The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will be celebrating the canal’s 200th anniversary and the impact it had on the abolition movement.
The museum in Peterboro is located in the building in which the inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society was held in 1835. It honors antislavery abolitionists, their work to end slavery and the legacy of that struggle.
In a statement, museum officials said the Erie Canal hauled more than people and products, but served as a source of cultural change that has lasted for the canal’s 200 years.
“The Erie Canal brought ideas from the east to the midwest,” officials said in a statement. “New religious notions fostered individual self-empowerment and the ability to control one’s own destiny versus a fatalistic Life predetermined by original sin. This revival was so hot that the western region along the Erie Canal was called the Burned Over District. One of the hot topics was the anti-slavery issue.”
In 1835, the first meeting of New York State abolitionists was to be held in Utica, but due to the actions of violent mobs, 104 abolitionists rode from Utica to Canastota on the canal and walked nine miles up 900 feet of elevation to meet 400 other delegates in Peterboro to form the New York State Antislavery Society on Oct. 22, 1835 in the town’s Presbyterian church.
To celebrate this walk, the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum is inviting the public to participate in a reenactment of those abolitionist first steps walking from the canal in Canastota to Clockville.
On Oct. 11, the walk will begin at 9:30 a.m. at 102 S. Peterboro St. in Canastota.
Registration begins at 8 a.m. followed by a brief program at 9 a.m. Walkers will arrive in Clockville at 10:30 a.m. and return to Canastota at Erie Canal Brewing for a party at approximately noon. Participants can also ride a bus for the walk, and the bus is available for brief rests for all walkers.
To register or for sponsorships, visit www.abolitionroad.org
Registrants receive a long-sleeved T-shirt with the Abolition Walk logo. The first 104 students who register are free.
For more information about the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, visit www.nationalabolitionhalloffameandmuseum.org
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum to celebrate Erie Canal’s 200th anniversary
Reporting by Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
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