Colors of Freedom: Juneteenth self-driving tour to feature stops in Clinton, Essex counties
Jun. 16—KEESEVILLE — The inaugural Juneteenth 2022, "Colors of Freedom in the North Country" self-driving tour unfurls 9 a.m., Sunday morning at the North Star Underground Museum, 1131 Mace Chasm Rd., in Ausable Chasm.
There, North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association President Jackie Madison will orient attendees to the museum and its tour programming taking place at the Evergreen Cemetery in Keeseville and the Stephen Keese Smith Farm and Quaker Union in Peru.
SIGNATURE EVENT
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Madison and Brendan Mills, site manager of John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, had a few meetings to talk about doing a collaborative event around their sites' mutual Underground Railroad and abolitionist interpretation.
"He talked about doing a tour, an ongoing thing of what we did with the museum bus tour," Madison said.
"We talked about doing something like that, and doing it initially around Labor Day."
When President Joe Biden signed Juneteenth into the historical record as a national holiday last year, an association board trustee suggested to Madison, it was the perfect opportunity to anchor the date as a signature event in the North Country.
"It just seemed right to sort of incorporate that into this and make this a little bit more prominent in the community," she said.
"I wasn't really thinking of the timing. I was really more thinking of creating a tourist opportunity, and that happened to fall in the right time. It wasn't just the Juneteenth, it was also I Love New York Pathways Through History and our local history weekend, Museum Days Weekend. It all fell on the right time."
The Press-Republican is the media sponsor for the 13th Annual Adirondack Coast Museum Days Weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
"Colors of Freedom" is a showcase of freedom, how local people from centuries past, made their choices, yeah or nay, on the question of slavery, a very divisive issue.
"Many Blacks don't recognize July 4 as a day of freedom; it's a barbecue day for them," Madison said.
"They do recognize Juneteenth because that's when everyone got their freedom. Texas (enslaved people of African descent) got their freedom, and all Blacks felt they had their freedom on Juneteenth. It's a good way to really showcase a holiday that is around people of color, primarily Black people. But you know, Indians were slaves. For people of color, this is a way to showcase they have actually obtained their freedom in this country."
'DREAM COME TRUE'
For Mills, the Colors of Freedom is a dream come true.
"Years ago, I had tried to do some Juneteenth programming," he said.
"It just didn't get off the ground. It was not as successful as I had hoped. This is our second Juneteenth, I believe, and it's great. It's fantastic, and I have high hopes for the future as well.
"I've been here almost 21 years now, to go from the humble beginnings to this, the recognition of the end of slavery, I think it's just wonderful. I'm glad to be a part of it."
Madison's ultimate goal is to create a tourism opportunity around Juneteenth in the region.
"Think about it," she said.
"This is sort of the unknown part of the Underground Railroad. It's better known now. This was a major route for people to exit out of this region, even for them today to exit and leave, the immigrants that are coming in, that is a tourism opportunity. and I think to create an annual event around that helps the community, but also helps tell the story of the history of the U.S."
Clinton and Essex counties were a center of the roiling abolition controversies before the Civil War, helping many freedom‐seekers fleeing enslavement follow the Lake Champlain corridor to Canada in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s.
"BLACK MARIA"
Robin Caudell will portray Maria Haynes, who was enslaved by Plattsburgh proprietor, Melancton Smith of Jamaica, Long Island, until his death during the yellow fever epidemic of 1798.
Then, Haynes was transferred to his son, Col. Melancton Smith, who owned The Republican and commanded Fort Moreau during the Battle of Plattsburgh.
From the Plattsburgh Republican, March 18, 1884:
"Maria Haynes, or 'Black Maria,' as she was familiarly called, was held in the village to be a most estimable woman, being also quite generally known among its citizens ... During my stay in Plattsburgh, Maria Haynes was famous in her handicraft of cook, and I remember that now fashionable party or stylish wedding was held to be complete, unless Black Maria stirred and baked the cake, giving also a general superintendence of of the supper."
Once Haynes gained her freedom, she removed to Keeseville, where she transferred her membership to the Methodist Church.
WENDELL LANSING
Cliff Haven residents Don Papson, and his wife, Vivian, are co-founders of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association and the North Star Underground Railroad Museum.
Papson has tracked Wendell Lansing, a 19th century Keeseville resident, for years.
"He was the Underground Railroad agent in Keeseville," Papson said.
"He arranged for Frederick Douglass to come to the Baptist Church and speak. He arranged for Gerrit Smith to come to the Baptist Church and speak. He was the one who tried to get Sarah Parker Remond and Aaron M. Powell here in Keeseville.
Lansing was a trustee of the Keeseville Methodist Church and a newspaper publisher.
"The Lansings were Dutch," Papson said.
"His grandfather was a slave owner in Washington County. He owned three people, but Lansing was a radical abolitionist. He was a member of the Washington County Anti-Slavery Society when it formed. That was the first county society in New York."
The Lansing family relocated from Washington County to Madison County, where he attended school before deciding to return to Washington County.
Lansing was a member of the Baptist Church there.
"He tried to be a teacher, but it wasn't for him," Papson said.
"He got a job as an apprentice in a printing shop and within eight months, he was the owner of the newspaper."
Lansing was invited by Federalist Whigs to come to Keeseville in 1839 to publish a Whig newspaper.
"He started the Essex County Republican newspaper," Papson said.
"September 8, 1839 was the first issue. He and his printing assistant, Ben Patterson, came up here on Dan Lyon's Whitehall Steam Boat. He got off at Port Kent, and they came to Keeseville. They brought the printing press. They brought paper for the first four issues."
The Essex County Republican was eventually sold several times, but it lasted well into the 20th century.
"Marjorie Lansing Porter (Lansing's great-granddaughter) was the publisher of the paper for a while, and she wrote for it many, many, many times," Papson said.
"So, he started the Lansings up here. He was very outspoken and had a lot of enemies. In 1846, he sold the newspaper and went to Wilmington. He helped people on the Underground Railroad in Keeseville because he was sending people to Stephen Keese Smith and Samuel Keese. Stephen Keese Smith mentions him in his recollections. He said Wendell Lansing was an actor on the Underground Railroad."
President John Tyler broke with the Whigs, and Lansing couldn't get behind 1844 Presidential Candidate Henry Clay.
"By that time, Lansing said, 'My paper is supporting this person, but I'm an abolitionist. I can't do this,'" Papson said.
"So, he sold the paper and went to Wilmington."
In Wilmington, Lansing hustled in different businesses including a coal enterprise.
"He would hide people in the coal carts, which had very, very high sides, so nobody would know that anybody was in there, and he would transport the people in the coal carts."
Lansing remained in Wilmington approximately six years until an old acquaintance, Ashley Arnold, came and said, "It's time for you to come back to Keeseville and get back into the editorial business."
"So, he came back to Keeseville, and he started the Northern Standard, which was a Republican newspaper. In 1860, Wendell Lansing was on the Committee of Resolution at the first major celebration, that I'm aware of, July 4, 1860. There was a huge gathering of people, well over a 1,000 people, went to the John Brown Farm."
The huge boulder there was used as a platform.
'There were three men, who had been part of John Brown's 21 (Raiders), who were there — Anderson, Coppoc and Merriam," Papson said.
"They had all survived Harpers Ferry. They were 'fugitives' from the law. They were safe there because Merriam asked everybody, 'If they come after us, will you protect us?' Everybody said, 'Yes, we will.' By that time, John Brown had only been buried for seven months, and they had this huge gathering at the John Brown Farm."
Papson called the Colors of Freedom, good and kind of a bookend.
"Because we are starting at Evergreen Cemetery, but then it's going to the John Brown Farm," he said.
"Marjorie Lansing Porter (also buried in the Evergreen Cemetery) said that Wendell arranged for John Brown to come and speak in Keeseville, but I'm not including that because I have not found documentation for when that was. But I'm including him being part of the gathering on the Fourth of July of 1860."
MARJORIE LANSING PORTER
Clinton County Historical Association Director Helen Nerska embedded herself in Marjorie Lansing Porter's thought processes in the Feinberg Library Special Collections at SUNY Plattsburgh.
"I have admired from the time I really started becoming interested in local history," Nerska said.
"She was so dedicated to recording our history. We need to be really appreciative of all the things that she did. She wrote for the newspaper. She was Clinton County Historian. She was City of Plattsburgh Historian, and she was the Essex County Historian. She was a friend of Pete Seeger."
The folk legend recorded, "Champlain Valley Songs," an album based on lyrics and tunes, recorded by Porter when she went gallivanting in the Adirondacks with her Soundscriber Recorder capturing folk — ballads, songs, hillbilly, French-Canadian, and fiddle tunes from local people.
For Porter, the important part what was people, what they did, who there were, and how they impacted their communities, in Nerska's estimation.
"She was really devoted to people," she said.
"The energy that woman had! She very seldom said anything negative. No criticism. It was just really documenting."
In her unpublished autobiography, Porter writes about her family that were movers and shakers on local and national levels.
"She had strong women in her life," Nerska said.
"Hannah Straight Lansing (wife of Abram Lansing, Wendell's son), she describes as being very authoritarian. She also mentions her Aunt Ida Lansing Wilcox, who was also a suffragist. She had suffragists in her background. She had abolitionists in her background. She had journalists in her background. These all culminated in this woman who was keenly interested in history and knew how to communicate it to people."
STEPHEN KEESE SMITH & CATHERINE KEESE
Neal and Barbara Burdick of Canton are portraying his ancestors Stephen Keese Smith, his great-great-great-great grandfather, and Catherine Keese, his great-great-great aunt.
"The principal things that they accomplished that we talk about Stephen Keese Smith was a station agent and conductor on the Underground Railroad, and Catherine Keese was the first woman to be allowed into Dannemora Prison to provide spiritual aid to the inmates," Neal said.
"We also try to to explain a little bit about the Quaker belief that put those actions in context."
SAMUEL KEESE
Essex County Historical Society board trustee and Keene resident Peter Slocum will portray Samuel Keese at the Quaker Union Cemetery.
"Samuel Keese, of course, is one of the leaders of the abolition movement in the North Country, although coming from a family that did included slave owners in an earlier generation," Slocum said.
"But he was a delegate to the first anti-slavery statewide convention in New York, which was held Albany. He was very active in regional, statewide, even national abolition meetings."
Keese was an acquaintance of William Lloyd Garrison, an abolitionist, journalist, suffragist.
"He was married to two amazing, strong, abolitionist women, who were in succession, Hannah Keese, and Catherine R. Keese," Slocum said.
"Ironically, Keese himself is not buried in that cemetery. He migrated south and died in Long Island long after the Civil war. His wives are buried there."
Email: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
Twitter@RobinCaudell
