Burris, Samuel D.

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Samuel D. Burris
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Death Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    Black
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Slave State
    Relation to Slavery
    Free black
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)

    Samuel Burris (Still, 1872)

    Scholarship
    Referred to by John Hunn, [Samuel Burris] was also a brave conductor on the Underground Rail Road leading down into Maryland (via Hunn's place). Mr. Burris was a native of Delaware, but being a free man and possessing more than usual intelligence, and withal an ardent love of liberty, he left "slavedom" and moved with his family to Philadelphia. Here his abhorrence of Slavery was greatly increased, especially after becoming acquainted with the Anti-slavery Office and the Abolition doctrine. Under whose auspices or by what influence he was first induced to visit the South with a view of aiding slaves to escape, the writer does not recollect; nevertheless, from personal knowledge, prior to 1851, he well knew that Burris was an accredited agent on the road above alluded to, and that he had been considered a safe, wise, and useful man in his day and calling. Probably the simple conviction that he would not otherwise be doing as he would be done by actuated him in going down South occasionally to assist some of his suffering friends to get the yokes off their necks, and with him escape to freedom. A number were thus aided by Burris.
    William Still, The Underground Rail Road (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), 746.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Newton, James E. "The Underground Railroad in Delaware." Negro History Bulletin 40, no. 3 (1977): 702-703. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Burris, Samuel D.," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/5283.