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The Search for the Underground Railroad in Upstate New York Kindle Edition

by Tom Calarco (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
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A historian investigates evidence for the existence of the Underground Railroad in upstate New York.

Because of its clandestine nature, much of the history of the Underground Railroad remains shrouded in secrecy—so much so that some historians have even doubted its importance. After decades of research, Tom Calarco recounts his experiences compiling evidence to give credence to the legend’s oral history in upstate New York.

As the Civil War loomed and politicians from the North and South debated the fate of slavery, brave New Yorkers risked their lives to help fugitive slaves escape bondage. Whites and Blacks alike worked together on the Underground Railroad, using ingenious methods of communication and tactics to stay ahead of the slave master and bounty hunter. Especially after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, conscientious residents doubled their efforts to help runaways reach Canada. Join Calarco on this journey of discovery of one of the noblest endeavors in American history.
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  1. Print length
    189 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    The History Press
  5. Publication date
    June 3, 2014
  6. File size
    3884 KB
  7. Page Flip
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tom Calarco is the author/editor of six books and over thirty articles on the Underground Railroad. He speaks widely and has presented papers at the National Parks Service's "Network to Freedom"? conference, the Underground Railroad Project of the Capital Region conference and was the keynote speaker at the North Star Underground Railroad Project conference. A member of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, he works to develop the true history of the Underground Railroad.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00XRQTM6C
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The History Press (June 3, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 3, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3884 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 189 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

About the author

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Tom Calarco

Tom Calarco

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Tom Calarco is the author / editor of seven books about the Underground Railroad including The Underground Railroad and the Adirondack Region, for which he won the year 2008 Underground Railroad Free Press award for the advancement of knowledge in Underground Railroad studies. His latest, which is a collaboration with Don Papson, Secret Lives of the Underground Railroad, uses the previously unpublished "Record of Fugitives" kept by Sidney Howard Gay to tell the story of the Underground Railroad in New York City and shows the widespread network that Gay and his associates had developed. He has written for many publications during the last 30 years, including many years as stringer for antiques publications and a decade as a classical music reviewer. For the last five years, he has been writing the column, "Profiles in Perseverance," which highlights the achievements of lawyers who have overcome great personal obstacles to achieve success, for the magazine, Diversity and the Bar. A graduate of the Creative Writing program at Iowa State University, he has written one published novel, the fantasy Hi-doh Hi-dee Ha-Ha.

Go to http://hidoh-hidee-haha.com to learn more about Hi-doh Hi-dee Ha-Ha.

Go to http://undergroundrailroadconductor.com to learn more about his books and research dealing with the Underground Railroad.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
20 global ratings
Northern New York obscure history retold
4 Stars
Northern New York obscure history retold
I purchased this book after being told that my rental writing studio was once a stop on the Underground Railroad by a family member of the owner. The location is in St. Lawrence County and the road is on a veer to line up with Ogdensburg, N.Y. eventually, across the river from Canada.Author Tom Calarco does a good job of addressing this common trend within Northern New York historical narratives. The sheer number of possible Underground Railroad stops outstrip the volume of slaves who found freedom this far north. The fact that he included this same county and the neighboring one (Franklin County) bears out the first-person research that he did in this remote border region.A nice holiday gift for the historical-minded reader. Some chapters move through a little easier than others but a good book all around.
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Top reviews from the United States

Michael Boyajian
5.0 out of 5 stars Ending the Restrictive History of the Underground Railroad
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2023
Verified Purchase
President Jimmy Carter states emphatically that you can find support in the Bible for any position you may have. This includes slavery which many slaveholders cited to as justification of their practice of human bondage. There is also the notion held by many esteemed personages that slavery would have died of its own accord in time without need of the Civil War. This is a fallacy recently exposed whereas it is said that Confederate President Jefferson Davis and other slave state rulers believed in the plan for slavery was to push it straight through to the Pacific Coast and then march it south through Mexico and the Caribbean through to the southern tip of South America creating a slave empire unseen in scope and size in all of human history. Then there is the outrage over the African American holiday of Kwanza as being a made up fabrication. If so what of Mormonism then or the fact that many religions hold holidays on the holy days that came before it to increase acceptance. Point in fact the Roman goddess Minerva who in Britain was called Sulis Minerva in deference to the local inhabitants and their beliefs. Than there are the holidays like Martin Luther King Day or now Juneteenth. Well it is undisputed law if the United States recognizes something than it is common knowledge under the law the premise of the original holiday film Miracle on 34th Street where the existence of Santa Claus is proved by the delivery by the United States Postal Service to the court house of thousands of letters to Santa. Furthermore, when I was a Young Republican there was an African American woman, a member of the Women’s National Republican Club, who claimed through her family’s oral history to be a descendant of President Thomas Jefferson which was met with polite chuckles until DNA testing came along and proved her correct along with many others which was at first met with denial by white descendants until today black and white descendants of Thomas Jefferson stand together as one. Finally there is the Pulitzer winning book The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times which reveals centuries of violence against African Americans kept secret by those who controlled our history. So too the strict denial of many facets of the Underground Railroad as exposed as racism of one sort or the other by this author Tom Calarco who kicks down the door to the hidden history of the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad is a history in the process of discovery or of uncovering as is all history including that of the Romans which even today scholars have problems deciphering between all the primary source material each with its own perspective. So my home in Fishkill was built in 1841 and some say wood from the American Revolutionary site the Fishkill Supply Depot can be seen in the ceiling beams in the basement and the house was owned by an apothecary hence almost a hundred bottles on the property some with Fishkill labels still intact and historical blurry glass front windows all supported by major books on historical glass and bottles from the 1800s. And of course the fervent denial that my late wife Jeri Wagner’s direct descendant who served in the American Revolution (a fact genealogically proven by a professional family history conducted in the 1970s and confirmed by our own recent online research) more likely than not served in the Revolution right here at the Fishkill Supply Depot a fact unknown to her until we moved here having never been here before. And now the skepticism as to our claim or rather hypothesis that our home may have been a station on the Underground Railroad which ran in part through here in the Hudson Valley north to Lake Champlain and a boat ride to uncontested freedom in Canada. Yes there is a hidden crawl space here that is now an “attic” where much of the flooring is of a wood sawing process that produces long antiquated lumber and there is a hidden alcove behind the basement fireplace but that is not good enough, according to many, without more proof which is hard to find on what was highly Federally illegal, or you must have a Quaker connection which I may have uncovered hidden by the marriage and property laws of the time and finally the dismissal that if anything it was a bootlegger hideaway during Prohibition. But how do you explain pre 20th Century wood flooring planks in much of the hidden “attic” and don’t tell me they’re spruce for I’ve been to operating historical water powered sawmills in the western Catskills and seen the type of lumber they produce. But the author is quite correct that the story of the Underground Railroad Is ongoing and I myself have much to learn before I can be conclusive including reading books the author cites and those provided as a very large list of books on the history of our village and home provided by local historian Toni Houston in the documents on the history of our home, officially protected by designation as a National Historic Landmark, and a home genealogy that I am just on the cusp of unraveling. So yes, today I may be wrong but tomorrow I might be correct as shown by this author and others and by that African American Republican woman who overcame much skepticism only to be proven correct about her and many others relationship to the founder and author of the Declaration of Independence as well as that of a very young slave of his named Sally Hemings whose DNA is coupled indisputably by DNA science with his and the inquiry by non slave holding founders like the attorney and president John Adams who actually postulated that there was something seriously amiss behind the closed doors of slavery. So I say my house is a station on the Underground Railroad but it’s proof is a work in progress that will eventually be revealed as has much about the history of African Americans in the book 1619 and in books like that of this author, Tom Calarco, however long it may take — a candle kept flickering like the oral history of the Jefferson descendants that is today scientifically proven.
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Roni Batzion
4.0 out of 5 stars Finding the underground railroad in Upstate NY
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2017
Verified Purchase
This is a small book about the search for the real routes of the Civil War era "underground railroad" for escaping slaves from the South. New York State was one of the centers of abolition at that time, and the escaping slaves found sympathy and support from the residents of the state which borders two Great Lakes and Canada. At this late date, finding the real routes that were taken, as well as surviving homes from the era in which the runaways sheltered, is a challenge. There are more than enough homes and natural sites that are supposedly stops on the underground route, but proving or as is more usually the case disproving them is an exhausting task for a historian. A few of the original homes with their hidden rooms (usually in the basement) are still standing. People interested in the social aspects of the Civil War era will find this book interesting.
3 people found this helpful
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rumar
5.0 out of 5 stars the underground railroad
Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2014
Verified Purchase
So interesting. I knew about the underground railroad in Upstate New York by some of the lore in the area. It is glossed over in the classroom and it was so interesting to find out that so many upstate New Yorkers were so conscious of the horrible idea of slavery.
One person found this helpful
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Gretchen and Dennis Duling co-authors
2.0 out of 5 stars Hard to Sort Through What is Out There on this Topic
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2016
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Great but misleading title. I wanted more information.
I will put in it my bibliography though.
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pasquale55
4.0 out of 5 stars Good … but local
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
Obscure towns that hardly existed then and don’t exist now are of great interest to the author. A meticulous narration adds detail to slaves’ travels to Montreal or Toronto, but nothing other than geography “propels” the narrative. Even has life histories of local librarians and historians! Little along the lines of narrow escapes or political heat.
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Nancy
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2015
Verified Purchase
good book, I wanted to learn more about the area and did
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Jean Libby, Allies for Freedom
5.0 out of 5 stars The Way of Local Historical Research
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2014
Tom Calarco weaves his own research journey into the histories. Preparation is the key, so he could recognize the serendipity.
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Deirdre NYC
4.0 out of 5 stars Well researched and inspiring
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
A unique look at not only the various places in the Capital area and beyond that were stations on the Underground Railroad, but a helpful road map for others looking to uncover similar places in their own areas. I bought it for book research, but am inspired to look deeper into the dusty historical societies and libraries with the knowledge that we still haven't found all of the sites that were used by those who were running from slavery.
2 people found this helpful
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