Posts

Through substantial efforts of many people and organizations,

  Through substantial efforts of many people and organizations,  including donations to the cause, the grave of Henry Brown finally got a marker. A prominent free Black man, Brown helped many slaves find their way to freedom in the mid 1800s, hiding them in the basement of his Northampton Street home until the next leg of their journey began. “Preservation is very important,” Kathleen Smith said at the ceremony. “Thanks to the community who donated to the marker, Henry Brown’s work will be remembered by future generations .” Smith belongs to the Shawnee Fort Chapter of the Daughters of The American Revolution, and she was among the nearly 100 people who attended. Pennsylvania’s first person of color to be elected to statewide row seat was also there, state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor. “It is an honor to be here to honor someone who I consider a hero,” DeFoor said. “He was an abolitionist, he was a businessman, he risked his life to help slaves during their long journey thro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Henry Brown’s Marker Reminds Us Of Slavery’s Evils

  Henry Brown’s Marker Reminds Us Of Slavery’s Evils This marker was dedicated Saturday on the unmarked grave of Underground Railroad conductor Henry Brown, whose final resting place in the Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery had lay unmarked for over a century. Fred Adams | For Times Leader It was the nature of the Underground Railroad to be unknown, for the conductors to operate deep in the shadows. Spiriting slaves from the South to freedom in the North required clandestine meetings, basement havens, secret rooms, hidden compartments in vehicles and, more frequently, travelling by foot on scarcely-used paths. So it is understandable that many have lived in Wyoming Valley for decades without knowing the Railroad operated here, as it did in many other parts of the state. Pennsylvania was, remember, the first free state north of the Mason-Dixon line. (A good starting point to see how extensive the Railroad operations were in Penn’s Woods — and what sites you can see for yourself — can be fo...
Post a Comment
Read more