The Adirondack History Museum has announced their annual Historian’s Day event has been set for Friday, October 12th, from 10 am to 2 pm. This years theme is “Researching Diversity in the Adirondacks” and will feature three guest presenters. [Read more…] about Adirondack Diversity Research Focus of Historians Day
North Star Underground RR Museum
Clinton Co Underground RR, Antislavery Site Tours Set
The North Star Underground Railroad Museum has announced the return of its popular mini-bus tours of antislavery and underground railroad sites in Keeseville and Peru.
New this year, photo albums will help passengers follow the narrative, new information has been added on the Episcopal and Wesleyan Churches, and passengers can hear the recently discovered story of a man who escaped from Baltimore, Maryland, and reached Canada via Albany, Saratoga, Warren, Essex and Clinton Counties. [Read more…] about Clinton Co Underground RR, Antislavery Site Tours Set
Underground RR Historian Don Papson On ‘The Historians’
This week “The Historians” podcast features Don Papson of Plattsburgh, one of the founders of the North Star Underground Railroad Museum. Papson and Tom Colarco are co-authors of Secret Lives of the Underground Railroad in New York City: Sydney Howard Gay, Louis Napoleon and the Record of Fugitives(McFarland, 2015). Listen at “The Historians” online archive at http://www.bobcudmore.com/thehistorians/
[Read more…] about Underground RR Historian Don Papson On ‘The Historians’
Abolitionist History Season Getting An Early Start
The Abolitionist History season is starting early this year.
First, the North Star Underground Railroad Museum at Ausabale Chasm opens Saturday, May 4, nearly a month earlier than usual, and sponsors its first tour of Underground Railroad sites in local towns. With the weather as warm as it is, and demand growing in each of the museum’s first two years, the early opening made sense.
Second, just one week later, John Brown Lives! celebrates John Brown Day on May 11 with a special appearance by activist and one-time Presidental candidate Dick Gregory. He’ll be the keynote speaker at 2 p.m. at the John Brown State Historic Site, followed by Kate C. Larson, biographer of the legendary underground conductor Harriet Tubman. [Read more…] about Abolitionist History Season Getting An Early Start
Black History Progams at Adirondack Prison
The Adirondack Correctional Facility at Raybrook is hosting a series of special Black History Month programs for inmates that focus on 19th Century stories of African-Americans in the North Country.
“Dreaming of Timbuctoo,” the display put together by John Brown Lives! back in 2001, reveals the story of families that came to the Lake Placid area in the years before the Civil War, to establish farms and gain voting rights. [Read more…] about Black History Progams at Adirondack Prison
Emancipation Anniversary: A Grassroots Victory
Almost lost in the depressing “Fiscal Cliff” spectacle was the anniversary marking one of the major positive milestones of our history — President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
On January 1, 1863, some 3 million people held as slaves in the Confederate states were declared to be “forever free.” Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Most of those 3 million people were still subjugated until the Union Army swept away the final Confederate opposition more than two years later. And slavery was not abolished in the entire United States until after the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1865. [Read more…] about Emancipation Anniversary: A Grassroots Victory
Peter Slocum: Our New Underground RR Contributor
Please join us in welcoming our newest contributor here at New York History, Peter Slocum. Slocum is a former journalist and public health advocate who now serves the North Star Underground Railroad Museum in Ausable Chasm as a volunteer docent, writer and programs chair. Prior to retiring full-time in the Adirondacks in 2011, Slocum worked in and around state government for more than 35 years. [Read more…] about Peter Slocum: Our New Underground RR Contributor
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 “Hot Spots of Anti-Slavery Activity in the North Country,” 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, “The War Before the War,” 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.