42. New Castle Court House Museum

On Trial

Delaware’s most prominent abolitionists and Underground Railroad stationmasters, Thomas Garrett and John Hunn, were tried and convicted here for aiding the successful 1845 escape of the Hawkins family from slavery in Maryland. Found guilty of violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Garrett and Hunn were fined thousands of dollars and faced financial ruin. The proslavery judge, Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the United States, presided over the trial. He would later deliver the controversial opinion in the Dred Scott case of 1857, denying African Americans citizenship. At the close of the trial in 1848, Garrett defiantly told the crowded courtroom, “if anyone knows a fugitive who wants a shelter, and a friend, send him to Thomas Garrett.”

The conviction did not stop Garrett’s activities. He continued to assist fugitives until the beginning of the Civil War.

In 1856, famed conductor and Garrett friend, Harriet Tubman, spent time in New Castle as she attempted to find aid in Wilmington for her group of freedom seekers. She lodged them in a “potato hole” for safety, at the home of an African-American friend somewhere in New Castle. Tubman’s story was recorded by Sydney H. Gay, as she passed through New York City toward the end of this particular mission.

The New Castle Court House Museum is one of the oldest courthouses (1732) in the United States and was designated a National Park Service Network to Freedom site, due to the Garrett trial. Built in 1732, the New Castle Court House was the Delaware State’s seat of government until the capitol was moved to Dover in 1777.