There is a book entitlled HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW, by Jacqueline Tobin & Raymond Dobard. Tobin met Ozella Williams at the Old Market in Charleston, SC. Williams told her that her mother related stories about quilts she had heard from her mother, who was a slave. Much of the early history of African Americans is oral, so it could be true, because we know that many slaves did escape from the south and on to Canada and to Mexico. There had to be some secret communication between the Abolitionists and the slaves, as this was extremely dangerous for both.