2025 Book Review and 2026 Plans

Plans for 2025 were ambitious and I almost made the whole set. I blame no one but myself.

Fiction--

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas--reviewed here.
• On Basilisk Station by David Weber--reviewed here.
• Eclipse of the Sun by Michael O'Brien--alas, unfinished! (At least it is started).
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco--reviewed here.
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman--reviewed here.
• From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury--reviewed here.
• Goethe's Faust translated by Walter Kaufman--reviewed here.
• Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe--reviewed here.
• Probably another bunch of books from A Good Story is Hard to Find Podcast
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim--reviewed here.
• Ad Limina by Cy Kellett--reviewed here.
• Scum of the Earth by Alexander C. Kane--reviewed here.
• The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene--reviewed here.
• What Monstrous Gods by Rosamund Hodge--reviewed here.

Theology--

• The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc--reviewed here.
• When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers by Marcellino D'Ambrosio--reviewed here
• Practical Theology by Peter Kreeft--reviewed here.
• Arguing Religion by Robert Barron--reviewed here.
• Catholic Essays by Stanley Jaki--reviewed here.
• Saint Katharine Drexel: Apostle to the Oppressed by Lou Baldwin--reviewed here.
• The Dialogue by Catherine of Siena--reviewed here.
• Life of Christ by Fulton J. Sheen--reviewed here.
• Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G. K. Chesteron by Joseph Pearce--reviewed here.
• Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Volume VIII: Psalms 51-150--reviewed here.
• Desire of the Everlasting Hills--reviewed here.

Philosophy--

• The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy by Etienne Gilson--reviewed here.
• Conversations of Socrates by Xenophon--reviewed here.
• The Hound of Distributism edited by Richard Aleman--reviewed here.
• Love and Friendship by Allan Bloom--reviewed here.
• The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos by Sohrab Ahmari--reviewed here.

Folklore/Mythology

• American Indian Trickster Tales by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz--reviewed here.
• Haunted Hotels: Eerie Inns, Ghoulish Guests, and Creepy Caretakers by Tom Ogden--reviewed here.
• Ghosthunting Maryland by Michael J. Varhola and Michael H. Varhola--reviewed here.

The graphic novel list...

1. Batman: Year One--reviewed here.
2. Death of Wolverine--reviewed here.
3. Hunt for Wolverine: Weapon Lost--reviewed here.
4. Hunt for Wolverine: The Adamantium Agenda--reviewed here.
5. Hunt for Wolverine: The Claws of a Killer--reviewed here.
6. Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery at Madripoor--reviewed here.
7. Daredevil: Back in Black Volume 8--reviewed here.
8. Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1956--reviewed here.
9. Space Usagi: Death and Honor--reviewed here.
10. Usagi Yojimbo Book 12--reviewed here.
11. Batman: The Long Halloween The Sequel: Dark Victory--reviewed here.
12. Usagi Yojimbo Book 13--reviewed here.
13. Destroy All Humans Volume 1--reviewed here.
14. The Irredeemable Ant-Man Volume 1--reviewed here.
15. Superman by Mark Millar--reviewed here.
16. Spy x Family Volume 13--reviewed here. 
17. Destroy All Humans Volume 2--reviewed here.
18. Usagi Yojimbo Volume 14--reviewed here.
19. The Last Mermaid Book 01--reviewed here.
20. Wolverine: Sabretooth Reborn--reviewed here.
21. Batman New 52 Volume 1--reviewed here.
22. Usagi Yojimbo Volume 15--reviewed here.
23. Batman New 52 Volume 2--reviewed here.
24. God's'dog Volume 1--reviewed here.
25. Usagi Yojimbo Volume 16--reviewed here.
26. God's'dog Volume 2--reviewed here.
27. Batman/Deadman Death and Glory--reviewed here.
28. Rocketeer Adventures Volume 1--reviewed here.
29. Rocketeer Adventures Volume 2--reviewed here.
30. Usagi Yojimbo Book 17--reviewed here.
31. Batman Adventures: Riddle Me This! reviewed here.
32. Bowling with Corpses--reviewed here.
33. Usagi Yojimbo Book 18--reviewed here.
34. Scarlett Volume 1--reviewed here.
35. Universal Monsters: The Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives!--reviewed here.
36. Usagi Yojimbo Book 19--reviewed here.
37. The Tale of Rapunzel and the Evil Witch--reviewed here.
38. Destro Volume 1--reviewed here.
39. Usagi Yojimbo Book 20--reviewed here.
40. X-Men Marvel Epic Collection Volume 12--reviewed here.
41. James Bond: Reflections on Death--reviewed here.
42. Spy x Family Volume 14--reviewed here.
43. Usagi Yojimbo Book 21--reviewed here.
44. Universal Monsters: The Mummy--reviewed here.
45. Universal Monsters: Dracula--reviewed here.
46. Universal Monsters: Frankenstein--reviewed here.
47. Usagi Yojimbo Book 22--reviewed here.
48. Godzilla's 70th Anniversary--reviewed here.
49. The Uncanny X-Men Volume 1--reviewed here.
50. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?--reviewed here.
51. Usagi Yojiimbo Book 23--reviewed here.
52. Destroy All Humans Volume 3--reviewed here.
53. Destroy All Humans Volume 4--reviewed here.
54. Zatanna: Bring Down the House--reviewed here. 
55. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars--reviewed here.
56. Thorn by Jeff Smith--reviewed here.

The plans for next year are even more ambitious (yet again)! I don't know why, since I am in a deficit from last year. Heck, if the government can be so far on the wrong side of the scale, why can't I?

Fiction--

• The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1 by Martha Wells
• Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• Markmaker by Mary Jessica Woods
• Somewhiher by John C. Wright
• Probably another bunch of books from A Good Story is Hard to Find Podcast

Theology--

• The Great Story of Israel by Robert Barron
• The Twelve by C. Bernard Ruffin
• The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton
• Darwin and Doctrine by Daniel Kuebler
• Abidng the Long Defeat by Patrick Sweeney
• Uniformity with God's Will by St. Alphonsus de Ligouri
• The Shroud of Jesus by Dr. Gilbert Lavoie
• Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Volume XII: Revelation

Philosophy--

• Ethics off Beginners by Peter Kreeft
• Beauty and Imitation by Daniel McInerny
• God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga
• Predestination, God's Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents by William Ockham
• Philosophical Essays by G. W. Leibniz
• Psychology and Religion by Carl Jung
• The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Folklore/Mythology--

• Classic Campfire Stories by William Forgey
• Voices of the Wind by Edmonds and Clark
• The Ghostly Tales of Delaware by Carie Juettner

Cinema--

• Popcorn with the Pope by David Paul Baird, Andrew Petiprin, and Michael Ward
• Monkey Business by Simon Louvish

History

• The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay

I will still read a lot of graphic novels available on Hoopla and through my local library. And the handful that I buy or are given as gifts!

TV Review: Blood Blockade Battlefront Season 1 (2015)

Blood Blockade Battlefront Season 1 (2015) created by Yasuhiro Nightow

New York City has been renamed Hellsalem's Lot because a portal to a Hell-like dimension opened up several years ago. Demons and other oddities have poured into the city. Life is a mixture of magic, superhuman (and indeed non-human) characters, and typical city life. Leonardo is a young photographer who has special "All Seeing Eyes of the Gods" and comes to Hellsalem's Lot to join Libra, an organization that fights crime in the city, specifically the weird, supernatural stuff. The organization itself is a collection of oddballs with random powers using their abilities in creative ways. 

The show is a bit episodic--the characters usually deal with a situation of the week. A subplot is introduced with twins (a boy and girl) who become part of a bigger plan to upset the balance of power. The twins are marginal until the last two episodes. One of the other episodes focuses on finding a place for lunch that everyone can agree upon, so the show balances the over-the-top action with a lot of humor like that. The characters are fun with some interpersonal intrigue to go along with the bigger action. Viewers are dropped into the story in the middle and it's a bit hard to keep up with what's going on, especially for English speakers/readers who need to read subtitles along with translations of data being shown on screen. I feel like I need to go back and pause the show at points so I can get all the details, a prospect I find enjoyable. Maybe before I watch season 2...

Recommended, though you have to keep up with a lot that's going on.

Book Review: Thorn by Jeff Smith

Thorn: The Complete Proto-Bone College Strips 1982-1986 and Other Early Drawings by Jeff Smith

Before he launched into the massive story of Fone Bone, a mild-mannered adventurer from Boneville who gets involved in a wide-ranging saga, creator Jeff Smith went to college (Ohio State University) and drew a comic strip called "Thorn" for the campus newspaper (which had a circulation of 50,000). Thorn is the female protagonist in the later Bone narrative and a romantic interest for Fone Bone. The seeds of that epic are found in these strips, along with a lot of other content. Being a college student, he did a lot of experimenting, drifting into political commentary and bizarre narratives (the characters often visit him in the "real" world and even spend one summer working with him at an ice cream factory). Some material is rough, some is heavy-handed, some reads as derivative. But that's a small portion of a larger, more entertaining strip that hasn't full coalesced yet. As a fan of Bone, I found this mostly enjoyable and am glad I read it.

Recommended for Bone fans.

Movie Review: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Wake Up Dead Man (2025) written and directed by Rian Johnson

Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is called into the remote town in upstate New York. The pastor, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), has been killed during Good Friday Mass, seemingly in an impossible way. He was in a side room off the church sanctuary and was stabbed in the back with a demon-headed knife. But no one was in the room, which has three cement walls. Suspicion falls on the new associate pastor, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor), whose pastoral style is a sharp contrast to Wicks. Wicks likes to preach Hell and brimstone, mostly to send new parishioners away in disgust. He has a core set of followers who stay at the parish despite his acerbic style. Nine months earlier, Fr. Jud's arrival is an opportunity to shake things up but he makes no progress, in spite of his clearly authentic desire to heal wounds and divisions rather than create them. Fr. Jud knows he's innocent and initially cooperates with Blanc's investigation, despite Blanc's irrational disregard and disdain of religion. Blanc is only interested in solving the unsolvable mystery of the crime. A lot of skeletons come out of a lot of closets as the investigation proceeds.

Solving the mystery involves a lot of red herrings and some implausible moments, but is overall satisfactory. It's certainly not the ridiculous plot of the previous film. Johnson still has some ideological axe-grinding in this film but it's kept to a minimum and is balanced by other elements. Wicks is about as Christian as the warden in Shawshank Redemption, which is to say only on the surface. He's a selfish and manipulative man, something his parishioners come to realize in a key scene, thus making them likely suspects. By contrast, Father Jud is a broken man trying to find redemption through the priesthood by ministering to others in their need. He still lapses back into fighting but wants to leave that behind. He's genuinely Catholic, something that Blanc indirectly acknowledges by the end, leading to a very satisfying resolution that is more about redemption than about solving the unsolvable. 

The actors do a great job in their roles. Craig is enjoyable as always. O'Connor does a great job presenting a very complicated character who is the real center of the story. The rest of the cast deliver on their characters, even when some are a bit underwritten even though they become critical to resolving the mystery. 

The movie also has a nice sense of humor. The plot leans heavily on the works of mystery authors like John Dickson Carr (the master of the "locked room" murder) and Agatha Christie, a fact acknowledge in the narrative. It also pokes fun at itself, mentioning that a movie about the situation would turn the characters into superficial versions of themselves on a Netflix version of the story (where the movie is available!). 

Recommended.

As I publish this (December 2025), this is only available streaming on Netflix.

Book Review: Practical Theology by Peter Kreeft

Practical Theology by Peter Kreeft

Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae is famously a bit rough to read. The style mirrors the classroom discussions of his time, with a proposed topic, objections, a citation of an authority, an explanation of the topic, and refutation of the objections. The writing is often bare-bones and technical, requiring some patience and guidance to make it through the arguments presented. 

The Summa Theologiae is also very valuable to read. It is clear and precise and comprehensive. Thomas covers everything from the existence of God to the fine points of morality in an organized and definitive way. The effort to read it is richly rewarded.

In this book Peter Kreeft presents 358 snippets from the Summa with some explanatory commentary. He draws in modern-day relevance, which is easy to do since eternal problems are always contemporary. Kreeft's style is fun and insightful, making Thomas's points more clear for the average reader. Each snippet and commentary is a page long, so not a big commitment in time to read individually. This could be read as a devotional or a reader could just wander through the index and go to topics of interest or concern. 

This book makes a great "jumping in" point for new readers or a nice review for those already familiar with Saint Thomas's work.

Highly recommended.

Sample Text: Something I read around Halloween, so naturally Kreeft's insight resonated especially.

There is no human body without a human soul; a corpse is what once was a human body but no longer is one. And the human soul without the human body is like a ghost; it is not fully human until it receives its human body in the Resurrection. Ghosts and corpses scare us precisely because they are not human. [p. 113]

Random Bits of Eastern Shore 2025

Some bits from our Thanksgiving 2025 trip that didn't make their own post...

Local J M Clayton Company is the longest running crab packing company in the world. They have a mural on the back of their building that is sort of thematic--a bird eating a crab. My son found a crab shell on the ground and checked it out for a bit.

Clayton Company mural

What's this?

A caboose next to the Powell Real Estate office in town (which is a former train station) has a fun mural of Canada geese breaking out of the car.

Goose on the caboose!

"Shine Your Light" is a mural complete in August 2025 by Miriam Moran representing various Latin peoples and accomplishments.

"Shine Your Light"

"Dorchester Women's Mural" by Bridget Cimino shows local famous women from Dorchester history, including Harriet Tubman, Annie Oakley, and Bea Arthur.

"Dorchester Women's Mural"

The most famous mural is "Take My Hand," the trump l'oeil depiction of the famous conductor of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman. The associated museum was closed on our visit.

"Take My Hand"

I thought this was an interesting house. The decorations are seasonal, though the most interesting feature is the fence around the driveway that doesn't go around the house. 

Are the cars more important?

This residence has a lovely color scheme.

Great for the summer

Cambridge has a lighthouse brought in closer as a tourist attraction. The Choptank River Lighthouse is a screwpile lighthouse that was position about 4 miles away at the Tred Avon River, warning boats about shoals and other troublesome hazards. Since we were there off season, tours were not available.

The sign

The lighthouse with Christmas decor

View from the lighthouse

Map of the original location

The local movie theater has a cool mural right next to it.

They're off to see something, maybe Wicked: For Good?

Across the Choptank from Cambridge is Bill Burton Fishing Pier State Park with some nice trails and geocaches. Well, not all of the trails are nice...

This trail by the Choptank is great

Uh, the tree fell down...will that happen to me?

Very permanent "Trail Closed" sign (should be moved to the tree fall area)

We did an escape room called "Area 51 Resurrection" at Escape Time Maryland. The theme was fun, working our way into a lab to try and revive "Bob" who was in pretty bad shape...at least it looked like bad shape for a little grey man. We finished with about 15 minutes left, so a good job by us.

Waiting around for our turn

Happy escapees (at least, happier than "Bob")

Book Review: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by J. Shooter et al.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars written by Jim Shooter, penciled by Mike Zek and Bob Layton

In the first mega-cross-over event in comics history, all the major heroes in the Marvel cannon at the time (1984) are secretly whisked away to Battleworld far across the universe. That world was created by the Beyonder, a god-like being from another universe that happened to see through a crack between his universe and Marvel's. Seeing the heroes and villains of Earth contending with each other over their desires, the Beyonder (who does not experience desire since anything he wants immediately he has) pits the group of heroes (including the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four (minus Sue), and Spider-Man) against a group of villains (including Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus, Galactus, the Absorbing Man, Magneto, Kang, the Enchantress, and others). The Beyonder offers the people their greatest desire if they kill their enemies. The all-out war is no simple affair since the X-Men still feel put off by humans (even superhumans like the Avengers); Magneto is lumped in with the heroes since his desires seem similar (even if his behavior is radically different); the villains have a hard time uniting under one leader and are often at odds. A lot of dramatic possibilities are played out as the twelve-issue series runs its course.

Forty years later, the story has not aged well. The all-out war is an interesting idea and the dynamics play out okay. The dialogue is very clunky, with a lot of weird nicknames for characters--Wolverine is "Wolvie," Hulk is "Hulkie," Magneto is "Maggie"!!! Some of the jokes I am sure were pop-culture gold in the 1980s and are now trivia answers today. A couple of characters are killed only to come back in the very next issue, a grating trope if ever there was one. A maudlin love triangle is introduced between Colossus, the Human Torch, and a woman from Battleworld that does not really develop in any interesting ways (other than Colossus breaks up with Kitty Pride on his return from Battleworld). The series was a massive hit, spawning a sequel the next year. And it introduced Spider-Man's black costume (actually the symbiote) and had Ben Grimm leave the Fantastic Four with She-Hulk subbing in from the Avengers' roster. The whole is entertaining in a nostalgic way but I am not going to reread it.

Mildly recommended--this is a fun mashup for Marvel fans that you can jump into without reading a long backlist of issues.

Movie Review: The Naked Gun (2025)

The Naked Gun (2025) co-written and directed by Akiva Schaffer

Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) is a star detective in Los Angeles's Police Squad. Even though he is law enforcement, he doesn't play by the rules (i.e. the laws) which gets him in hot water. He's investigating a seeming suicide that just happens to tie into the bank robbery he foils at the beginning of the movie (and is seen during the trailer). High tech mogul Richard Kane (Danny Huston) orchestrated both crimes, getting a key piece of technology from the bank and eliminating an associate who didn't want the technology used inappropriately. The dead guy's sister (Pamela Anderson) goes on a revenge-fueled investigation, forcing Drebin to work with her. He also falls in love with her. The story plays out in the typical ridiculous fashion of previous Naked Gun films. 

The movie follows the same slapstick and sight-gag stylings of the first film, a classic dumb comedy. I certainly laughed plenty during the film. It doesn't keep the energy up through the whole film, i.e. it's not as funny as its predecessors. The weakness is more in the script than the performances. Neeson is good as the noir cop, always drinking coffee and busting up phones. Anderson gives a good comedy performance too but the rest of the cast is just so-so. The Zucker-Abrams-Zucker satire style is hard to perfect. This movie is a pale imitation of the previous stuff.

Mildly recommended--if you liked the original films, this is an entertaining watch.

TV Review: A Man on the Inside Season 2 (2025)

A Man on the Inside Season 2 (2025) created by Michael Shur based on the Chilean documentary The Mole Agent

Charles (Ted Danson) is still working at Julie's (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) detective agency but they are doing the bread-and-butter jobs 0f private investigation--busting suspected cheating spouses. Charles wants something more substantial than following sleazy guys around. A job falls in their laps--Wheeler College is about to honor one of their graduates, but only to get a $400 million-dollar donation from him. Brad Vinick (Gary Cole) is an egotistical corporate sleazeball about to get his portrait in the gallery of great graduates from the college. College President Jack Beringer (Max Greenfield) gets an anonymous threat and his laptop is stolen. Anonymous threatens to reveal secrets unless the college refuses to give Vinick honors and take his money. Julie's agency is hired to find the laptop and who the anonymous person is. Charles pretends to be a visiting professor of engineering at the school, trying to sus out who among the faculty might be blackmailing the president.

The story spins out from there, ranging through a lot of suspects and a lot of personal dramas. Charles immediately falls romantically for Mona (Mary Steenburgen), a music professor who is a kooky free spirit and instantly off Charles's list of suspects (but not off Julie's). Pompous English professor Doctor Benjamin Cole (David Strathairn) despises Charles so naturally he's Charles's top suspect. Plenty of other characters are possible suspects too. If that's not enough, Charles goes back to the retirement home community for help, along with his daughter and their family. A lot of narrative strands are played out with most of them getting resolved sooner or later. The writers care maybe even more about the characters than the mystery.

I found the show enjoyable but not as tightly realized as the first season. The resolution of the mystery is not quite credible but the focus is more on comedy and personal situations. Quite a few in-jokes and easter eggs are thrown into the show too. I laughed plenty each episode and appreciated the occasional insightful commentaries on human relations.

Mildly recommended--this is a fine sequel but not as good as the first season.

As I write (December 2025), this is only available on Netflix. 

Book Review: When the Church Was Young by Marcellino D'Ambrosio

When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers by Marcellino D'Ambrosio

This review of the great teachers of the early church spans from Pope Saint Clement in the Apostolic era to Pope Saint Gregory the Great in the 800s. But the list is not limited to popes. Most of the early Church Fathers were monks, priests, and bishops (sometimes, all three at different points in their lives). They wrote dealing with controversies of their day, clarifying the Faith that was handed down to them from the Apostles, before the books of the New Testament were officially chosen at the Council of Carthage in 397. The early Fathers strove for greater clarity about the Eucharist, about how Jesus is true God and true man, and the nature of and relationships in the Holy Trinity. Plenty of wrong notions sprang up (Arians, Nestorians, Pelagians, Gnostics, etc.) and needed clarification and correction.

This book describes the lives of the early Fathers one by one, giving a bit of biography (if any is available) and describing their writings and dealings with their fellow Christians and with their contemporary pagan world. The narrative style makes the information easy to absorb and presents enough information about each one's writings to let readers know if they want to delve deeper into that Father's life or read that Father's writings. An appendix provides a list of primary and secondary sources for further reading.

I liked this book a lot. The style is very engaging while presenting the through line of orthodox teaching based on the reading of Scriptures (both Old and New Testament) and the education received from previous Fathers. Often, they interacted--the most famous example is Saint Ambrose of Milan, who was an influential figure in converting Saint Augustine to the true faith (though Augustine's mom was clearly more influential). The chapters are easy to read and the use of Greek and Latin is minimal, only emphasized when dealing with controversies like the homoousos vs. homoiousos controversy.

Highly recommended--this is a great way to step into learning from the ancient teachers of the Christian church.

Harriet Tubman on Maryland's Eastern Shore

Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most famous woman from the American Civil War era. She was born a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and ran away to freedom in her twenties. Soon enough, she went back to Maryland to help other slaves (including friends and family) escape along the Underground Railroad. When the Civil War broke out, she joined the army, eventually working as a spy and leading a raid. After the war, she lived on a farm she had in New York. She was involved in the women's suffrage movement. 

The town of Salisbury has a memorial garden to Tubman, featuring a small mural of her and some informational signs.

Harriet Tubman Garden Mural

The fall isn't the best time to visit the garden

In front of Dorchester's County Courthouse is a statue of Tubman called "The Beacon of Hope." 

Pic with me blocking, whoops!

The downtown Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge is closed for repairs. The famous mural outside is still visible. It's called "Take My Hand," and was painted by Michael Rosato. 

"Take My Hand"

We did a Adventure Lab-inspired tour of some historic sites in Dorchester County, including the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park. 

Our first stop was at the Stanley Institute, a classic "one room" school that opened in 1867 to teach blacks since it became legal to do so in post-war Maryland. Ten years earlier, two large groups fled from slavery in this area, making the locals more vigilant in patrolling and keeping watch on blacks, free or slave, in the area. Tubman was not able to come back to this particular area for three years. The building is now a museum which wasn't open when we visited.

Stanley Institute

The Church Creek area south of Cambridge was a hub of shipbuilding which allowed enslaved people to learn valuable skills in crafting boats and piloting them, enabling them to escape through the many waterways on Maryland's eastern shore.

Info about Church Creek

The next stop was the NPS Visitor Center, which has very fine exhibits on the life of Harriet Tubman, from her birth as a slave, though her career as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and on to her activism for women's suffrage. 

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center

She was born Araminta "Minty" Ross in March of 1822 to slaveholders in the area. Her father Ben lived on a different plantation from his wife and children. He could only visit them when time allowed (hardly ever). 

Model of a slave cabin

Artist's rendition of family reunions

Minty was hired out by the Brodess family (who owned her mother) on several different jobs, including setting traps and retrieving muskrats for their pelts. 

Child trapper

As she grew older, an altercation at a nearby drygoods store made a profound change in her life. A slave was escaping from his master. Araminta did nothing to stop him, so the clerk threw a two-pound scale weight at the fleeing slave and accidentally hit Minty. She was knocked down and had a severe injury but still had to return to work in the fields. She started having epileptic fits and visions that she attributed to God. In 1844, she married the free black man John Tubman but still had to remain a slave. In 1849 Brodess died and his widow planned to sell off the slaves to repay debts. Tubman (who changed her name to Harriet in honor of her mother) decided to run. When she finally fled north from slavery, her crossing into Pennsylvania was a religious experience too.

Artist's rendition of Harriet crossing into Pennsylvania

A mockup of a slaves house with a barrel of corn in front

While "up North," Harriet's visions convinced her to go back and bring family and friends North too. She became a very active and highly successful conductor on the Underground Railroad, a network of homes and hiding places where fleeing slaves could get respite and help on the perilous journey north. Historical documents show over seventy people she led to freedom, though obviously records were not kept in any detail, so it could have been more.

Lists of people she saved from slavery

The museum has a bust of Frederick Douglass, another freed slave who worked with abolitionists to expose the horrors of chattel slavery. Douglass also grew up on Maryland's eastern shore.

Frederick Douglass

Other exhibits show her many collaborators on the Underground Railroad.

Fellow travelers

When the Civil War began, she joined the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, later as a spy and a commander for a raid. After the war, she moved to Auburn, New York, where she had bought a farm. She still remained active, even working with Susan B. Anthony on women's suffrage in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Susan B. Anthony and a family photo

Tubman was the first black woman to be honored by appearing on a United States postage stamp and by having a Navy vessel named after her. The effort to put her on the twenty-dollar bill has been recently renewed (in March 2025) after being tossed around like a hot potato for the past ten years. 

Tubman cultural impact

A last memorial

Back out on the trail, the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge presents the kind of land fleeing slaves typically traveled through. A sign talks about Tubman's brother Moses, who was hidden by their mother in Greenbrier Swamp so he would not be sold into slavery when they were children.

Tubman info sign

We did not visit this visitor center

Further down the road is the area that was Brodess's plantation where Tubman was born. It was an empty field when we visited in late November, though I am sure it is probably still farmed today.

Info on Tubman

The Tubman trail sign

In nearby Bucktown (less than a mile away), the stores look like they could be from the ante-bellum days.

A store in Bucktown, maybe the store

The weather was very cold when we visited and a couple of us were under the weather, so we did not do much more exploring. Such an important history is well worth visiting.