Before the first subway line came to New York, the city hosted a different kind of “subterranean” transport network: the Underground Railroad.

One of the secret network’s two main routes used the city as a hub. “The stations of the railroad would come into a hub and there would be a change in stations,” Richard Hourahan, the Queens Historical Society curator, said at a presentation he gave at the Queens Library at Rochdale Village on Monday. “Where they’d ultimately end up is the terminals.”

Fugitive slaves could carefully travel through the city, but staying for long was a bad idea. Despite its distance from the South, New York was a dangerous city for escaped slaves. “It was very much a Southern city,” Hourahan said. “Southern merchants were here, they did a lot of their shopping here, they sold their cotton here.”

Though Harriet Tubman did not work in the city’s underground railroad network, it did have its share of underground railroad heroes who coordinated the network and supported the abolitionist cause. The American Anti-Slavery Society’s office was on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan, and the Committee of Vigilance, run by the famous abolitionist David Ruggles, provided temporary housing to fugitives and fought for them in various ways.

“Ruggles was a very feisty individual,” the curator said. Defiantly, his vigilance committee would publicly advertise fundraising meetings. “It was an illegal operation and he would just dare people to do something.”

Born a free man in Connecticut, Ruggles also operated a boarding house in Manhattan where he gave temporary sanctuary to fugitive slaves. Frederick Douglass, the famous abolitionist and writer, recounted staying at the house in his autobiography.

The aim of fugitive slaves, the curator explained, was to get somewhere that was at least one state way from a slavery state. “A lot settled in Westchester County because there was a large Quaker population there and they protected them,” Hourahan said. “Likewise in Long Island.”

The historian also discussed other notable New York City abolitionists like the Rev. James W.C. Pennington and Isaac T. Hopper, as well as the city’s own experience with slavery.

“Anyone know the percentage of slaves in Newtown?” Hourahan said, referring to Elmhurst by its former name. “Thirty percent. This was a very big slavery area. Flushing was about 15 percent, Jamaica was about 20 percent, Oyster Bay was 40 percent.”

Because it was largely occupied by farmers, Queens hosted some of the city’s largest slavery sites.

“The largest slave owner in Long Island was in Queens. A man named Rensen, and his farm is where LaGuardia Airport is now,” Hourahan said. “And he had the largest amount of slaves in Long Island. He had 50 slaves.”

The presentation, held during Black History Month, was well-received by the audience at the library. “His presentation was very clear and informative,” Jamaica resident Eileen Flynn told the Chronicle.