MONMOUTH — Author Mark Leslie plans to talk about the Underground Railroad in Maine, with a focus on Monmouth, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23, via Zoom.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 demanded prison and fines for anyone caught harboring or helping escaping slaves, and yet at least four Monmouth families risked both, according to a news release from the Cumston Public Library.

According to Leslie, Mainers from Kittery to Fort Fairfield formed a network of “safe houses,” hiding slaves from slave hunters and scurrying them to Canada.

Leslie will give a Zoom Powerpoint presentation for the library on the Underground Railroad, and its “conductors” and “station managers” who defied Congress and the law.

Leslie, whose historical novel, “True North: Tice’s Story,” is a Publishers Weekly featured book, said that while history books focus on the prominence of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Hannibal Hamlin, hundreds if not thousands were in the state’s Underground Railroad.

Homes on Monmouth’s North Main Street, Main Street, Academy Street and Norris Hill Road were among the places slaves found protection on their way to Freedom Land, Leslie said. In a previous talk on the subject, people who own two of those homes added to the narrative.

The public can hear Leslie weave the tale of the brave families who housed and fed slaves in hidden rooms, attics and elsewhere en route to the next secret “way station” on the “railroad.”

“Reportedly half Maine’s population thought slavery was essential to the economy,” Leslie said, “while half reviled it as the vilest human institution.”

Maine’s Underground Railroad itself was “a marvel of secret connections from churches to hack stands, second-hand clothing stores and people’s homes,” Leslie said. “One route of escape was up the coast, while others went inland, including one through Monmouth, Augusta and eastward along the Boston Post Road to Bangor.”

The Midwest Book Review has cited Leslie’s “genuine flair for compelling, entertaining, and deftly crafted storytelling.”

AFA Journal called Leslie “a seasoned wordsmith” whose contemporary novels are “in the class with John Grisham.”

The winner of six national magazine writing awards, Leslie has written 13 books, including nine novels. The latest, “A Cause Most Splendid: The Battle of the Bible,” is the story of Congressional Journal publisher Thomas Aitken, who avoided British troops hunting him down to prevent him from illegally printing much-needed Bibles for American troops in 1777.

To access the Zoom link for the event, visit the library’s Facebook page and complete the registration form there, or email [email protected].