Study Areas

Enslavement

Anti-Slavery

Free Persons of Color

Underground Railroad

The Violent Decade

US Colored Troops

Civil War

Year of Jubilee (1863)

20th Century History

Underground Railroad in Central Pennsylvania

Articles and Features

• Daniel Bell, African American UGRR Operative
• David and Elizabeth Harris, UGRR Stationmasters
• Black Ducks' Dowse-the-Glim Cave, Gettysburg
• Accounts of Racially Mixed Dance Houses in Harrisburg, 1837
• J. Miller McKim Visits a Washington Slave Prison, 1838
• George Solomon, Daniel Neall, Benjamin R. Fletcher and Maria Dorsey Reach Harrisburg, 1856
• Fugitive Slave Incidents in Central Pennsylvania
• Kidnapping and Murder:  How the Rachel Parker Case Galvanized Pennsylvania Popular Opinion Against the Fugitive Slave Law
• Christopher Densmore--connection between shape note singing and the UGRR
• Not the Alamo--7 Points About the Harpers Ferry Raid That You Should Know

Reference and Databases

• Adams County Runaway Slave Removal List
• Yellow Hill Census, Compiled by Debra McCauslin
  African Americans in Butler and Menallen Townships, Adams County:
  webpage
  MS Excel spreadsheet
• Notices for Freedom Seekers in Harrisburg, 1766-1820
• Notices for Freedom Seekers in Lancaster County
• Notices for Southern Freedom Seekers
• Regional Fugitive Slave Advertisements
• Underground Railroad Sites in Harrisburg
• Other Dauphin County URR Sites
• Chronology of Underground Railroad Activity in Harrisburg
• George Chester appointed agent for The Liberator
• Harpers Ferry Warning to Harrisburg's Black Community
• Upper Allen Freed Slave Cemetery
• Christopher Densmore's Underground Railroad Newsletters
• Who's Who in Pennsylvania Underground Railroad History

Reference Tools

• Densmore's Index to R.C. Smedley's History of the Underground Railroad
• Souders' Alphabetical Index to S.M. Janney's Memoirs
• Souders' Sequential Index to S.M. Janney's Memoirs
• UGRR and Anti-Slavery Research Tools on the Web (primary sources)

Research Threads

• Research into the 1851 kidnapping of Thomas Hall of Chester Co.
• Attempted capture of kidnapper McCreary, 1853
• Reflections on John Brown: Correspondence from Jean Libby
  • page 1
  • page 2 (material added July 19, 2006)
  • page 3 New book on John Brown, and events in Albany, New York, August 19 and 20, 2006
  • page 4 More new books on John Brown and his family
  • page 5 LInks between Yarrow Mamout, African textile heritage, and John Brown
• Reflections on John Brown: Essay from Louis A. DeCaro:
  • Not the Alamo--7 Points About the Harpers Ferry Raid That You Should Know
  • Response by Jean Libby to Louis DeCaro's "Seven Points"
  • Louise DeCaro's defense of his essay, October 23
• Correspondence from Enid Mastrianni on Prestonia Mann Martin: Making Connections with the Past

  Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5

  Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 page 10

• Correspondence with David Smith on Colonization, abolitionism and racism
• Mysterious Markings Discovered

Are these markings,
 found in a Chester County
 farmhouse, from
 Underground Railroad
 freedom seekers?

Underground Railroad News

• Thaddeus Stevens' Lancaster Home Added to Network to Freedom
• Christiana UGRR Center Opening Photos (see below)
• Afrolumens Project review of Bound For Canaan:  The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, by Fergus Bordewich
• The Underground Railroad Center at Historic Zercher's Hotel opens September 11
     "The 1851 Resistance at Christiana – a local flashpoint event that helped spark Civil War in America – will be commemorated in Lancaster County with a preview opening of a new visitor center from noon until 4 PM on Sunday, September 10, the eve of the event's 155th anniversary.
     "Located at 11 Green Street in the Borough of Christiana in the former Zercher's Hotel, the new center has been designed to give visitor’s an orientation to the significance of the Christiana Resistance, originally known as The Christiana Riot, which occurred near the Center on September 11, 1851."
• Underground Railroad Quilts (research link)
  Smithsonian Institution Folklife presents and updated discussion of the quilt code myth versus known facts.

The Year of Jubilee

Vol. 1: Men of God and Vol. 2: Men of Muscle

by George F. Nagle

The Year of Jubilee is the story of Harrisburg'g free African American community, from the era of colonialism and enslavement to hard-won freedom.

Volume One, Men of God, covers the turbulent beginnings of this community, from Hercules and the first enslaved persons, the growth of enslavement in central Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg area slave plantations and early freedom seekers, to the birth of a free Black community. Men of God is a detailed history of Harrisburg's first Black entrepreneurs, the early Black churches, the first Black neighborhoods, and the maturing of the social institutions that supported this vibrant community.

It includes an extensive examination of state and federal laws governing slave ownership and the recovery of runaway slaves, the growth of the colonization movement, anti-colonization efforts, anti-slavery, abolitionism and radical abolitionism. It concludes with the complex relationship between Harrisburg's Black and white abolitionists, and details the efforts and activities of each group as they worked separately at first, then learned to cooperate in fighting against slavery. More here

Non-fiction, history. 607 pages, softcover.

Volume Two, Men of Muscle takes the story from 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, through the explosive 1850s to the coming of Civil War to central Pennsylvania. In this volume, Harrisburg's African American community weathers kidnappings, raids, riots, plots, murders, intimidation, and the coming of war. Caught between hostile Union soldiers and deadly Confederate soldiers, they ultimately had to choose between fleeing or fighting. This is the story of that choice.

Non-fiction, history. 630 pages, softcover.