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City was key point along Underground Railroad

SUN-GAZETTE FILE PHOTO A 1961 photograph, above, shows the house along Freedom Road built by Underground Railroad conductor Daniel Hughes, a fourth-generation ancestor of the late historian Mamie Sweeting Diggs, who died in 2011.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Today the Sun-Gazette offers the next installment in a weekly history series that tells the stories of those who came before us.)

At her desk in City Hall, Nancy Westbrooks accesses information of her ancestors who were conductors on the Underground Railroad in New York.

Neither underground nor a railroad, the Underground Railroad was a secret route to freedom manned by anti-slavery helpers — including several locals living in Muncy, Pennsdale and Williamsport — who braved their own arrest to care for fleeing fugitive slaves. If the slaves made it to Canada, they were guaranteed security by Queen Victoria, of England.

“Conductors” aided the sick and tired fugitives, and Westbrooks was proud after learning through genealogical research of her distant relatives, Thomas Leonard, of Syracuse, New York, and his brother, Cato Leonard, of Grimestone Island, New York, a final station before entering Canada.

Westbrooks is certain some slaves who were assisted by her ancestors came into contact with Daniel Hughes, a local bargeman who took the slaves on his lumber barge and kept them in caves near his house along Freedom Road.

Hughes was the great-great grandfather of the late historian Mamie Sweeting Diggs, who died in 2011 but left a legacy of her oral presentations and memoirs she wrote after listening to stories told by her grandfather, Robert Hughes.

“It’s important local history,” Westbrooks said, “not only for blacks, but also for the white population.”

Williamsport was a key point for slaves on the run using the central route of the Underground Railroad, according to the book “Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania,” by William J. Switala.

Slaves would stay in Lewisburg and in Muncy at the McCarty-Wertman house, which had a cellar. Henry Harris and John Warner were conductors in the Lycoming County community.

If slaves made it to the House of Many Stairs in Pennsdale, they would hide in the attic. The house contained a series of stairways, which may or may not have had the intended purpose of misleading slave catchers.

Robert Faries, superintendent of the Williamsport and Elmira Railroad, hid fugitives in the train’s baggage cars, Switala said. Others in the city acting as agents on the route included Joseph M. Grafius, David and Philip Rodrich and Thomas Updegraff and his son, Abraham, Switala said.

Freedom Road, a four-mile stretch near KatyJane Mountain, provided cover in nearby caves for the slaves. Jane was a black ex-slave who lived in a hut. Every night she’d make a trip up the mountain carrying two lanterns. If safe to cross the creek, she’d hold up two lanterns; if it wasn’t, one lantern.

The 6-foot-8-inch Hughes sailed down the river to points along the shore and secreted the slaves in his barge until he could safely move them, mostly on moonless nights.

Diggs spent her life instilling a sense of pride in the rich history of Lycoming County by preserving the contributions made by African-Americans to the region.

Earlier in Diggs’ life, she once challenged her junior high school teacher, Bill Hodrick, who she thought was not getting the historical record accurate. Diggs took a bold step that probably would have landed her in detention or suspension today.

“I locked him in a closet and I went home and got these papers and brought them back,” Diggs said in her memoir.

Hodrick was released from the closet and later said he owed the young Diggs an apology after reviewing the documents.

It took many people to make the road to freedom for many who had been slaves.

“It was not a one-man thing,” Diggs once told a class of students describing the road to freedom and how it was able to give new life to more than 1,000 slaves.

“When you look at it, it’s not an Indian thing. You look at it, and it’s not a black thing. You look at it and it’s not a Caucasian thing. It was everyone. Everybody worked hard,” Diggs told the students at a school near Millville that day.

Marion, Diggs’ mother, tended the family homestead, maintained Freedom Road Cemetery and passed Hughes’ stories down the line.

“My grandfather would tell us about his parents, so I’ve lived with this my whole life,” Diggs said.

While much of Diggs’ research was ruined in the remnants of Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972, she refused to let the memories fade into oblivion and traveled to universities, libraries, museums and historical societies, interviewing family and friends and collecting enough materials to give oral presentations on the theme “Achievers.”

Her extensive research was used in a documentary, “Follow the North Star to Freedom,” which aired on public broadcasting in 1997.

Diggs once admonished anyone apathetic about local black history, especially the younger generation.

“Instead of standing on the street corner selling drugs, they should get into a library and do some research, and get on with their lives. They have a history and heritage and they should be proud of it,” Diggs said.

Claude Culbreth, of Williamsport, is among those proud of that history and struggle for freedom.

“These slaves had so much stress, and the railroad was our mode of transportation to freedom,” he said. “When you see where you come from, it’s very enlightening.”

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