“Come put on a clean shirt and come along with us. We have begun the grandest revolution the world has ever seen: and if we do not die, we mean to see that revolution accomplished, and our land free from the tread and fetter of the slave.”
So said James Caleb Jackson to people he passed as he and 99 other abolitionists walked from Canastota to Peterboro in the night of October 21, 1835 to escape the Utica mobs preventing an anti-slavery assembly. 600 delegates at the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church were ousted by threats of violence and made their way by foot, horse, carriage, and boat to get to Peterboro the next day to form the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Jackson described the activity at the Gerrit Smith home in Peterboro that night in preparation for the arrival of delegates in the morning: They spent the night “mixing bread, grinding coffee, paring apples for pies, baking rolls and providing the other necessaries of hospitality.”
Peterboro invites all to “Come put on a clean shirt” and join in the commemoration of that October 22, 1835 event during the weekend of October 22 – 24 when Peterboro will once again welcome people to the Presbyterian Church which is now the Smithfield Community Center. In that building, on Friday, October 22 at 7 p.m., retired Madison County Judge Hugh C. Humphreys, assisted by Carrie Martin, will direct a dramatic re-creation of the Utica riots and the inaugural meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Program and refreshments are free.
At 11:00 on Sunday, October 24 at that historic building, citizens and dignitaries will convene for the official opening of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the Smithfield Community Center as two of the twenty-six sites on the Underground Railroad Heritage Trail, a program of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Exhibits at both sites will be open after the ribbon cutting. CNY Bounty will provide local refreshments. The program, exhibits and refreshments are free.
So said James Caleb Jackson to people he passed as he and 99 other abolitionists walked from Canastota to Peterboro in the night of October 21, 1835 to escape the Utica mobs preventing an anti-slavery assembly. 600 delegates at the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church were ousted by threats of violence and made their way by foot, horse, carriage, and boat to get to Peterboro the next day to form the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Jackson described the activity at the Gerrit Smith home in Peterboro that night in preparation for the arrival of delegates in the morning: They spent the night “mixing bread, grinding coffee, paring apples for pies, baking rolls and providing the other necessaries of hospitality.”
Peterboro invites all to “Come put on a clean shirt” and join in the commemoration of that October 22, 1835 event during the weekend of October 22 – 24 when Peterboro will once again welcome people to the Presbyterian Church which is now the Smithfield Community Center. In that building, on Friday, October 22 at 7 p.m., retired Madison County Judge Hugh C. Humphreys, assisted by Carrie Martin, will direct a dramatic re-creation of the Utica riots and the inaugural meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Program and refreshments are free.
At 11:00 on Sunday, October 24 at that historic building, citizens and dignitaries will convene for the official opening of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the Smithfield Community Center as two of the twenty-six sites on the Underground Railroad Heritage Trail, a program of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Exhibits at both sites will be open after the ribbon cutting. CNY Bounty will provide local refreshments. The program, exhibits and refreshments are free.
On Saturday, October 23 the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will hold its annual October event at the Smithfield Community Center and across the street at the Peterboro United Methodist Church. At 12:30 p.m. Milton C. Sernett Ph.D. presents the third program in a five year /five part Lyceum series on American Abolitionism. This year the presentation is free and made possible through Speakers in the Humanities, a program of the New York Council for the Humanities. Dr. Sernett’s illustrated talk North Star Shining: New York State’s Freedom Trail – An Illustrated Journey along the Underground Railroad places the story of the Underground Railroad in the context of the religious and reform movements of the pre-Civil War period.
The Peterboro United Methodist Church will be serving bag lunches at the church from 11:30 – 1:30. Reservations for ten dollar lunches are due October 17.
At 2:00 at the church Ellen Percy Kraly Ph.D., Director of the Upstate Institute at Colgate University, will open the Abolition Inductee Symposia, and Moana Fogg, Upstate Institute Fellow will facilitate the presentations on the 2009 inductees: At 2:30 p.m. Meredith Ellis, doctoral student at Syracuse University, presents Lewis Tappan and the 1834 Race Riots: Abolition, Bioarchaeology, and the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Directly following at 3:30 p.m. Dr. Carol Faulkner, Department of History at Syracuse University, speaks on Theodore Dwight Weld vs. Anti-Abolition Mobs. The public is encouraged to attend the free programs.
That evening Milton C. Sernett Ph.D. will provide an illustrated program Mobbed in Utica: Welcomed in Peterboro as the keynote address for the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum Annual Dinner in the Smithfield Community Center. For the occasion Dr. Sernett has published a book Come to Peterboro: Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Founding of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society October 21-22, 1835. The publication will be available for ten dollars at the event and at the Peterboro Mercantile. The Copper Turret will cater the annual dinner at which no “slave sugar” will be served. Forty-five dollar reservations for the dinner are due October 17 to NAHOF, P.O. Box 55, Peterboro NY 13134.
At 7 p.m. in the Smithfield Community Center, Master of Ceremonies Larry Baker will conduct the commemoration ceremonies to complete the 2009 induction of Lewis Tappan and Theodore Dwight Weld to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. Abolition poetry and song will accompany the unveiling of the hall banners by family and sponsors for Tappan and Weld. Persons wishing to add their name to the hall banners for the inductees send fifty dollars by October 1 to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, P.O. Box 55, Peterboro NY 13134 being sure to write the name of the sponsor and the inductee to be sponsored.
The weekend events are hosted by the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, The Smithfield Community Association, and the Town of Smithfield. For more information: www.sca-peterboro.org, www.abolitionHoF.org, mail@abolitionhof.org, 315-684-3262.
The Peterboro United Methodist Church will be serving bag lunches at the church from 11:30 – 1:30. Reservations for ten dollar lunches are due October 17.
At 2:00 at the church Ellen Percy Kraly Ph.D., Director of the Upstate Institute at Colgate University, will open the Abolition Inductee Symposia, and Moana Fogg, Upstate Institute Fellow will facilitate the presentations on the 2009 inductees: At 2:30 p.m. Meredith Ellis, doctoral student at Syracuse University, presents Lewis Tappan and the 1834 Race Riots: Abolition, Bioarchaeology, and the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Directly following at 3:30 p.m. Dr. Carol Faulkner, Department of History at Syracuse University, speaks on Theodore Dwight Weld vs. Anti-Abolition Mobs. The public is encouraged to attend the free programs.
That evening Milton C. Sernett Ph.D. will provide an illustrated program Mobbed in Utica: Welcomed in Peterboro as the keynote address for the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum Annual Dinner in the Smithfield Community Center. For the occasion Dr. Sernett has published a book Come to Peterboro: Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Founding of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society October 21-22, 1835. The publication will be available for ten dollars at the event and at the Peterboro Mercantile. The Copper Turret will cater the annual dinner at which no “slave sugar” will be served. Forty-five dollar reservations for the dinner are due October 17 to NAHOF, P.O. Box 55, Peterboro NY 13134.
At 7 p.m. in the Smithfield Community Center, Master of Ceremonies Larry Baker will conduct the commemoration ceremonies to complete the 2009 induction of Lewis Tappan and Theodore Dwight Weld to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. Abolition poetry and song will accompany the unveiling of the hall banners by family and sponsors for Tappan and Weld. Persons wishing to add their name to the hall banners for the inductees send fifty dollars by October 1 to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, P.O. Box 55, Peterboro NY 13134 being sure to write the name of the sponsor and the inductee to be sponsored.
The weekend events are hosted by the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, The Smithfield Community Association, and the Town of Smithfield. For more information: www.sca-peterboro.org, www.abolitionHoF.org, mail@abolitionhof.org, 315-684-3262.
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