Online site to show role of Michigan in slaves’ flight
Adrian center to offer data on Underground Railroad
 

By ERICA BLAKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER

ADRIAN - It’s about the memories of a local centenarian who had at one time helped slaves escape to the north.

And about the history of a Sylvania house - the Lathrop House - that stands in the way of a development but that is believed to have been a way station for those escaping slavery through Michigan en route to Canada.

It’s these bits of stories about the Underground Railroad that need to be permanently recorded for future generations, said Adrian College professor Kimberly Davis. And with the recent establishment of the Sojourner Truth Technical Training Center, including an extensive digital database, a statewide bank of information on Michigan’s role in the Underground Railroad soon will be online.

"It’s kind of strange, using high technology to record a very old story, but it hasn’t been put together that way yet," said Ms. Davis, director of the center. "We want to pull all the information and then disseminate it. It will be a museum without borders, a museum without any walls."

Ms. Davis said her interest in the Underground Railroad was piqued about three years ago when she discovered her own home had had a role in the safe and secret travel of escaping slaves. A trap door in her home’s living-room floor opens to reveal a gap where the brave and the scared wedged themselves on their flight to freedom.

Ms. Davis, who teaches an Underground Railroad course at Adrian College, spent hours researching historic records, deeds, and financial  papers to pinpoint the significance of her home. She now has an outlet on which to share that information.

The web site www.terminus.org will be online this spring. The database will offer a comprehensive multimedia look at the Michigan Underground Railroad. With the input of a name or location, the database will bring interested parties a plethora of information about one of the country’s formerly taboo subjects.

And to help that database grow, the center is offering training for researchers, historians, and scholars to learn how to digitize and preserve information about the Underground Railroad.

The first training symposium, to be held at the college later this month, will combine an introduction to the project with rigorous hands-on training on how to research and document aspects of the Underground Railroad. Everything from how to use a digital camera to the questions to ask during an oral history interview will be covered.

The information gathered then will be posted on the site.

"The common thread is the interest in this part of history and to get this story out to the people," Ms. Davis said. "More importantly, to get the information out so people can access it."

Slavery was abolished in 1865, in effect burying the history of the Underground Railroad. Although money since has been allocated nationally and statewide to document its history, the Underground Railroad still holds many secrets.

With the help of several grants, including $100,000 from the U.S. Department of Education, the Sojourner Truth center began in the unused rooms of an Adrian College dormitory. The center is not much more than the beginnings of a computer lab now.

Established in collaboration with Heritage Battle Creek in Battle Creek, Mich., the center will be run like a business, organizers said, allowing its life to outlast that of its founders. And using the research and oral histories collected by Heritage - an organization that manages historical centers in Battle Creek - the world of the Underground Railroad will become more real to those interested in it. "This is an innovative method of how to document and preserve information of the Underground Railroad using 21st century technology," said Michael Evans, executive director of Heritage Battle Creek. "There have been several attempts at compiling information about the Underground Railroad but to put it into a workable database is unique."

Kelly Jo Waldron began working on the project in 1998 as a student in Ms. Davis’ Underground Railroad class. Now, more than a year out of Adrian College, the Swanton woman has returned to coordinate the center’s efforts.

She said others, no matter where they are, one day will feel the goose bumps she gets every time she sees a home where floorboards come up. "You just know someone hid down there to save their lives, and someone else risked their lives by standing over it," she said. "We want to save these stories through technology so they’re not lost forever."