CHURCH CREEK, Md. - It all started with a coin. A liberty half-dollar minted in 1808, to be exact.
1808 was the same year Harriet Tubman's parents were wed. The coin led archaeologists to discover the former home of Tubman's father, Ben Ross.
"To be able to find the location where Ben Ross lived is very, very exciting," says Chief Archaeologist for the Maryland State Highway Administration Julie Schablitsky.
Given the knee-high, mosquito infested water her team had to trek through, Schablitsky says she initially thought the search was hopeless, saying, "after digging 1,000 holes and coming up empty handed, to be able to have a couple clues that we're getting close really kinda helped us."
The team first searched for something called "Ben's 10". Referring to the 10 acres of land Ben Ross was given by his former enslaver Anthony Thompson. Thompson died in 1836. In his will, he granted Ross his freedom and 10-acres of land, according to Shablitsky. At the marshy site, the team found numerous dish fragments, pottery, glass, and even a brick from the home's foundation.
Local historian Herschel Johnson says what Harriet Tubman learned from her father at the home likely helped her with the Underground Railroad decades later.
"Before, everyone would talk about Harriet. Now, they're going to be able to talk about Ben Ross," Johnson says, "without Ben Ross, she probably wouldn't have been able to navigate from one area to the other."
Tina Wyatt, the three times great-great-great grandniece of Harriet Tubman and four times great-great-great-great granddaughter of Ben Ross, hopes these discoveries shed more light on Tubman's family history.
"We don't know who his parents are," she says referring to Ben Ross, "how did he come to be on that plantation? We don't know that. See we know all that about her but we don't know that about him. We know he had some brothers. But what about them?"
Archaeologists say they plan to return to the site this fall. Upon returning, they hope to find more artifacts relating to Tubman's father and, potentially, others who lived around him. They also say a plan is in the works for a nature trail to access the site, however, a representative from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which owns the land Ross's home is on, says that will likely not happen for a few years.
