A small bend in Shadeland Avenue once hid a doorway to freedom. Recently, Upper Darby Township raised a new historical marker outside Holy Child Academy, honouring Riverview House—the birthplace of abolitionist Thomas Garrett and a busy station on the Underground Railroad. The bronze plaque turns a quiet schoolyard into a living classroom about courage, community, and the power of ordinary homes.

Birth of a Conductor

In 1789, Thomas Garrett breathed his first breath at Riverview House. Long before he guided more than 2,700 enslaved people toward freedom, the stone farmhouse on the ridge echoed his Quaker parents’ antislavery talk. That early witness shaped a beacon whose name stretched from Pennsylvania to Delaware and whose birthplace still claims a proud place in Upper Darby’s history.

A Farm Turns Lantern

By the 1830s, Garrett’s homestead had become a lantern on the Underground Railroad. Wagons crept up its dirt lane after dark, carrying families who trusted the Garretts for shelter and safe guidance north. Quaker neighbours supplied food and maps, transforming a simple dairy farm into a lifeline that stitched Shadeland Avenue into a continent-wide freedom network.

Letters in the Night

Evidence survives in correspondence. In 1858, Thomas Garrett wrote to conductor William Still, explaining that Ann Maria Jackson and her seven children had rested at brother Edward’s Upper Darby home on their perilous trek north. The short note, passed hand to hand, forever anchors Riverview House in the written record of Underground Railroad courage.

Fading Footprints

After the Civil War, the farm changed hands and missions. In 1969, the weather-worn house underwent demolition, and Holy Child Academy subsequently emerged on the slope where it once stood. Students played on ground rich with hidden stories even as the broader township slowly forgot the secret gatherings that once unfolded beneath its towering sycamores.

Trail of Rediscovery

The story resurfaced in 2021 when historians launched the Upper Darby Underground Railroad Walking Tour. Riverview House became Stop Two, joining Garrett House, Sellers Hall, and other landmarks. Colourful map brochures invite residents to trace freedom seekers’ footsteps where traffic now hums, reconnecting modern sidewalks with a route first blazed in the darkness.

Students Carry the Torch

Eighth graders at Holy Child Academy scoured archives, interviewed experts, and designed interpretive panels for their campus. Their research impressed township leaders and helped secure approval for a permanent plaque. By giving voice to the past, the students showed that the power to remember—and to teach—rests not only in textbooks but in young hands.

Unveiling Day on Shadeland

Under bright April skies, Mayor Edward Brown joined students, teachers, and neighbours at 475 Shadeland Avenue. One tug of blue cloth revealed the cast-aluminium marker gleaming in the sunlight. Applause rose, cameras clicked, and fifth-graders read Garrett’s words aloud, turning a once-forgotten corner of campus into a stage for living history.

A Walk Through Living History

Visitors can now follow bronze sidewalk medallions from the new marker to thorn-shaded Sellers Hall and the quiet Friends Cemetery, assembling a fuller picture of local freedom work. Despite fitting easily into an afternoon, the self-guided tour stretches imagination back 170 years, proving that modest places linked together built great movements.

Echoes for the Future

Township leaders plan Juneteenth walks, classroom field trips, and evening story circles at the marker. They hope its steady presence will spark ongoing study of allyship, resistance, and the families who risked everything for liberty. Each passing school bus adds new voices to the conversation, ensuring Riverview House continues to teach long after sunset.