Decades before the Civil War began, abolitionists and sympathizers were active north of Gettysburg in the areas we call Quaker Valley and Yellow Hill. Here, just a few miles north of the Mason Dixon line, members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) worked with local freedmen Edward Mathews and Basil Biggs to bring escaping slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. The Quaker Valley and Yellow Hill areas also provided safe haven for Gettysburg’s African American community during the 1863 Confederate invasion. Today the only evidence of the once-thriving African American community is the neglected and abandoned Yellow Hill cemetery.