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RFH 2010, News

Abolition Hall Events Planned

Wed, Sep 15, 2010

Abolition Hall Events Planned

Several Hamilton residents will play important roles next month in the annual induction of the next group of honorees into National Aboltion Hall of Fame and events surrounding the ceremonies the weekend of Oct. 22, 24 and 24.

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 1835 Utica riots and the inaugural meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society.

James Caleb Jackson (in photo) 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. Some 600 delegates who had gathered 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.

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. Sernett's illustrated talk North Star Shining: New York State's Freedom Trail  is an Illustrated journey that places the 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 p.m. at the church Ellen Percy Kraly Ph.D., Director of the Upstate Institute at Colgate, 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.

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.

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.

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, October 24 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 26 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.

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 or call 684-3262.

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