State Historian to Speak at Abolition Hall of Fame Dinner

Robert Weible, State Historian of New York and Chief Curator of the New York State Museum will provide the keynote address at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) annual dinner at 4:45 p.m. Saturday, October 20 in the Hall of Presidents at Colgate University in Hamilton NY.

Weible’s presentation &#8220The Irrepressible Conflict: The Civil War in New York&#8221 will describe the large exhibit by the same name that opens September 22 at the state museum. The history of New York’s involvement in the Civil War – the state’s role leading up to war, during the war and Reconstruction – and the lasting impact the war had on New Yorkers &#8211 is told through four major themes: The Coming of War, The Battlefield, The Home Front, and Reconstruction and Legacy. The importance of the abolition activities in Central New York – including the acquisition of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and Gerrit Smith – will be included. Read more

Underground Railroad Conference Call for Proposals

For more than ten years a group of community volunteers has been convening an Annual Underground Railroad Public History Conference sponsored by Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region (URHPCR).

The theme of this year’s conference will be, “Milestones to Freedom: Emancipation Proclamation, Harriet Tubman, and the March on Washington &#8211 a Legacy and a Future.&#8221  The year 2013 is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the 100th anniversary of the death of Harriet Tubman and the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. These, and other key anniversary events, are milestones along the road to achieving Martin Luther King’s vision articulated in his “I Have a Dream” speech.

This 12th annual conference on the Underground Railroad seeks to connect the Underground Railroad, these key events and present day struggles for freedom and justice. Toward this end the committee solicits proposals that elaborate, analyze and articulate these stories, connections within them and their relationship to the present.

Proposals are invited that address reinterpretations, teaching, new research, and that illustrate how such research can be used to celebrate the story historically and contemporarily, as well as other proposals related to the Underground Railroad in the past and its relationship with us today.

This year conference will be held April 12-14, 2013 at Russell Sage College in Troy and Albany, NY. Details are available at www.UndergroundRailroadHistory.org or by calling 518-432-4432.

Honoring Harriet Tubman in 2013

Kate Clifford Larson Ph.D will share her research, the development of Harriet Tubman sites, and announce plans for Honoring Tubman in 2013 at the 11:30 a.m. National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum luncheon on Saturday, October 20, 2012 at the Hall of Presidents, Colgate University in Hamilton NY.

Born a slave in Maryland, Tubman’s birth date is unknown. Therefore Tubman’s death date March 10, 1913 has been observed as Tubman’s day of honor. Special tributes and projects are planned for 2013, the centennial of her death year. Persons involved in special Tubman tributes and programs are encouraged to participate with information, exhibits, and announcements at the luncheon with Larson.
Larson presented the lecture on Harriet Tubman at Tubman’s induction to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) in October 2005. Tubman was one of the five abolitionists to be inducted in the first class at the Peterboro Hall of Fame.

Kate Clifford Larson is Adjunct Faculty in the Department of History at Simmons College. A Simmons alumna, she earned her PhD at the University of New Hampshire and is the author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (2004). Larson is also the consulting historian and curator for the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitor Center and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway and All American Road. Eastern Shore, Maryland. Larson will be introduced by Milton C. Sernett Ph.D, author of Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History.

The Colgate University Upstate Institute afternoon symposia on inductees Abby Kelley Foster, Jermain Wesley Loguen, and George Gavin Ritchie will follow the luncheon. Robert Weible, State Historian of New York and Chief Curator of the New York State Museum, will present The Irrepressible Conflict: New York State in the Civil War, the keynote address for the annual NAHOF dinner. The commemoration ceremonies of the three inductees to the Hall of Fame will follow dinner.

The Hutchinson Family Singers will provide a 19th C. anti-slavery concert at the First Baptist Church in Hamilton Friday, October 19 at 7 p.m. Panel presentations, exhibits, and tours are available during the three day event. These programs are supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities and with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program, a state agency, and the Cultural Resources Council, a regional arts council.

The public is encouraged to attend the programs. Reservations are required for lunch and dinner by October 10 and can be purchased as single events or in a NAHOF package for the October 19 – 21 conference at mercantile.gerritsmith.org or with a registration form at www. National AbolitionHallofFameandMusuem.org or at National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13035. For more information: [email protected] 315-366-8101 315-684-3262

Abolition Hall of Fame Induction Events, Symposia

The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will honor its three 2011 inductees at commemoration ceremonies October 19 – 21, 2012. Abby Kelley Foster, Jermain Wesley Loguen, and George Gavin Ritchie will be honored with a variety of programs during the three days of the event.

The commemoration weekend opens at 3 p.m. Friday, October 19 at the Women’s Studies Center at Colgate University with a panel presentation on Abby Kelley Foster facilitated by Judith Wellman PhD. Friday evening at 7 pm performers from Milford NY will present an antislavery concert Songs and Stories of the Hutchinson Family Singers.On Saturday, October 20 at 10:00 a.m. an exhibit on George Gavin Ritchie arranged by Colgate Library Special Collections opens at the Case Library. Kate Clifford Larson PhD keynotes the buffet luncheon at 11:30 in the Hall of Presidents at Colgate. Dr. Larson will speak on Harriet Tubman and upcoming events in 2013 for the Tubman centennial. The Upstate Institute Abolition Symposia begins at 1 p.m. in Golden Auditorium at Colgate. Programs on Foster, Loguen and Ritchie will be presented during the afternoon symposia.

At 4:45 p.m. Robert Weible, State Historian of New York and Chief Curator of the New York State Museum, will present the keynote An Irrepressible Conflict: New York State in the Civil War at the annual dinner catered by the Colgate Inn. After living portrayals and dramatic presentations at 7 p.m., family members, scholars, and association representatives will unveil the honoree banners to hang in the Hall of Fame.

On Sunday, October 21, the Deli on the Green in Peterboro will open at 8:00 for breakfast. Exhibits at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro will open at 9 a.m. An exhibit on Jermain Wesley Loguen will open at 11:00 a.m. at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) in Syracuse. At 2 p.m. the OHA will conduct a walking tour of abolition sites in Syracuse. (Reserve at 315-428-1864 by October 16)

These programs are supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities, Abolition Agitation in New York State Sparks the War for Liberty and Justice, and with funds from the New York Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program, a state agency, and the Cultural Resources Council, a regional arts council.

The public of all ages is encouraged to participate in all or parts of this annual event to learn of the important role that Central New York played in the ignition of the Civil War. For more information: www.nationalabolitionhalloffameandmuseum.org, [email protected], 315-366-8101, 315-684-3262. Reservations for lunch, dinner, and conference packages by October 10 at mercantile.gerritsmith.org or to National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13035.

NYS Museum Opens Civil War Exhibit

The exhibit &#8220An Irrepressible Conflict: The Empire State in the Civil War&#8221 has opened at the New York State Museum, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

The pivotal role New York State played in the war is the focus of the 7,000-square-foot exhibition. As the wealthiest and most populous state, the Empire State led all others in supplying men, money, and materiel to the causes of unity and freedom. New York’s experience provides significant insight into the reasons why the war was fought and the meaning that the Civil War holds today. An Irrepressible Conflict will be open through September 22, 2013 in Exhibition Hall. Read more

Jay Heritage Center Presents: Alan Taylors The Slave War of 1812

The Jay Heritage Center will offer its third program commemorating the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 this year on Thursday, September 6th with a new talk and book signing by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alan Taylor previewing his latest book project about the Slave War of 1812.

During the War of 1812, more than 3,000 slaves escaped from Virginia and Maryland by stealing boats to reach British warships in Chesapeake Bay, where they were taken on board and employed.

Alan Taylor, professor of history at the University of California, Davis, and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, will discuss how their help proved essential to the British coastal raids, particularly the capture of Washington, D.C. Taylor’s previous books include William Cooper’s Town (Knopf, 1996), which won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes for American history. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (Knopf, 2010), was called &#8220the most illuminating and original history of the conflict ever written.&#8221 Pulitzer-winning historian Gordon Wood, writing in The New York Review of Books, called it &#8220remarkable and deeply researched,&#8221 adding, &#8220Taylor masterfully captures the strangeness of this war.&#8221 Copies of Taylor’s books will be available for purchase and signing. Refreshments will be served.

The event, which is part of Jay Heritage Center’s 2012 Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday, September 6, 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM, at at the 1907 Van Norden Carriage House, Jay Heritage Center, 210 Boston Post Road, in Rye, Westchester County, NY.

The Annual Meeting will also include the President’s Report, the re-election of Trustees for the Class of 2015 (Emma Hanratty, Michael A. Kovner, and Thomas R. Mercein) and the Election of Trustees of the Class of 2015 (Samuel W. Croll III, Lauren Lambert, and Cathy Rosenstock).

Those who are unable to attend can sign and mail a proxy, or submit a proxy by e-mail. Contact [email protected] for more information.

2012 Peterboro Emancipation Day August 4th

This is a family event to celebrate the history of freedom seekers who came to Peterboro with the aid of abolitionist Gerrit Smith. The morning program begins with a reception and refreshments, tent meeting, annual group photo, procession to Peterboro Cemetery, wreath ceremony to honor Gerrit Smith and a memorial dedication of a stone for a freedom seeker who is buried in the Peterboro Cemetery. The afternoon program will include a tour of the estate, games and contests for children, and a talk by guest speaker Hugh Humphreys at the Smithfield Community Center on Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro at 2:00 PM.
Humphreys’ presentation titled “Dr. King and the Mighty Stream of Righteousness- a Journey from Peterboro to Montgomery.&#8221 will explore the history and influences of early reform on the Civil Rights movement. The 2012 celebration marks the 3rd year the event has been revived in Peterboro from its early beginnings in the 19th century. A $5 donation at admission is suggested and the event is open to the public. For more information: 315-280-8828 and [email protected] registration will take place at the Gerrit Smith Estate at 5304 Oxbow Road in Peterboro, NY at 10:00 AM. Parking is free.  No lunch will be served, but there will be a break for families to picnic. 

The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark (GSENHL) is on the state and national Underground Railroad trails. The GSENHL is open in 2012 on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 – 5 pm from May 19 to September 23, by appointment, and for special events. Admission is $3 for adults and free for students. For more information: 315-280-8828 or www.gerritsmith.org.

Photo: Jim Corpin, one of the organizers of the 21st C. Peterboro Emancipation Days examines a family genealogy chart brought to the 2011 Peterboro Emancipation Day. Photo provided.

Event Commemorating Ithaca African American Families Set

On the Fifth of July, there will be a ceremony in the Ithaca City Cemetery to remember and rededicate the grave sites of two African American families. The Tompkins County Civil War Commission and the Sons of Union Veterans collaborated to clean the grave of Daniel Jackson, who was called &#8220Faithful.&#8221

Jackson was slave in Maryland before fleeing to Ithaca, where he joined others he had known from the South. He was a reliable worker in E. S. Esty’s tannery and at the end of the Civil War he returned to his birthplace to bring his elderly mother North to live with him. The two died in 1889 five days apart: he was 75 and she was thought to be 103. A stone has been placed to mark her resting place and the plot has been landscaped.

The second family grave is that of the Brum family where there are five stones, the major monument located this past fall was in three pieces, the larger spire down the hill, its writing mostly obscured. The City of Ithaca Department of Public Works reassembled the monument which when cleaned revealed two sides with writing. One is for Titus Brum,  an African American born in N.Y. He was also a landowner and patriarch of the African American community in Ithaca.

Brum led efforts to gain political recognition for black men in the 1820s, he organized the 1827 Fifth of July celebration, and organized a committee against the Fugitive Slave Act. His home was often the site of social and political meetings. The second side of the plinth commemorates his son Ira T. Brum who fought during the Civil War in a NY white regiment enlisting from Cortlandville in 1864 and who died of disease the day after his company was mustered out of the war. Below that there is also a notice about Fred.k W. Brum, who also fought in the war. Nearby there is a small grave for an infant named Clarence, and one for their sister, Mary Brum Johnson who links the Brum family with the Johnsons who were involved with aiding Freedom Seekers fleeing through Ithaca. The final two modest stones are marked I.T.B. and F.W.B., stones set at the time of those men’s deaths. There is no notation for Eunice Woods Brum who most likely, with her son-in-law George Johnson, erected the large monument upon the death of Titus in 1881.

Why hold this ceremony on the Fifth of July? For the very reasons that Frederick Douglass gave in his 1852 oration &#8220What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?&#8221 In Tompkins County we hope to recognize these mostly forgotten families and the goal of equal access to our political, social and economic life for all, and to think about goals yet unmet. The Mayor of Ithaca Sevante Myrick will speak at the ceremony, as will The Reverend E. Alex Brower of the A.M.E. Zion Church- the co-chair of the Civil War Commission the Hon. Michael Lane, and the County Historian. The ceremony will be held at 6 pm, rain or shine but not in thunder or lightening. All are welcome.

Photo: Volunteers clean and landscape the Brum family plot.

Carol Kammen is Tompkins County Historian, a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University, and the author of several books, including On Doing Local History: Reflections on What Local Historians Do, Why, and What It Means and The Peopling of Tompkins County: A Social History.
      

A Black American’s View on the Fourth of July

160 years ago the former slave Frederick Douglass was asked to give a speech on the Fourth of July. Douglass refused to speak on July 4, but did deliver a powerfulspeech the day after Independence Day. He asked the audience “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” “The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you. Not me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. The Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”

On July 1, 2012 at 2 p.m. at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) to which Frederick Douglass was the first inductee, David A. Anderson Ph.D. Visiting Scholar at Nazareth College of Rochester will present an oration of Douglass’ speech asking what Independence Day meant to the American slave. A founding member of Akwaaba: the Heritage Associates, Anderson is an interpreter of living history through reenactments that evoke Frederick Douglass, Austin Steward, unheralded escapees, et al. Often the theme addresses the essential role African American Union soldiers played in freeing a people and preserving the Union. He has presented such recreations at symposia in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and in other venues.

Anderson chairs Rochester-Monroe County Freedom Trail Commission, which in 2003, took the lead in staging, &#8220Men of Color, to Arms!&#8221 a conference illuminating Frederick Douglass’ role in overturning policies barring African Americans from the Union Army. In 2007, with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center inCincinnati, the Commission co-sponsored the Frederick Douglass International Underground Railroad Conference. In June 2009, Anderson joined other honorees at the National Mall in Washington in “Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture,” an exploration of the expressive power of the creative African American oral traditions in the shaping of American culture.

Douglass spoke at anti-slavery conventions in Peterboro and in the Free Church of Peterboro which Gerrit Smith had established. Douglass worked with Smith in organizing the 1850 Anti-Fugitive Slave Law Convention in Cazenovia, New York. Smith made large and regular donations of money to Douglass in order to keep solvent Douglass’ anti-slavery efforts through his newspapers The North Star and Frederick Douglass’ paper. Douglass dedicated the second edition of his autobiography to Gerrit Smith whom he considered a great man because of his practical efforts to implement universal human rights. Douglass’ relationship with Smith was also on a very personal level. He visited Peterboro often, bringing with him colleagues and other members of his family for extended visits as early as 1835. Following the two o’clock program, Norman K. Dann PhD, a Gerrit Smith biographer, will conduct a tour of Douglass’ steps at the Gerrit Smith Estate describing the relationship between the two men.

This program is supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities for the Abolition Agitation in New York Sparks War for Liberty and Justice for All2012 NAHOF project. Admission to the program and to the exhibits at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro is three dollars and free to students. 

The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum is included in the Madison County Cultural Heritage Passport with its companion heritage site the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark. Both sites are open Saturdays and Sundays form 1 – 5 from May 19 to September 23, by appointment,and for special events. For more information [email protected] and 315-366-8101

North Star Underground RR Museum Opens for Season

New York’s newest Underground Railroad museum kicked off its second season last week and will present a series of presentations this year entitled &#8220Hot Spots of Anti-Slavery Activity in the North Country,&#8221 supported in part by a grant from the Arts Council of the Northern Adirondacks.

This Saturday and Sunday, June 2 and 3, there will be tours of Underground Railroad sites in Peru and Keeseville at 9:30, both led by Don Papson.  There is a $10 fee- call 834-5180 to pre-register. Also, historic re-enactor Barbara Wass will portray Catherine Keese, the committed Peru abolitionist at 10 a.m. on Saturday and 1:30 on Sunday.  Those events are free.


On June 2, during Museum Day festivities, the Museum will present, &#8220The War Before the War,&#8221 about the radical abolition movement that responded to the Fugitive Slave Law and other pro-slavery leanings by the federal government leading up to the Civil War.

Jane Williamson, director of the Rokeby Farm museum in Vermont, will illuminate the organizing efforts that mushroomed in Vermont and Northern New York.

The North Star Museum first opened in May 2010, and drew over 4,000 visitors to the restored stone house overlooking Ausable Chasm, just a few miles from Lake Champlain. Education programs are offered for school children, both at the museum and in schools, and the museum shop boasts an extensive collection of books on slavery, abolition, the underground railroad and related topics. For further information, visit: www.northcountryundergroundrailroad.com.