During the 1850s, Utica aided more than 650 fugitive slaves; it played a major role as a station in the Underground Railroad. The city was on a slave escape route from the Southern Tier to Canada by way of Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester. The route, used by Harriet Tubman to travel to Buffalo, guided slaves to pass through Utica on the New York Central Railroad right-of-way en route to Canada. Utica was the locus for Methodist preacher Orange Scott's antislavery sermons during the 1830s and 1840s, and Scott formed an abolitionist group there in 1843. The 1835 initial meeting of the New York Anti-Slavery Society, in Utica, was disrupted by an anti-abolitionist mob, including local congressman Samuel Beardsley and other "prominent citizens". (It adjourned to Gerrit Smith's home in nearby Peterboro, New York).