Harriet soon misses her family and decides to return to help them escape as soon as she can. It is 1849, and Harriet gets a job working as a hotel cook. She hates indoor work but stays for one year, saving as much money as possible. Harriet feels out of place in Philadelphia, a busy city with many other fugitive slaves, and she often feels homesick for her family’s cabin. Harriet seeks information from the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, a group that helps fugitive slaves by offering them money, clothes, food, and train tickets. Harriet frequently visits the Committee’s offices to listen to William Still speak, a free Black man and the secretary of the Committee. Still’s stories reinvigorate her desire to help more slaves reach freedom in the North.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, Harriet’s brother-in-law, a free Black man, has learned that his wife Mary and their children will be sold and asks for help from a Quaker friend, who informs the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee. The Underground Railroad “conductors” do not use the postal system; instead, they pass messages from person to person, always using their code words to avoid detection. The Committee agrees that a boat will be ready to transport the family from Cambridge, Maryland, to Baltimore, where they will continue their way north.