Local historian Daniel Ness recently presented a program about the Underground Railroad and how it operated in Berks and Lancaster counties to members of the Senior Connections group during its monthly meeting at Conestoga Mennonite Church.
The Underground Railroad, Ness explained, was a network of people who secretly offered shelter to slaves from the South on their way to freedom during the 1800s. Those who participated in the effort were called conductors.
Ness, a member of the African American Historical Society of South Central Pennsylvania, has researched the Underground Railroad, which included visiting homes and sites that were reportedly part of the network. His findings can be found in a book, "By Moonlight to Freedom, Underground," which is currently waiting to be published.
"This book is the result of eight years of research," Ness said. "I have visited 277 places in Lancaster County, been in eight attics, 23 basements and 56 other places (like) barns. (The book) includes (information about) 1,030 people (and has) 880 footnotes, 335 pages and 640 pictures."
He displayed photos of homes in New Holland that were reportedly part of the Underground Railroad, including one on Main Street that was home to the Mentzer family. "You see an outside entrance to the basement and in the basement, there is an opening to a tunnel," Ness said. "Where the tunnel went, we are not sure. It's likely it went under the street and was an escape route. There is no written evidence that this was an Underground Railroad site. But there is the outside entrance and the tunnel (as evidence)."
Ness reported that many former slaves were employed at local furnaces, including Poole Forge in Narvon and Joanna Furnace in Robeson Township, Berks County. He added that many ironmasters were participants in the Underground Railroad and offered protection to the workers especially when their "owners" from the South would come to claim them.
"Levi and Emily Smith of Joanna Furnace assisted freedom seekers by hiding them in the woodland area near the furnace," Ness stated.
Levi reportedly recruited Henry Segner, a collier at Joanna Furnace, as a guide for the Underground Railroad. "He would assign one of his workers to take black people working there who were in danger of capture and lead them off," said Ness, "while he himself took the kidnappers or slave catchers (in another direction) in the woods so that they would be lost for several days."
He added that James and Hannah Jackson, who owned three adjacent farms on Furnace Road in Robeson Township, were active conductors in the Underground Railroad.
"When dealing with the subject of the Underground Railroad, there is a lot we don't know because it was very secretive, very hidden," Ness said. "Most of what we know we have learned from reading people's diaries, family history stories and reading accounts in the newspapers about people who were arrested or in some cases (killed) for their activity."
"Technically (the slaves) were not free until they reached Canada, but many people in Pennsylvania did all they could to help formerly enslaved people," he added.
Leave a Review