By Mark Scheer Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Wed Aug 31, 2011, 11:49 PM EDT
NIAGARA FALLS — City residents got their first glimpse Wednesday at some of the historical data researchers are using to help shape a heritage district and interpretative center that will highlight local ties to the Underground Railroad.
About 60 people attended an informational session at the Earl Brydges Library where a team of consultants hired to help create the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Corridor discussed information they’ve unearthed so far as part of their ongoing research project.
Team members said their initial analysis of U.S. Census data, newspaper accounts, memoirs, manuscripts and other materials suggests the story about Niagara Falls and the surrounding community’s ties to the Underground Railroad can be told through well-known and not-so-well-known figures who lived and worked in the area while participating in the effort to help slaves find freedom in Canada.
“Once we uncover all of this, I firmly believe it is going to be an integral part of our region, not just our city,” said Bill Bradberry, chairman the local commission formed to oversee the corridor’s development.
The heritage corridor, which is being supported with a total of $1.3 million in state funding, will highlight various points of interest related to the history of the Underground Railroad in the Falls and other parts of Niagara County. The commission hired a consulting team to create a management plan for the project. The plan will outline a boundary, provide an inventory of relevant historic sites and information and establish plans for promotions and educational outreach. The consultants started their research this summer.
Judith Wellman, a lead member of the consulting team and a professor of history emerita with the State University of New York and Director of the Historical Society of New York Research Associates, said the initial work suggests the community has many stories from the era worth telling, including some involving African American waiters who doubled as “agents” of the system while working at area hotels, freed slaves and abolitionists who frequented area churches and historical figures who used area crossings like the old Suspension Bridge to help slaves escape to freedom in Canada. While the research is primarily focused on Niagara Falls, researchers indicated that other parts of Niagara County and Erie County will be included as part of future work to paint a fuller picture.
“There was a network,” Wellman said. “It doesn’t stop at town or county borders.”
The consulting team will hold additional public meetings and workshops in the future. The next workshop is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sept. 30 at Mount Zion Baptist Church, 1334 Calument Ave.
“This is not the final act,” said Jane Rice, a representative with EDR Associates, one of the company’s involved in the project’s consulting team. “This is the beginning.”
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