New research is beginning to show the possible links the Roanoke Canal played in the Underground Railroad.

The research into the clandestine network that led slaves to freedom is a work in progress, North Carolina State University history professor David Zonderman told a packed house at the Roanoke Canal Museum Thursday night.

“It's been an education, immersing myself into a very complex network. It was an informal network of people,” he said. “What we're working on is a larger part of history.”

(The research project has a Facebook page. A website is forthcoming)

The connection of the canal to the Underground Railroad comes first from ads for runaway slaves from Halifax County from the 1790s through the Civil War, including an ad from the Roanoke Navigation Company, which rented slaves to build the canal.

The navigation company ad.

The most logical escape route was the river, many of the ads showing their owners believed they were heading toward Halifax. “We don't have anything written, don't have any smoking guns,” he said, showing a heat map where a large number of slaves escaped captivity. “We can put the ads on a heat map.”

Halifax had a substantial free black community, Zonderman said. “If they got here they could blend in with the free black community.”

There was also a thriving Quaker community in Rich Square. The history of Quakers in the abolition of slaves is complex, however, he said, some fighting for the Confederacy and some holding slaves.

The best escape route was the river. “The river was seen as giving a lot of options.”

Efforts are under way, Zonderman said, to get the canal recognized as part of the National Park Service's Network to Freedom.

“We can use the museum as an anchor,” he said. “We want to make it much more fabulous.”

Zonderman said there is still much research to be done and he plans to make a presentation to county commissioners in the future. “A lot of this is like a jigsaw puzzle.”