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By Peg Pelletier
Courtesy of the Finger Lake Times
NEWARK — On a recent Tuesday evening, the Arcadia town board joined many other townships, villages and cities across New York State in approving the proposed Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway.
This byway will cross the state from New York City to Niagara Falls, offering a cohesive heritage tourism experience more than 550 miles long, and eventually connecting to existing Tubman Underground Railroad byways in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.
Tubman was raised in an enslaved family by parents who struggled against great odds to keep their family together. She grew to become an expert hunter, lumberjack, and fieldworker, ultimately preparing her for the dangerous path she would pursue as an adult. Successfully escaping bondage in 1849 and setting herself free in Philadelphia, she became an operator of a secret network of people, places, and routes that provided shelter and assistance to escaping freedom seekers — the Underground Railroad. Many of the stops along that “railroad” remain among us today.
A local partnership group, Black History Month in a Year, along with the Wayne County Bicentennial Historic Sites, already has created two Underground Railroad audio/visual tours in Wayne County. From waynehistorians.org you can access guides to the Sodus and Williamson Narrated Underground Railroad Tour links. Each property along the route has a sign with a QR code which will link you to historic details.
This and other historic preservation efforts readily tie into the statewide recognition of Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad work.
Once approved, the public roads of the byway would be newly designated, recognizing the historic, cultural, and archaeological significance of the area and the important part it played in the Underground Railroad.
As the byway traverses New York, it will pass by Harriet Tubman’s home in Auburn, then drop into Geneva to the Smith Opera House, where the 1897 Women’s Suffrage convention was held and which Tubman attended. From Geneva the byway will enter Wayne County and run from Lyons through Newark, Palmyra, and Macedon, along Route 31.
For more information visit www.urcnys.org.
