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Find a Grave Memorial ID: 1247. Source citation. Civil Rights Leader, Social Reformer, Community activist, Freedom fighter, and Civil War spy, scout, and nurse. A fugitive slave and abolitionist leader during a period of profound racial, social, and economic upheaval in the United States, she became known as the most famous guide of the ...
- Auburn, New York
- March 15, 1822
- Woolford, Dorchester County, Maryland, USA
Harriet Tubman Grave is an historic gravesite located in Fort Hill Cemetery at Auburn, in Cayuga County, New York. The granite gravestone marks the resting place of famed African-American abolitionist and Christian Harriet Tubman, who was born into slavery in Maryland in the United States in 1822.
- April 02, 1999
- 1937
- less than one acre
- Fort Hill Cemetery, Auburn, New York
Aug 30, 2019 · Don’t miss Harriet Tubman’s grave in nearby Fort Hill Cemetery. Her grave can be found at the following coordinates within the Fort Hill Cemetery: 42.924336, -76.575027. Overall, it’s worth taking the time to visit the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, NY.
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Dec 1, 2023 · In 2021, President Joe Biden rekindled the process for minting her face on the U.S. $20 bill, per CNBC. Meanwhile, Tubman has no official federal commemorative site — only a simple grave at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York, where she lived, per Find a Grave.
- Overview
- Nevertheless, she persisted
- In Harriet’s steps
- Life after the Underground Railroad
Courageous work on the Underground Railroad—and activism afterward—made Tubman one of America’s best-known historic figures. Here’s how to mark her 200th birthday.
We all think we know the Harriet Tubman story. The “Moses of her people,” Tubman née Araminta “Minty” Ross was born enslaved on Maryland’s Eastern Shore around 1822. From a young age her enslavers rented her out to neighbors as a domestic servant. She later escaped to Philadelphia and then returned to her birthplace at least 13 times to lead 70 of her family and friends along the Underground Railroad to freedom.
That’s usually where the story of one of America’s most inspirational heroes ends, and all I knew—until I took a road trip to honor the 200th anniversary of her birth, celebrated this month. But in her nine decades (she died in 1913), Tubman did so much more.
She was the first U.S. woman to lead an armed military raid and was a spy and nurse for the Union during the U.S. Civil War. She joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in their quest for women’s voting rights. She was an outdoorswoman, cared for battered women and children, raised money to build schools for newly freed people, and established the Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Negroes, a first-of-its-kind nursing home for African Americans who had nowhere else to go.
“She doesn’t get enough credit for being a humanitarian,” says Ellen Mousin, a volunteer at the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center in Cambridge, Maryland. “People, especially in the North, often don’t realize that African Americans were not usually able to go to nursing homes or healthcare facilities. She made it possible.”
More than a century after her death, historians are still unraveling the secrets of her life. This month the nation celebrates Harriet Tubman’s bicentennial and the fifth anniversary of the two national parks named after her: one in Auburn, New York, and another in Dorchester County, Maryland. Tubman is the only African American and woman to have two named national parks. From film screenings and historical lectures to art exhibits and monument installations, here’s how travelers can uncover the mystery that shrouds Tubman’s life and honor the legacy of a woman who inspired generations.
Stepping onto the vast, open fields of Dorchester County, it’s hard to imagine what gave young Tubman the courage to escape—alone. It is harder to comprehend the ingenuity and resolve it took for her to achieve what others thought impossible, all the while helping heal a world that would rather have seen her broken.
In 1849, her enslaver, Edward Brodess, attempted to sell her, but there were no buyers due to a brain injury she suffered after helping an enslaved man run away. The overseer aimed a two-pound metal weight at the man in an attempt to make him return to work, but it fell short, striking Tubman, only 13 at the time. She would later endure frequent migraines, narcolepsy, and vivid dreams she would interpret as divine visions.
After her enslaver died later that year, Tubman knew her family would be separated, so she and her brothers took a leap of faith and fled. The attempt failed, but she tried again soon after, using the Underground Railroad—a network of safe houses and routes established by Black and white abolitionists that guided enslaved people in the South to freedom in the North—to Philadelphia, and then later Ontario, Canada, after the Fugitive Slave Act became U.S. law in 1850. The act threatened imprisonment for anyone caught assisting a fugitive and allowed headhunters to drag escaped slaves back into bondage. Her husband John Tubman, a free Black man, refused to flee with her and remarried the following year.
Tubman, of course, would go on to be a lauded leader. Yet, more than a century after her death, historians are still searching for answers about who she was.
“There’s just so much we don’t know about Tubman’s life. In a way she became an American folk hero,” says Meghan Martinez, a professor of history at Florida State University. She believes Tubman’s legendary status may be one of the reasons why we don’t know more about her. “Americans don’t like when a story doesn’t have a happy ending. It’s easier to end her story at the Underground Railroad because it ruins our image of her being the hero when we find out she died sick and nearly destitute,” she says.
(Why Harriet Tubman risked it all for enslaved Americans.)
For travelers, there is no better way to experience Tubman’s history than along the 125-mile Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. Spanning three states and more than 30 sites, the self-guided driving route immerses people in the places where Tubman worked, lived, and later found freedom.
Left: The outdoor skills Tubman learned navigating the farm fields, creeks, and marshes as a teenager in Dorchester County, Maryland would later be used to help her and others escape to freedom.
Photograph by Herb Quick, Alamy Stock Photo
Right: Using interactive exhibits, an audio-visual program, and a research library, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Park in Maryland explores her early life and legacy.
Photograph by Patrick Semansky, AP Photo
“I think it really puts you into her shoes a little bit to see how far she traveled,” says Maszkiewicz. “It took me three days to drive it, so you can only imagine how long it took her to walk it.”
Harriet Tubman’s story may have started in Maryland, but it didn’t end there. She dedicated her life to helping Black Americans not only survive but thrive.
“She couldn’t read or write, but she had an emotional intelligence that made people trust her,” says Millicent Sparks, a historical interpreter who portrays Tubman around the country.
Harriet’s achievements are astonishing. During the Civil War, she led an armed expedition into Confederate territory—freeing more than 700 enslaved people—and served in the Union Army as a nurse, scout, and spy. It would take her another 34 years to be recognized for her service and be paid a pension from the U.S. government. After the war, she remained an active abolitionist, befriending intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass and politicians like Secretary of State William Henry Seward. She also campaigned for women’s rights with Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, and Susan B. Anthony.
In 2017, her New York estate, including the nursing home and the Thompson Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church where she worshipped—and raised money to build—became the 32-acre Harriet Tubman National Historical Park. It tells the story of her life as a free woman and preserves her humanitarian legacy.
“When you step onto the property you know instantly that you are in a hallowed space,” says Karen Hill, president and CEO of the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, New York. The home is an independent nonprofit established by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to co-manage Harriet’s homestead with the National Park Service (NPS).
The visitor center, which features dozens of artifacts found on various archeological digs, is closed due to COVID-19 until summer. However, travelers can explore the landscape on guided and self-guided tours to see where Tubman farmed, created bricks in her kiln, and spent the last 54 years of her life, says Hill. She adds that the NPS is spearheading the restoration of Tubman’s church, with work set to begin in April. Visitors can see her grave at the nearby Fort Hill Cemetery, which is unaffiliated with the historical park.
Jan 16, 2024 · She died of pneumonia in 1913 at an estimated age of 91 and was buried with military honors. Workers broke ground on construction of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historic Park ...
A pioneer in what it means to be regarded as an icon, Harriet Tubman served as a physical manifestation of liberation for many. On the bicentennial of her birth, this dynamic woman of many trades continues to be revered as an American hero and a symbol of freedom. Carte-de-visite portrait of Harriet Tubman, 1868–69.
