William Brinkley (Underground Railroad) dating history

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William Brinkley (c. 1814 – January 5, 1887) was a conductor on the Underground Railroad who helped more than 100 people achieve freedom by traveling from Camden, Delaware past the "notoriously dangerous" towns of Dover and Smyrna north to Blackbird and sometimes as far as Wilmington, which was also very dangerous for runaway enslaved people. Some of his key rescues include the Tilly Escape of 1856, the Dover Eight in the spring of 1857, and the rescue of 28 people, more than half of which were children, from Dorchester County, Maryland. He had a number of pathways that he would take to various destinations, aided by his brother Nathaniel and Abraham Gibbs, other conductors on the railroad.