. “But perhaps nowhere was it as elaborate as in Brunswick and Topsham, where elaborate tunnels were built to keep slaves hidden and on the move.”