I grew up in a small town in central New York named Peterboro. The town consists of one square block with a village green on one street. There were and still are less than 200 people living there and it is still a small quiet bedroom community. While growing up there the surrounding area was small dairy farms which have mostly disappeared now. Many of the farms have been combined into large corporate farms and you can still see fields of corn and oats and barley. The history of this little town is large though since it was a center for the Underground Railroad before the Civil War. Garret Smith housed runaway slaves on the third floor of his mansion until he could provide travel to Canada. Any slave caught as a runaway had to be returned to their owner according to Federal law so Mr. Smith and anyone helping the slaves to escape were criminal and prosecuted if caught. As a child we learned about this and became proud of our heritage along with many of the ancestors of the freed slaves that lived there.
My sister and my wife and I returned to Peterboro to visit our parents' graves and during the trip had a chance to talk to one of the residents. She told us that the building that had been our elementary school had been designated a National Abolition site and was open to visitors to learn of the history of the railroad. The site of the mansion (burned in 1936) was also a historical site with a small shop selling merchandise about the history. It was wonderful to see that at a time in our history when most racial discussions are about how terrible this country is my little hometown is showing the world that a group of people with the help of God worked very hard to end the scourge of slavery in our country. This town is still working to bring to the surface the realization that many people are still working for equality of all people as our Declaration of Independence states.
My sister and I are returning to Peterboro for an induction ceremony of historical figures to the Abolition Hall of Fame in October of this year. Anyone seeking information about this can find it on the website (www.nationalabloitionhalloffameandmuseum.org). At a time when many are tearing our country down for past problems it is great to see that my birthplace is reminding us that we are one of the few countries in the world that has continually worked at righting wrongs and promoting equality among people. This a town that is still proud of and willing to work to tell the rest of the world that Americans are still working for justice and equality and can do it without tearing down those that were doing the same thing years ago.
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