On October 21, 1835, an angry crowd surrounded the Bleecker Street Second Presbyterian Church in Utica NY. Inside over six hundred brave abolitionists had gathered to organize an anti-slavery society and to join others throughout the North to demand the end of slavery in the United States. Soon after the convention began, a dozen men broke into the church, marched down the aisle and commanded the meeting to adjourn. The shouts of the mob outside the church supported Beardsley’s threats. Gerrit Smith rose from the pews and promised that the abolitionists could meet peacefully the next day in Peterboro. Through the night 400 undaunted abolition delegates ignored the dangers and braved the mobs to get to Peterboro the next day where they were welcomed with safety and breakfast by local residents. And that day, October 22, 1835, at 11:00 a.m. the abolitionists met in the Peterboro Presbyterian Church and formed the New York State Anti-Slavery Society.
October 22-24, 2010 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. All are encouraged to travel to Peterboro in the spirit of 1835 to the free program.
October 22-24, 2010 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. All are encouraged to travel to Peterboro in the spirit of 1835 to the free program.
The next 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 keynote and the publication include visuals, background history, extracts of letters and speeches, official proceedings, list of delegates, and personal accounts including the reports of James Caleb Jackson provided by his descendant Ted Jackson. J.C. Jackson moved to Peterboro and became the secretary of the American Antislavery Society. The publication will be available for ten dollars at the event. 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 10 to NAHOF, P.O. Box 55, Peterboro NY 13134.
Dr. Milton C. Sernett joined the faculty of Syracuse University in 1975 after teaching for three years at Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois. He is a graduate of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, (M.Div. 1968), and received the M. A. & Ph.D. in American History at the University of Delaware (1969; 1972). Sernett is currently Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and History and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. His principal areas of teaching and research have been African American religious history, the American South, the abolitionist movement, the Underground Railroad, and American social reform movements. Prof. Sernett was a Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, in 1988-89. In 1994-95 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Free University, Berlin, Germany. He has been a member of the New York State Freedom Trail Commission and is on the Cabinet of Freedom of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, Peterboro, New York. He has served as a scholarly advisor to the National Underground Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has published eight books and numerous scholarly essays. Among his books are Abolition’s Axe: Beriah Green, Oneida Institute, and the Black Freedom Struggle; North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom, and Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, & Freedom.
At 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 24 the ribbon cutting of the Presbyterian Church / Smithfield Community Center and the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark as sites on the New York State Underground Railroad Heritage Trail will officially open the sites and exhibits.
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.
Dr. Milton C. Sernett joined the faculty of Syracuse University in 1975 after teaching for three years at Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois. He is a graduate of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, (M.Div. 1968), and received the M. A. & Ph.D. in American History at the University of Delaware (1969; 1972). Sernett is currently Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and History and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. His principal areas of teaching and research have been African American religious history, the American South, the abolitionist movement, the Underground Railroad, and American social reform movements. Prof. Sernett was a Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, in 1988-89. In 1994-95 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Free University, Berlin, Germany. He has been a member of the New York State Freedom Trail Commission and is on the Cabinet of Freedom of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, Peterboro, New York. He has served as a scholarly advisor to the National Underground Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has published eight books and numerous scholarly essays. Among his books are Abolition’s Axe: Beriah Green, Oneida Institute, and the Black Freedom Struggle; North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom, and Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, & Freedom.
At 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 24 the ribbon cutting of the Presbyterian Church / Smithfield Community Center and the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark as sites on the New York State Underground Railroad Heritage Trail will officially open the sites and exhibits.
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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