Blairsville museum shares the stories of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and beyond
As Black History Month begins, the Blairsville Underground Railroad Museum shares the stories of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and beyond — through the lens of Indiana County.
Denise Jennings, the museum's director and board president, said the museum's mission is to preserve, present and promote the stories of the region's Underground Railroad history.
"We were founded because I told a story to Lenwood Sloan, the director of cultural heritage tourism in Pennsylvania," said Jennings, who has been with the organization since its inception in 2006.
The museum is currently housed in the former Second Baptist Church building, the oldest African American structure in the town. It is soon scheduled to be moved to the Blairsville Armory on North Walnut Street in downtown Blairsville.
Jennings said about 75 percent of the items in the museum's exhibits have been donated and 25 percent have been acquired.
"We have a pair of enslaved man's pants, and that was an incredible donation that we received, along with a Frederick Douglass broadside that we received," she said.
Through independent research, the museum has identified 93 conductors of the Underground Railroad in Indiana County alone, including John Graff, a wealthy businessman in Blairsville, who became a key conductor of the Underground Railroad.
"John Graff had a tunnel from the riverbank through his brother's lawn and under our South Liberty Street – into his carriage house," said Jennings.
The museum has created a replica of a "safe area" built into the floor of the carriage house where escapees could hide.
"On the top floor, which you would typically find hay for your horses, theirs contained two beds and a rocking chair," said Jennings. "Those were used by the freedom seekers who were staying more than overnight."
The museum currently holds one of the beds and the rocking chair in its basement, donated by Graff's family.
One exhibit in the museum describes a tipping point in the region's attitude toward slavery: an incident that happened in 1845 when a young man who escaped slavery in Virginia was caught near downtown Indiana.
"The people of Indiana crowded around the [Indiana House] hotel," said Jennings. "Someone ran for the abolitionists because they didn't want death and murder and mayhem in Indiana."
The people of the town eventually allowed the young man, Anthony Hollingsworth, to have his day in court. The presiding judge set Hollingsworth free due to a lack of evidence of committing a crime.
"Judge Thomas White was an Underground Railroad conductor who kept a station at his farm at the gatehouse of what we now know as White's Woods in Indiana County," said Jennings.
The museum also pays tribute to the nearly 50 African American men from Indiana County who fought in the Civil War. Two of them — Alexander Kelly and James H. Bronson — were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm in 1864.
These stories are just a few of the numerous accounts of freedom seekers, conductors, and those who sacrificed their own freedom to help others find it. Jennings said these people were the helpers, but they did not give the greatest sacrifice of all.
"No one was ever going to come close to the risks that the freedom seekers themselves had taken because these folks were the true heroes of the Underground Railroad," said Jennings.
