DR. JULIE SCHABLITSKY: We're looking for the location of Ben Ross's home; Ben Ross was the father of Harriet Tubman.

To be able to find Ben Ross's cabin, and to learn more about what it was like for him here in Dorchester County is important because it adds another chapter to the hero tale of Harriet Tubman and what she did.

So the more we can add to that story and begin to really kind of fill in those gaps, I think the more we're going to feel closer to who they are and what their life was like here in the eastern shore of Maryland.

HERSCHEL JOHNSON: If we could find that house, or they could find that house, then this is where Harriet was born.

(crunching) DR. SCHABLITSKY: So Anthony Thompson had a farm of about 1000 acres, where Ben Ross lived, and for Anthony Thompson, he was a timber inspector.

Harriet Tubman was born on the Anthony Thompson farm.

We do believe that she also spent some time with her father in his cabin at that location.

JOHNSON: Her mother lived over toward the Bucktown store, and the Brodess plantation is over there.

Ben was in charge of men out here, both black and white.

I think Harriet spent more time in this area that it was more like freedom.

This is the reason I think that Harriet was able to leave here, because she was used to being out in the area, like we have right here.

DR. SCHABLITSKY: So the reason that we're looking here along Harrisville Road is that we know from historical documents, this is where Ben, we call it "Ben's 10", Ben and his 10 acres was located.

We know that somewhere along Harrisville road, he was given about 10 acres, and it was probably associated with his cabin where he was enslaved.

Eventually he was manumitted, or freed, and we know that he lived here up at least 'til the mid-nineteenth century.

But we don't know exactly where he lived.

Did he live closer to the river?

Did he live closer to the farm?

That's what we're trying to figure out here.

We're using shovel test pits on a grid-like pattern; we walk along Harrisville road, digging holes, about a foot and a half wide.

And the problem here is it's so wet.

So it's digging a swamp, you're getting just like muck coming out of that.

And so we had to cut through that with a trowel, just hoping to find any sort of broken piece of artifact that might take us back to the mid 19th century.

Because farmland is so important here, the people who were enslaved would have gone on area that may have not been very well drained.

So that's why we're here looking here in this very, very wet environment, because these are going to be the places where the enslaved and African Americans would have been forced to live.

There were people living along here on Harrisville Road, they likely were living both closer to the farm as well as farther away in perhaps even communities.

So even though we're looking for Ben Ross's home, I'm not sure it'll just be an individual cabin, it may be associated with a larger community that had several homes with it.

So we're going to know that we've found Ben Ross's cabin and the community, when those artifacts from the mid 1800's come up in our shovel test pits, when we are able to reach into the screen and bring out a broken piece of white ceramic that goes back to that time period, when we have those artifacts, we're going to then be able to dig a little bit more and start looking at what we have on the ground.

And from there, then we can finally start to work and really do our science.

But for right now we're just, we're searching.

♪ ♪ DR. SCHABLITSKY: If it would have been easy to find, we would have found it by now.

But it's one of those sites that we have to at least try to search for.

It was such a dangerous time to come back here.

But she came back specifically for friends and family.

And so it was important for her to bring everybody up north to get them out of this environment, even if they may have been free at the time.

JOHNSON: Her last thing that she did when she came back here, she came back for her father and mother.

So, and then, you know, I think she felt like I have my family with me now and that's what- that was her goal.

If they could find something here, this is more important than anything I think that you can find about Harriet Tubman.

I guess if Harriet could say the reason I was able to run to Pennsylvania because my father taught me all that he knew about being out in the forest or in the woods.

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