The tracks of the Underground Railroad ran right through our backyard.

FALL 2002

Huddling around a small fire in the frigid Adirondack Mountains, a small group of African American slaves camp without comfort or shelter.

They have been traveling for days without any food or water. As these men and women sit contemplating what freedom will feel like, a white man approaches them and asks them to come and eat with him and his family. This man and others helped save many slaves in such areas as Plattsburgh, Peru, and Beekmantown.

The Underground Railroad aided slaves in their long, grueling journey to freedom. The most dramatic, nonviolent protest against slavery in the United States, it began in the colonial era and reached its peak between 1830 and 1865. An estimated 30,000 to 100,000 slaves used the "railroad" to get to Canada, and Plattsburgh was a major stop along this path to freedom.

Traces of the Underground Railroad still exist in the North Country. In 1852, Abraham Haff, a farmer and a local preacher, sold his farm to Stephen Keese Smith, a Quaker abolitionist, from Peru, New York. Smith hid slaves in a barn that still exists on the property today. His heirs owned the farm until 1947, when Walter Stafford bought it.

This secret place, with false partitions on the Stephen Keese Smith property, was a primary example of Clinton County citizens participating in the Underground Railroad in the area. Owned and operated by Richard Stafford and his mother Cora Stafford, it was known as "Staffordshire Farms."

Tours were once held to show children where the slaves on the run were offered food and shelter when it was safe.

Slave traffic to Canada increased tenfold when the "Jerry Rescue" law was passed. It was brought about by the Fugitive Slave Act and put runaway slaves in danger of being sent back to their old homes. Any black person, free or fugitive, could be called into court by the word of any other person. Even an already free person would have to return to his or her master.

In 1997, New York became the first state in the nation to pass its own Freedom Trail Act. A result of this legislation is the New York State Freedom Trail Commission, which focuses on documenting the lives and actions of African slaves in New York State.

Dr. Milton Sernett, vice chair of the Freedom Trail Comission, is trying to investigate the stories of the Underground Railroad. "But most of the places where slaves were harbored—barns, sheds and farmhouses—are no longer standing," he says, "which makes it more difficult to find artifacts and evidence of slave hideouts." Sernett, who is also a professor of African-American studies at Syracuse University, hopes to translate his findings into school curriculum. "Somebody has to put this all together, so we don't lose it."

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