5th Grade students paraphrased information from a story about Harriet Tubman.

1. The Long Path to
Freedom
Paraphrased by the Fifth Graders

2. 512 &
513
Harriet’s mother, Rit, was a slave for a
woman named, Mary Patterson. Rit was
suppose to serve Mary until she was 45.
Mary died earlier, so Rit was supposed to
be free, but another woman had snatched
Rit to be her slave. One Day Harriet saw a
quaker in a buggy. The quaker told Harriet
that any time Harriet needed help, she
could go to her in Bucktown. Harriet was
grateful for the quaker.

3. Harriet swears to keep the secret of the Quaker
woman’s words about coming to her house. It would be
hard to escape with the scar on her head, everyone could
recognize her. She brought her brothers along so she
wasn’t lonely. Her brothers were scared and didn’t know
the woods like Harriet did. They wanted to go back to the
plantation because they were scared. She tried to
encourage them on but they were to scared. She said
that she would just go on her own but they didn’t let her.
She fought but her brothers were too strong and they
brought her back to the plantation. Now if she didn’t
escape she would be traded and have to work with the
chain gang.
514

4.  Harriet thought if her husband went with her, he might
help the men. She could not take anyone. She had to let
someone know that she was leaving or her family would
worry. When she saw her mother go and milk the
cow, Harriet knew she could not tell her. She just told
her mother that she would milk the cow instead of
telling her the truth. Soon she went to find her
sister, Mary, to tell her the big secret. Once she found
her, she saw the other slaves and needed to tell Mary in
secret. She pretended to wrestle with her and once she
was in private, a white man rode by and Mary ran away.
So Harriet just sang a song.
Pg 516-
517

5. Harriet ran away one evening and tried to wade in streams. She went to
the quaker’s house. The quaker told her she must go to the to the Hunn’s
place. She gave the quaker her beautiful quilt.
Pg. 518-519

6. Crossing the Line
Harriet continued north all night. But when
the sun started to rise, she had to dig a hole to
climb into to stay out of sight and to rest. When
the night came again, she got up and kept going.
She knew that she had to go faster for her owner
would send out slave hunters and bloodhounds to
go after her. After a while, the river began to
narrow until it was nothing but a few drops and
then she saw the road. Harriet was just about to
cross it when a sleep spell came. She fell to the
dirt, unconscious. When she woke up, she heard
slave hunters talking a bout a run-away girl.

7. 522
The men said that they should come back in
early morning. Harriet should be at the
Hunn’s before early morning. When she
reached the Hunn’s she saw a woman.
Harriet showed the woman the paper and the
woman introduced herself. Her name was
Eliza Hunn. Eliza introduced Harriet to her
husband, Ezekiel Hunn. Harriet stayed there
for 3 nights. The 4th night Eliza gave Harriet
freshly washed clothes and a parcel of food.
Mr Hunn helped her in the wagon and put a
blanket over her head.

8. Mr.Hunn drove Harriet a little bit farther in
her journey to a town named Camden. He
stopped and couldn’t take her on any farther. She
had to go to Wilmington, Delaware with slave
hunters around. She walked to the cemetery and
saw a man like Mr.Hunn said, and he gave her
some clothes and a hat to cover her scar to look
like a worker. He brought her to another man
who works in a shoe factory who gave her shoes
and let her go into the house.
523

9. Harriet Tubman stayed in Thomas’s house all day
he was a Quaker known for helping slaves . Since
he worked in a shoe factory he always supplied
runaways with a new pair of kicks. The next night
Thomas gave Harriet new fancy lady cloths to wear
then they were in a carriage going through town
nobody would think she was a runaway slave in
that kind of clothing. He gave her a piece of paper
with the writing… Pennsylvania he knew she could
not read but he said there would be a sign that said
exactly what he wrote on the paper. But there were
guards everywhere near the border of Pennsylvania
so he did not bring her all the way through once she
walked through the gates she knew she would be
free. When she walked through she was happy for a
moment then she realized that she would one day
go back and get her family and free them from
enslavement!
524- 526