By Elaine Wintjen
Mel was owned by John Clark.
Judy, by John Linn.
Tom, by John Jenkins.
And Kate, by Roan McClure.
A lecture and film are among the events planned by the Union County Historical Society as it marks Black History Month in February. Discussions will address the Underground Railroad and slaves such as Mel, Judy, Tom, Kate and Dinah, all owned by Union County residents.
Dinah, in the household of Samuel Dale, was born a slave in the mid-1700s at the Futhey household in Chester County. According to the Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Law of 1780, she would remain a slave her entire life unless freed by her owner, Anne Futhey Dale.
Dale never freed Dinah.
Jeannette Lasansky will present the program, “People as Property: Slavery and the Underground Railroad at the Dale House 1793-1840,” at 2 p.m. Feb. 14 at the Dale-Engle-Walker House, Strawbridge Road, off Route 192, just west of Lewisburg.
The historical society will show the critically acclaimed film “Safe Harbor” at 2 p.m. Feb. 28.
“Safe Harbor” is a story of freedom fighters — free blacks and whites — in northeastern Pennsylvania who supported the anti-slavery movement. Exhibits and house tours are included in both programs.
Slaves in Union County
Understanding slavery and the anti-slavery movement in central Pennsylvania is a long-term project of the Union County Historical Society.
Census records for 1790-1840 show there were about 50 families that owned slaves in Union County. A few families held slaves more than 10 years, including Samuel and James Dale, Samuel Hunter, James Jenkins, Roan McClure, Thomas Strawbridge and David Watson. The census counted about 89 slaves in 1790, 30 in 1800 and only three in 1840 (held by James Dale, Alexander McClure and James Simonton).
Census records
Census records provide information about free blacks in Union County. For example, in the mid-1800s in Hartley Township were the Bryson, McDonald, Dunlap and Ford families and free blacks in the Emery, Maclay, Roush and Wilson households.
Union Township black households included Corsley, Grimes, Hines, Jones, Price and Schofield. In Lewisburg, there were the Shields, Taylors, Waldrons and others.
More than 300 free African-Americans are recorded in the county census records of the 1800s.
The local Underground Railroad
Free blacks were an important part of the Underground Railroad — a system of travel routes and safe havens whereby people escaping from slavery in the South made their way north to freedom.
Black communities, sometimes found near iron furnaces where their skills and labor were appreciated, may have been part of this system of safe passage, which extended through Pennsylvania to New York and Canada.
In Union County, iron furnaces were located at New Berlin, Hartleton, Winfield and White Deer.
Underground Railroad stops have not been identified in these locales, but that is not unusual since sheltering runaway slaves was dangerous and kept secret from the general population.
There is documentation of at least one safe stop in Lewisburg — in the University Avenue carriage house of a Professor Bliss.
Professors Curtis and Malcolm also may have provided shelter as well as Jonathan Nesbit, on Market Street, Robert Irwin on Water Street and the free blacks who lived in the town.
The Union County Historical Society continues to research slavery, the Underground Railroad and the area’s African-American residents. This will be a focus of study during 2010, Black History Initiative Year, and 2011, the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. Volunteers are being accepted to do research and plan programs.
For information, contact the society at 524-8666 or hstoricl@ptd.net.
