Pennsylvania Historic Preservation

Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Tag: Underground Railroad

Group of seven people sitting or standing behind a table.
BVUGRR and Levity Brewing Co. team at the release of the first Freedom Seeker beer series.

Celebrating the Blairsville Area Underground Railroad

May 17, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This week’s 2022 Community Initiative Award winner spotlight is on the Blairsville Underground Railroad organization in Blairsville, Indiana County.

Blairsville was laid out in the early 19th century along the Conemaugh River at the southern end of Indiana County, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh along the planned route of the Huntingdon, Cambria, and Indiana Turnpike. Blairsville’s history and growth is closely tied to its transportation corridors – the river, the stagecoach in 1818, the canal in 1829, and the rail in 1851 – and natural deposits of salt, coal, and iron, which together supported a thriving and flourishing community.

What many may not know about Blairsville is its African American history, particularly related to abolition and the Underground Railroad (UGRR). The borough had one of the larger Black communities in Indiana County and the county’s first African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church was organized there in 1844. Indiana County was an important and active Underground Railroad stop in Pennsylvania as freedom seekers escaped from their enslavers in search of freedom.

I asked Denise Doyle from the Blairsville Underground Railroad organization to share their story with us.

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Line drawing with lines connecting circles on a map of Pennsylvania.
This map shows the lines of connections southeastern Pennsylvania, including safe houses, station masters and UGRR conductors. Wilbert Seibert included this map, which is based on Robert Smedley's 1883 book, in his 1898 The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom.

The Underground Railroad in Columbia, Lancaster County

September 14, 2022 / / 1 Comment

September is International Underground Railroad Month. September was chosen because it is the month that two of the most well-known people associated with the Underground Railroad –  Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass – escaped from slavery.  Today’s post was written by guest author Dr. Leroy Hopkins and he provides a glimpse into the Underground Railroad in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

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Low wood shelter over gravestones in wood.
View of monument in 2021, facing north. Photograph by PA SHPO.

Reinterpreting the Underground Railroad: The Sherman’s Dale Discharge Former Slaves’ Graves Site

February 2, 2022 / / 12 Comments

In my short time as an archaeologist working in southeast Pennsylvania, I’ve learned that every basement, crawl space, and root cellar older than 1860 was at one time, a stop on the Underground Railroad (UGRR).  This of course is not true, but the mythologies of the UGRR are born out of the fact that the region played an important role in the network as the first free state north of the Mason-Dixon line. 

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Telling a Fuller Story about African American History in Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed

October 14, 2020 / / 1 Comment

Earlier this month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) announced a new pilot project with PHMC, PA DCNR, the states of Maryland and Virginia, and National Park Service Chesapeake Bay to identify, document, and map sites and landscapes in the Chesapeake Bay watershed region significant to African American history and culture.

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