At a Methodist church cemetery in Georgetown, parishioners left food and water for runaway slaves in a brick burial vault, the church historian says. (Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post)

These and other sites in Washington, Maryland and Virginia have received official recognition by the National Park Service in an extensive national study of the secretive railroad that helped thousands of slaves to escape from the South before and during the Civil War.

The $5.50 handbook, "Underground Railroad," will be released today at Park Service bookstores, a spokesman said.

Park Service Director Robert Stanton said the publication comes at a time when people need to be reminded of what they can do when they work together.

"It's important to bring the American people's attention, and particularly the attention of young people, to this event in our country's history," he said. "People from all walks of life, religious beliefs and economic standing made this effort, regardless of race or gender, to provide an opportunity for enslaved people to move into freedom."

To mark the publication's release, Stanton will speak today at Boston's African Meeting House, a historic site. In Oberlin, Ohio, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt will dedicate a railroad site.

The railroad was neither a train nor underground; the name has come to mean the escape of southern slaves to the safety of the North or Canada. They often traveled at night, following the Big Dipper in the northern sky, and found safety and shelter along the way with abolitionists known as "station masters."

Few records have survived, because the slaves and those who helped them were breaking the law. Park Service historians have sifted through family papers, church documents and newspaper accounts to verify sites in the District and 28 states.

Stanton said a congressional directive in 1990 led the Park Service to research the railroad and publish the results. He said legislation is pending to allow the Park Service to assist private property owners in documenting and preserving railroad sites.

In a special resource study that accompanies the handbook, 11 sites are listed in the District, seven in Virginia and four in Maryland. Some are believed to be the actual places fleeing slaves passed through. Others are associated with the post-Civil War residences of noted abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass.

In Washington, the Mount Zion United Methodist Church cemetery at 2600 Q St. NW is noted as a hiding place for the railroad riders. At the rear of the hilly, dilapidated cemetery, which dates from 1842, is a brick burial vault where parishioners left food and water for the runaways, church historian Carter Bowman said.

"Rock Creek was then a dense, overgrown area with bridle paths leading through the woods," Bowman said. "At the time, barges could come way up the creek, right near the cemetery. It was easy for stowaways, or [enslaved] workers, to go undetected into the cemetery."

Bowman said there are no written records other than notations that some church members who were still slaves had "slipped away" or "had gone back to Liberia."

A wharf at Seventh Street SW also was listed by the Park Service. The Pearl, a cargo ship, set sail from there April 15, 1848, with 77 slaves of Washington families who hoped to escape. Betrayed by a slave who changed his mind about joining the Pearl party, all the slaves and the two white men responsible for the ship were arrested and returned to Washington. Many of the slaves were sold and sent farther south as field hands, and the white men were jailed.

In Virginia, the closest site to Washington on the Park Service list is a former slave-trading firm at 1315 Duke St. in Alexandria, now the headquarters of the Northern Virginia Urban League. The Park Service notes that the Franklin and Armfield office was one of the largest slave dealers in the South.

In Baltimore, Orchard Street Church and the President Street Railroad Station are on the government's list. The church was most likely an Underground Railroad "station," and the President Street site was a transfer place for points north. Frederick Douglass passed through this site in his run for freedom, as did Henry "Box" Brown, a Richmond slave who was packed in a crate and shipped successfully to Philadelphia.

Stanton said he expects the Underground Railroad study will bring tourists to see the little-known sites.

"There is an increased interest on the part of tourists to explore areas and events related to history," he said. "The Underground Railroad sites will be a learning experience."

In Georgetown, church historian Bowman said he looks forward to tourists discovering the cemetery and also visiting Mount Zion.

"This exposes people to our church and our heritage," he said. "We are hoping we can get some technical assistance from the Park Service to help us preserve what we have. We are looking forward to preserving that cemetery."