Tunnels, jails and canals: Remnants of the Underground Railroad still exist in Halifax County

HALIFAX, N.C. — Highly secretive and illegal during its era, there are very few remnants of the Underground Railroad in North Carolina. However, if you’re looking to find clues to its past, one of the best places to begin is by following our state’s major rivers.

In the 1700 and 1800s, major rivers were known as "Freedom Roads," and if you explore the Roanoke River in Halifax County, you’ll find pieces of the Underground Railroad’s history still standing today.

Halifax County is the only place in N.C. with three registered historic sites on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. In this quiet rural community, you can touch tangible remnants of this painful and often-forgotten past.

There’s a trail that leads to the Roanoke River – and along the trail, historians have placed signs showing actual newspaper ads ran by plantation-owners seeking men and women who had escaped slavery.

There’s even a 200-year-old stone aqueduct – imposing and draped in ivy in the middle of the woods – that was built using enslaved labor – then later used as part of the Underground Railroad itself.

Along a trail to the Roanoke River, city councilwoman and historian Sandra Bryant says she can almost sense the Freedom Seekers who once walked in these very woods, following the river to a dream of freedom.

Today, the Underground Railroad Trail is just one place in Historic Halifax that allows visitors a glimpse of this history. (Read more)