Tour Stop # 3: The Slave Block

Photo Courtesy of John Aichele



What you see here is a modern gas station, not a very historical site. If you look closely at the brick in front of the gas station, however, you will see that it marks the spot of the old Slave Block. Here, according to local legend, over 200 slaves were auctioned between 1800 and 1865. Ironically, next door to it was runaway station on the Underground Railroad. The house was used as a school house until 1957, when it raised for the new gas station.

The state of Maryland might have been the most interesting state in regards to its political affiliation at the eve of the Civil War. It was officially a Northern Slave State. The border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, known as the Mason-Dixon Line, was a name burned into every runaway slave’s brain. In the eastern part of the state, in the Chesapeake Bay Region, the country scene might well have been from Virginia to the south, with large plantations with slaves. However, in the western part of Maryland, the sentiment was very pro Union. When General Robert E. Lee brought his Army of Northern Virginia into western Maryland, he falsely assumed that his army would be replenished by Maryland recruits. However, the towns of western Maryland, like Sharpsburg, gave the Confederate Army a rather cold reception. But if the citizens of Sharpsburg felt that they had Union sympathies, they also had this living breathing operating reminder how close their town and state was on the edge between the two warring sides.

Questions for consideration: If you were a citizen of Sharpsburg during the Civil War, how would you feel if your town produced soldiers on both sides of the conflict? After the end of the war and the end of slavery, if you walked by this spot before the gas station, how you like to remember what happened here?

Photo Courtesy of John Aichele