Visiting stops on the Underground Railroad in Pa. | Black History Keystones

A home near Carlisle, Cumberland County has seen history unfold outside and inside its brick walls. Now home to Pheasant Field Bed and Breakfast, the property dates back to the 1750s, before our nation's founding.

The former owners enslaved people until the mid-1830s, when a new family bought the land and freed them. Farm records and verbal tradition show they soon went a step further.

"As we moved into the Civil War, the Charles Hoffer family, who did not believe in slavery, offered this house as one of the sanctuaries for runaway slaves heading north," said Robin Stauffer, co-owner of Pheasant Field Bed and Breakfast.

A standalone summer kitchen in the 1800s, one room would offer safety to an unknown number of people hoping to escape bondage.

"This cottage has a space in the floorboards that the slaves would come in and spend probably the daylight hours, because they moved primarily at night," Stauffer said. "This space here, the slaves would go down and hide in there."

"It's very small and confined," added Kathleen Stauffer. "If you really try to put your mind in the place of someone who's hiding down there, it's really intimidating."

It was intimidating and dangerous for the people seeking freedom, especially in Cumberland County, the last county in the state to end slavery.

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