Brinkley Hill

Brinkley Hill was a free Black community that acted as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Brothers William and Nathaniel Brinkley aided Harriet Tubman on numerous occasions, including her documented Tilly Escape. William guided many runaways north to freedom, conveying six of the famed “Dover Eight” and the rescue of 28 enslaved people past the then-dangerous towns of Dover and Smyrna. Following the passage of the 13th Amendment, the Brinkleys worked with the Delaware Association for the Moral Improvement and Education of Colored People to secure funding to erect a new schoolhouse in 1867. William was also a founder of Zion A.M.E. Church, which still stands today.