George DeBaptise was born in Virginia around 1815 to free Black parents.
DeBaptiste worked as a barber just north of the Ohio river while helping enslaved people cross the river from Kentucky into Indiana.
DeBaptiste later moved to Detroit in 1846, where he worked as a barber, bought a bakery and purchased a steamship called the “T. Whitney.”
Back then, Black men were not allowed to hold a captain license, so Whitney hired a white man to pilot the boat to help enslaved people escape into Canada.
Others like Captain James Nugent, an Irish immigrant living in Sandusky, Ohio, is reported to also help enslaved people escape into Canada.
Nugent was captain of the schooner “Home.”
Nugent used the Welland Canal to get to Ontario. When the schooner was lowered into the canal, enslaved people could jump onto land and make their way to a tow nearby St. Catherines.
It was a hub of abolitionism and once the home of Harriet Tubman.
