The Peru Gazette

Adirondack historian Amy Godine, whose ground-breaking research helped re-open the narrative of Timbuctoo, the black settlement at Lake Placid, is back with another revealing story.Godine has found that wealthy abolitionist Gerrit Smith’s land give-away may have benefited black Americans still being held in bondage in the south.

Speaking at the Peru Free Library on Friday, June 14, at 7 p.m., Adirondack Life contributor Godine will discuss the results of her latest research. With the help of primary and archival documents, she reconstructs the dramatic story of a Maryland slave who came into possession of an Adirondack deed he was never able to use, and the long struggle of his sons and heirs to hold onto their Adirondack patrimony in Essex County and Albany courts — a court battle that carried into the 20th century.

When wealthy abolitionist Gerrit Smith gave away 120,000 Adirondack acres to black Americans in 1846 and ’47, he intended that his 3,000 beneficiaries be free black New Yorkers. Overwhelmingly, they were. Smith’s idea was that owning this land would allow black men to meet the $250 property requirement and allow them to vote in New York elections.

Local and regional historians, however, have long known that some of his grantee-settlers were also escaped slaves. Godine was in the forefront of the research effort that provided details of the Smith land program, and was curator of the “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” exhibit sponsored by John Brown Lives!

Her appearance at the Peru Free Library, 3024 Main St., is sponsored by the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, operator of the North Star Underground Railroad Museum, and kicks of regional Juneteenth Celebrations. Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.

Free and open to the public.

Call 518-834-5180 for more information.

www.northcountryundergroundrailroad.com