- The years that Reverend Wood labored among the people
of Chester were crucial and exciting ones.
In the spring of 1859, a fugitive slave who had traveled
for eight days on the road from Delaware
arrived in Chester, New York.
- Welcome - To Balancing Life's Issues, the podcast.
Today we are wrapping up Black History Month with a call
to action reach out to your community.
But why? Well, if there's anything I've learned this month,
it's that learning about one another can be challenging.
At first, I was nervous going into many
of these conversations because I was afraid
of saying the wrong thing or offending a colleague.
But that's the point. We have to be able
to navigate difficult conversations
so we can learn from one another so we can empathize,
so we can help one another.
Black History Month is about celebrating our shared
history as Americans.
And the resilience of Black Americans
through adversity is worth celebrating,
not removing instead,
but you have to make an effort
to move in a vulnerable direction of curiosity
because you might not like what you find out about yourself.
And for those of us who don't have access
to the experts at BLI that I've had the pleasure
of learning from this month, start with your community
and its historical society.
Because for me, it all started with a photo.
When my wife and I moved to Chester, New York in the summer
of 2020, we never thought that almost four years later,
we would own the home We were renting
and have an eight month old
who literally learned how to crawl last night.
We assumed this was just a stepping stone
to wherever we would end up post pandemic,
but we fell in love with the community.
And it was through the home buying process
that we discovered that our house was built in 1842.
So as a Christmas gift from my wife, I reached out
to the local Historical Society in hopes
that there was a photo I could frame from like
the sixties or seventies.
But what I got back from Clifton via email was a whole
file on our home.
- So I see a bunch of children,
and it looks like this is from a long time ago.
- That's Greg, multimedia specialist at Balancing Life's
Issues, describing this photo of our home from the 1840s
when it used to be a school.
- Right. This is probably like the entire
elementary school Yeah.
- Of, of the town. Right.
- And it's like, not that many.
It's probably what, like 20 children? Yeah.
And it's girls and boys, um, a lot of white children,
but it does look like there are two,
- Yeah, two, maybe three children of color.
- The, the more I look at it,
the more actually children of color that I see
- In New York state where we live.
Slavery was not abolished until March 31st, 1817,
setting July 4th, 1827 as the date of final emancipation
and making New York the first state to pass a law
for the total abolition of legal slavery.
So as I look at this photo of my home that was built
as a school 25 years
after emancipation in New York,
it's no surprise there are children of color.
Maybe some of them are first generation children
of former slaves.
And as I shared this photo around town to locals
that we had become friends with, they entered,
shared the widely known rumor that Chester New York was part
of the Underground Railroad.
Little did I know that for a time,
the Underground Railroad station in Chester
was only steps from my front door.
Hi Clifton. Hey, how you doing? Good.
- How are you? - Good, good. Leslie Smith.
Hi, Leslie. I had to find out
what else Clifton knew about the Black American history
of Chester, and it was to no surprise
that he was happy to tell me what he knew.
So I met him at his house. So is this the
historical society?
And you know, you're in the right place when you think
you're at the Chester Historical Society,
but you're actually at the historian's home?
- Well, my name's Cliff Patrick.
I'm the town of Chester historian,
and I was, uh, appointed in 2003
- And his wife and clearly partner in crime, uh,
- Leslie Smith.
And I was president of the Chester Historical Society,
I am gonna say 1994, in 1995.
- And as I sat down, there were piles of papers
and photos that Clifton had clearly spent hours pouring over
concerning the black history of Chester, all
of which was so fascinating.
The most relevant though, to me were the stories of
where I find myself buying Farm Fresh produce.
And the Underground Railroad station
just steps from our home. This
- Is the, uh, document I mentioned to you.
Uh, it's, it's, um, from 1720 when, uh,
Daniel Crimeline mortgage basically mortgaged his or sold
or mortgaged his property, uh, which
- Was, so this, this is the, - This, uh, an indenture.
He binds, uh, binds himself his son
and his properties, which at the time was 3066 acres.
So we covered much
of the northern part of the town of Chester. And
- This property you're talking about, this is the
where Rose Orchard is in
- Yeah.
Rose Orchard. Gotcha.
And attached to this was a, um, memorandum, which,
um, lists the chattel.
And chattel is like personal property as opposed
to, uh, real property.
And it does specifically list, uh,
three slaves included along with some cattle.
Wow. And two of them are Indian
and one is colored, uh, negro,
- An amendment to these mortgaging, or
however you wanna put it, of the property,
included this personal list.
Right. Which puts three human lives. Mm-Hmm.
, uh, in the same level
or the same piece of paper as cattle.
- Yeah. Yeah. But this is, as far as we know,
this is the only existing document proves the evidence
of Indian slaves in Orange County.
Okay. Very cool. So it's, you know,
it's very unique at that level.
- So a place that my wife
and I go often for the best produce
and apple cider donuts
around had slaves on its property years ago, way
before the time of its current owners.
But what about this Underground Railroad
- With the Fugitive Slave Act that was passed about 1850,
it became illegal to, uh, harbor or assist escape slaves.
A lot of, um, people didn't talk about breaking law.
- Right. You wouldn't want to write down
what you were doing illegally, um, at that time.
Mm-Hmm. . So I guess there's probably not much
documented in that way,
- Uh, less than, um, other factors of our, uh, social life.
Sure. But, um, first time I heard about, um,
underground Railroad was, uh, uh, a rumor
that there was a tunnel underneath the high Street,
- Which in the street we live on. Mm-Hmm.
- connecting, uh, what's now known as 15, um,
15 High Street with the house across the street.
I heard stories, uh, actually one from, uh,
bill Durland who died a few years ago.
But he, as a child, um, he said that there was a,
uh, time he was kid.
There were all these little like Heidi places
in the house, like, oh,
- Fun, fun for a kid.
But little did he know,
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
Behind the closets. Um,
- So this would be okay.
Yeah. I, I see, I know, I recognize the pillars.
So this is the home in across the street?
Across the street. During
- The 1850s.
It was the home of the, it was the parsonage for the, uh,
Chester Presbyterian Church Pastor at that time was, uh,
James Wood, I believe.
Reverend James Wood. Yep. Yep. And, uh,
- Now this is Helen Fred Morris's history
of the Presbyterian Church. Oh, okay.
- Got it. - The years that Reverend Wood labored
among the people of Chester were crucial and exciting ones.
In the spring of 1859, a fugitive slave who had traveled
for eight days on the road from Delaware
arrived in Chester, New York.
According to the Fugitive Slave law, the people
of Chester were duty bound to take him into custody
and surrender him to federal authorities
to be returned to his master.
However, a collection was taken for him.
He was given a ticket on the Erie Railroad
and sent on to Elmira, New York,
where he was much farther on his journey to Canada.
The curiosity and conjecture resulting from this incident in
Chester was all unknown to the unsuspecting public,
very close to a very important station
of the Underground Railroad.
The terminus of a line running from Philadelphia
through New Jersey,
and across the town of Warwick to Walton Lake
and to Chester, New York from Chester,
two lines continued northward.
The station in Chester was the Presbyterian
parsonage and the Wow.
And the station master was the Reverend James W. Wood.
The children of the Reverend Wood.
Among the directions that their father gave them were the
following, that when they saw a certain carriage
approaching, they should open the carriage house doors
and allow it to drive into the building.
Then they must close the doors and go into the house.
The vehicle which had arrived was the means
of transportation for the, for the fugitives
from the depot at Walton Lake to Chester.
As soon as the Negroes were securely concealed,
the carriage would depart
and go on its return to Walton Lake when federal men
and local spies became too busy in the neighborhood,
the trip from Walton Lake
and back would be made in the dark of night,
less known than the Presbyterian parsonage at Chester
as a station was the home of the Drake family.
This house referred to as Drake's Inn was one
of the very old homes in Chester.
The late Bell s told the old house had recesses in the walls
where the slaves were secreted when the Drake
family kept a station.
- You know, just as a historian,
and maybe we'll leave it, we'll leave it here.
Like what, what do you feel is the importance of,
of like educating ourselves on, on these kinds
of stories in, in our communities?
- Well, if you listen to the news, you tend
to get little snippets and headlines.
Mm-Hmm. . But the human condition,
I think is much more involved
and complicated than just the headlines.
- There is so much prejudice,
but what is needed is education.
Right. So that even if you don't agree with a lot
of things, at least you know where people are coming from.
Right. And you know, the reason
- I think it's a shame when people don't, uh,
don't have their minds open to listening to the other side.
'cause separating it from the
hyperbole is, uh, sure, of course. The
- Hard part.
Yeah. That, that does seem like the challenge right now.
Mm-Hmm. . And reach out
to your local historian.
Sure. See if they're willing to hang out and chat.
, that was pretty easy, .
I sent you one email and one phone call,
and now I'm sitting in your
home, uh, and you're just Mm-Hmm.
dropping all this on on us.
So, and it was at the end of our conversation
that Leslie brought the work we do at BLI, full circle
community is just one of the five buckets you need
to throw water in sometimes
as it helps create better work life balance.
- When you said mental health and,
and, uh, mental health and wellness.
Yeah. I didn't leave the house. I didn't, I didn't drive.
I didn't, I I was afraid to, I was afraid
to leave my bedroom to actually walk, to go to the bathroom.
Wow. That's how bad I was in a, a historic,
and I went to a historical society meeting.
I joined and I Oh, wow. And I got involved.
And I think that probably led to getting back.
You know, I think what you're doing
that sounds very important.
Mm. I mean, when you said that, I was like, this is really,
you're really onto something here.
- Yeah. Yeah. If, if we can pour ourselves into our
community, we learn more about each other,
we learn more about the diversity,
we learn more about the history,
and then we're just, we're all just
better people as a result.
Big thank you to Clifton
and Leslie of the Chester Historical Society
and to all of the BLI trainers that helped produce content
for us as we celebrated Black History Month.
It's up to you to make an investment
in your community today.
And who knows, maybe you'll run into a couple,
just like Clifton and Leslie.
Until next time, everyone, take care.
This has been a production of Balancing Life's Issues
with your hosts, Kai Sorenson
and Wendy Wallner, produced by me Kai.
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and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen
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Got an idea for the show.
Email me, k i@balancinglifesissues.com. Anything to add?
Miles? No.