Among the passengers that year was Frederick Douglass, (1808-1895), a former Eastern Shore farm slave and later Fells Point ships' caulker, who escaped his Baltimore owner by boarding a PB&W train, perhaps at a Canton station or along the line in the vicinity, (further east of the future 1849-1850 historic President Street Station at President and Fleet Streets, which is east of "The Basin" of Baltimore's Harbor), and riding it northeast to Havre de Grace, Perryville, Wilmington and then to Philadelphia. To avoid detention, Douglass, a future world-famous abolitionist, statesman, Federal official, orator and publisher, borrowed a "seaman's protection", a document obtained by his future wife, a free black woman, which was normally carried by free black sailors, of which there were many in the merchant fleets and the navy. Later, the railroad would require black passengers to have "a responsible white person" sign a bond at the ticket office before allowing them to board.