The Civil War was anything but civil for civilians in this region. The area was very divided politically during the Civil War. At the time, Wilkes-Barre had a population of 2,723 residents, of which 121 were Black. Many escaped slaves knew there were those here who would aid them to freedom in New York and Canada, thanks to the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded here in 1848 by free Blacks. It quickly became a center for the Underground Railroad. Many came here because there was work in the coal mines or other types of labor, so they crossed the Mason Dixon line at the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania, marking the border between slave and free states, and found their way to Northeast Pennsylvania and the church.