Re-blogging abount Abolition & the Underground Railroad

I don't generally do this, but since I don't have much new to share, I thought I would re-blog a couple of items that might be of interest due to our Underground Railroad connection here in Easton/Greenwich. I hope to be back on track when my office is finally moved next week.

Sojourner Truth:
Olivia Twine writes, "[t]he unveiling of the Sojourner Truth statue in the town of Esopus, NY where the abolitionist  preacher was held a slave as a child, was a remarkable experience. I’ve lived in the Hudson Valley County of Ulster all my life and have never witnessed the 'owning' of the shameful past of slavery before.  Truth’s statue in the Esopus hamlet of Port Ewen represents the only statue in the world of a child slave at work, according to Ulster County Historian Anne Gordon.
Although Truth was well known in her time, her status as an emblem of northern slavery is coming to light on a broad scale. That the people of Port Ewen honor a former slave who left Ulster County and never looked back, that children run their hands over her bronzed back to feel the welts of the beatings she endured here, that the town supervisor proudly describes her as 'a child of Esopus,' suggests that we as a people are ready to move to the healing phase of a sordid aspect of our history..." Read more here.

Harriet Tubman:
"On November 8 and 9, 2013, Cayuga Community College in Auburn, NY will host Harriet Tubman: No Longer Underground, a two-day symposium marking the centennial of the death of Harriet Tubman in 1913..." Continued here...

Write it Down

Any of you that came to the Underground Railroad Tour of Greenwich in June will remember the message from tour guide Cliff Oliver, "Write it down." He gave us this nugget of advice because many members of the Congregational Church involved in the Underground Railroad left written records of what happened, what they did, how they helped with the cause. Without this first hand documentation, we as historians would be in the dark as to the involvement of the citizens of Greenwich & Easton in the Abolition Movement.

Just some of my personal diaries

Did these citizens have a sense of their part in history? Is that why they took pains to record their part? In this particular case, I think so. But what about us? Do we realize our unique place in history? As an historian, I think I do. I keep a diary; a daily account of my everyday life. I also keep a number of journals; including ideas for embroidery patterns, poems, prose, ramblings & musings about various topics, an exercise log, etc. I also have 2 blogs, this one & one that is an extension of my embroidery design journal.

May 8, 2011 diary entry of Tisha Dolton

What about you? Do you journal or blog? Are you a diarist? If so, do you have a plan for what becomes of your writings & records? In my official capacity as Town Historian, those records belong to the citizens of the town & will stay in the custody of the Town of Greenwich, but what about my person records? I've been thinking about this more & more, as I completed my Information Science degree & while I was interning at the NY State Archives. Where would be the best repository to entrust my records? The Gill Room? My Alma Mater, & if so, which one? Hmmm...

Diary entry of February 24, 2007- Tisha Dolton

July 15, 2005 diary entry of Tisha Dolton

As you can see, my own diary entries are nothing earth-shattering, but they are my own. They provide a look into my life as a single parent, raising her daughter in the same house with her parents in rural, upstate NY. If my diaries were the only ones to survive, would this paint an accurate picture of history?

Diary entry of July 5, 2004- Tisha Dolton

If you want your story to be told, "Write it down." (Then preserve it in an archives.)

Another woman to research curtsey of the Mowry clan: Ann Caroline Holmes

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I recently came across the obituary of Ann Caroline Holmes (nee Mowry) & her husband Henry Holmes. The Holmes' were involved in both Abolition & Temperance & were founding members of the Free Church which used to sit on Main St, across from the Rough & Ready Firehouse. Cool, right? But, she was also a nurse during the Civil War. The following is a quote from the obituary

In 1864, moved by her country's needs and the sufferings of its sick and wounded defenders, she hastened, in company with Miss Prudence Fitch of Battenville and Miss Phebe Bernard, now Mrs. F. A. Gale of this village, to the hospital at Frederick City, Maryland, where she served for three moths as head nurse, with her companions and assistants. Here her business, energy and experience in the care of the sick, and her cheerful disposition were of greater value and the soldiers, turning to look after her as she passed along, said her presence was a ray of sunshine and called her "Mother."^

 I got excited yesterday when I located her on page 85 of the book Emma Willard and Her Pupils: Or, Fifty Years of Troy Female Seminary, 1822-1872 on Internet Archive. How unsatisfying that it neither mentioned her service during the Civil War, nor her aid in the fight for Abolition & Temperance. It simply mentioned who her parents were: William & Lydia (nee Whipple) Mowry, who her husband was & how many kids they had. So disappointing.

The unusual bit in the obituary was regarding her physical description. Apparently she resembled her so much that she was mistaken for Elizabeth Cady Stanton!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton- suffragist*

*image from Accessible Archives
^People's Journal. February 11, 1875