In this setting, Duterte began her professional life as a tailor and was known for her cloaks, hats, and attire—which at least one source claims were considered fashionable. In 1852, at the age of 35, she married Francis A. Duterte, a Haitian-American who owned his own undertaking business. None of their children survived infancy, and Francis himself died in 1858, after just six years of marriage. In the only photograph of Duterte that has survived, she is pictured cradling one of her children, the baby’s eyes closed in sleep, or maybe death. Her expression is both proud and formidable—you can almost see a hint of a smile. Her gaze is so direct; the photo appears almost modern in its frankness and straightforward expression.

At age 41, Duterte had no husband and no children—but she did have a business. She took over the funeral parlor, growing it into a highly successful endeavor. According to most accounts, she was known for being an excellent and fast undertaker. This was an important detail in a world in which embalming techniques were not yet developed and the precariousness of life meant that death could come suddenly and without warning. Duterte’s business success meant that she was also instrumental in fund-raising for the community that surrounded her. She supported the AME Church of St. Thomas; the Philadelphia Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons; and, after the Civil War, the Freedman’s Aid Society, which supported formerly enslaved people in Tennessee. When she died in 1903, her business was so successful that it was grossing about $8,000 a year (about $211,500 in today’s dollars).

Duterte was uniquely situated to connect her business to the Underground Railroad. Philadelphia was part of the Metropolitan Corridor, a network of vigilance committees—formalized groups of organized black activists who smuggled fugitives to the north. Most of those escaping slavery for the north came from the border Southern states—Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Though the methods for escape varied, the vast majority came by land. Some, like the most famous fugitive, Frederick Douglass, escaped by painstakingly saving up enough money for train and ferry tickets, riding alongside white passengers and tensely hoping not to be discovered.

But Philadelphia became famous for being the final destination for the most daring fugitive escapes. In 1849, 33-year-old Henry “Box” Brown shipped himself in a wooden crate from Virginia to abolitionists in Philadelphia. And a year prior, in 1848, Ellen and William Craft escaped from Macon, Georgia. Ellen, an enslaved woman of mixed race, managed to pass as a white male plantation owner while her husband posed as her slave. In this context, Duterte’s funeral parlor/Underground Railroad stop makes complete sense. It is not so strange to use whatever means you have at hand—a postal box; a fake moustache, top hat, and cane; a coffin and a funeral procession—to ensure freedom for yourself and those you love.

The image of using funeral processions and coffins to smuggle enslaved people into and out of the city becomes even more poignant when set to the soundtrack of the spirituals of the time. These songs served to describe the experiences of black people, free and enslaved, and to communicate passcodes for the Underground Railroad. Lyrics like “Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave”; “Over my head, I hear music in the air”; and “Dem bones gonna rise again” all take on a meaning both despairing and hopeful. The theologian Howard Thurman, in describing these songs, wrote, “Death is regarded as release, as complete surcease from anxiety and care. This is to be distinguished from that which may come after death. We are thinking here of the significance of death regarded somewhat as a good in itself. The meaning of death in such a view is measured strictly against the background of immediate life experience. It is not a renunciation of life because its terms have been refused, but an exulting sigh of sheer release from a very wearying burden.”