Bucktown Village Store - The Blow That Changed Her
Photo: Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
A stop on Harriet Tubman, a free self-guided tour.
In the 1830s Bucktown was a busy crossroads, with two stores, a blacksmith shop, a shopkeeper's house and shipyards on the nearby Transquaking River. This store is where Tubman's first recorded act of defiance took place.
She was about 13, hired out to a nearby farmer, and had come here with the farm's cook. An overseer burst in chasing an enslaved man who had left work without permission, and he ordered Minty to help hold him. She refused. The man broke away, and the overseer hurled a two-pound weight after him. It struck her in the head.
She was carried back bleeding, laid on the seat of a loom for a day and a night, and sent back to the fields before she had healed. For the rest of her life she had headaches and sudden spells of sleep, along with vivid visions she understood as guidance from God. Some historians think the injury caused a form of epilepsy.
The grounds are open dawn to dusk. The Bucktown Village Foundation offers inside visits by appointment at 410-901-9255.
Getting here: Continue east on Greenbrier Road about a mile to Bucktown Road; the store is at 4303 Bucktown Road.
Did you know?: Tubman later said her thick hair, which had never been combed, cushioned the blow and may have saved her life.
Photo op: Stand across Bucktown Road to frame the whole store and its porch, the scene Michael Rosato painted inside the Cambridge museum.
Nearby: Parking on site; bike and kayak rentals are nearby. No food service; restrooms only if the store is open for a tour.
More on Wikipedia: Bucktown, Maryland · Harriet Tubman
Stops on this tour
- Harriet Tubman Museum - Take My Hand
- Dorchester County Courthouse - The Auction That Failed
- Long Wharf - Portal to Slavery, Gateway to Freedom
- Bethel AME Church - Pine Street's Anchor
- Malone's Church - Where Minty Was Born
- Stewart's Canal - Waterways and Watermen
- Tubman Visitor Center - Her Whole Life in View
- Blackwater Refuge - The Land She Learned to Read
- Brodess Farm - A Childhood Hired Out
- Bucktown Village Store - The Blow That Changed Her
- Scott's Chapel - Faith on Both Sides of the Road
- Leverton House - Quaker Shelter at Preston
- Choptank Landing - The River North
- Poplar Neck - Bringing Her Parents Out