CAZENOVIA — On Tuesday, Feb. 28, in observance of Black History Month, the Cazenovia Public Library & Museum (CPL) will host a presentation titled “Abolition Movement in Madison County” from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Betsy Kennedy Community Room.
Madison County Historian Matthew Urtz will discuss the role that the county played in the organized effort to end slavery in the United States.
“We feel it’s important to honor the efforts and bravery of our community ancestors and recognize the role our small rural communities played on a national stage,” said CPL Interim Director Elisha Davies. “Whether it’s Cazenovia’s 1850 Fugitive Slave Law Convention, Peterboro and Gerrit Smith’s lasting legacy of assisting freedom seekers, or our local connections to famous abolitionists Theodore Weld and Angelina Grimke, it’s a heritage worth celebrating.”
According to Urtz, the abolition movement was active at various times throughout history.
“The Quaker faith denounced slavery in 1688, and in the US formed an organization [called] ‘The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage’ in 1775,” she said. “In the US, the Presbyterian Church called slavery ‘utterly inconsistent with the law of God’ in 1818. The American Colonization Society formed in 1816, proposing to free slaves and send them back to Africa.”
Urtz added that in 1830s, the movement became better organized and started to work towards immediate abolition, inspired by the ideas set forth during the Protestant religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.
The end of the abolition movement was tied to the conclusion of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally ended slavery in December 1865.
During the movement, Madison County was a center of abolition activity because it was home to Gerrit Smith, one of the wealthiest abolitionists in the country. A resident of the Hamlet of Peterboro, Smith used his wealth to operate a station on the Underground Railroad, liberate slaves, and finance local, state, and national abolition activities.
“This brought some of the most prominent abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass and John Brown here, among many others, and helped spread the ideas of abolition,” said Urtz.
The historian’s presentation will explore several significant local events, including the relocation of the 1835 inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society from Utica to Peterboro, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law Convention in Cazenovia, the 1852 Liberty Party Convention in Canastota, and the Harriet Powell escape.
“In October of 1839, an enslaved person, Harriet Powell, arrived in Syracuse with her owner,” said Urtz. “Upon learning of her desire for freedom, hotel staff arranged to have her hidden in the community. She eventually spent two weeks hiding in the home of Dr. John Clark of Lebanon before being moved to Peterboro and eventually Canada.”
Urtz pointed to the 1835 New York State Antislavery Society meeting as one of the most significant Madison County events of the abolition movement.
“[It] galvanized people like Gerrit Smith, who prior to that point had favored colonization,” said Urtz. “After attending the meeting in Utica, seeing the rioters, and inviting people back to Peterboro, his views changed and he became a driving force in the movement — so much so that Henry Highland Garnet wrote, ‘There are yet two places where slaveholders cannot come, Heaven and Peterboro,’ thirteen years after the meeting.”
The presentation will also cover prominent individuals like Smith and some of the ministers and educators who spread abolition ideas.
Additionally, Urtz will examine the brief existence of some of the churches involved in the emergence of the movement.
For example, the Congregational Church in Hamilton split in 1846 over differing views on the best way to end slavery. Led by their minister, the group that left formed the Free Church in 1846. By 1853, the church had closed.
“My best guess as to why it may have closed is that many of the [issues they disagreed on] before had become less contentious,” said Urtz. “The passing of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act galvanized a lot of folks who shared an opposition to the law. It may have also been that there were not enough members to support both churches. While we have access to some of the minutes, we don’t have the entire story.”
Another short-lived church was the First Congregational/Free Church in Cazenovia, which was founded in 1833 and had closed by the end of the Civil War.
The library event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 315-366-2453.
Throughout the month of February, the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) in Peterboro is presenting its “Black History Matters” short video series.
According to the NAHOF website, the educational videos highlight historical events in the Black American experience and provide context for the ongoing racial justice movements and the persistence of racism in America. New videos are released each day of the month at midnight on NAHOF’s YouTube channel. The full list of video topics is available at nationalabolitionhalloffameandmuseum.org.
Throughout the month of March, the CPL Art Gallery will exhibit panels on loan from the NAHOF celebrating its female inductees. For more information, visit cazenoviapubliclibrary.org or call 315-655-9322.
Located at 5255 Pleasant Valley Rd. in Peterboro, the NAHOF has a mission “to honor antislavery abolitionists, their work to end slavery, and the legacy of that struggle, and strive to complete the second, and ongoing abolition – the moral conviction to end racism.”
