Geospatial Dataset of Cities and Counties of Escape Origin as Recorded in William Still’s Records of the Underground Railroad, 1853-1861

This geospatial dataset describes the locations of cities, towns, and counties which served as the place origins of Black individuals escaping enslavement on the Underground Railroad along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between 1853-1861. Data are derived from the narrative accounts of escape recorded by Black abolitionist William Still. These records were later published in tabular form by contemporary scholar William Kashatus and then assembled and disseminated in digital form by scholar Nick Sacco (see README.txt file for details and sources). The present dataset was derived from geocoding of these latter digital data to support Underground Railroad and related research.