The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Coming to Columbia!

Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1854, President Franklin Pierce signs the Kansas-Nebraska Act into ...
05/30/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1854, President Franklin Pierce signs the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law. The legislation, meant to open land for development of the transcontinental railroad, ratchets up tension over slavery and moves the country a step closer to civil war.
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Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1851, Sojourner Truth delivers her famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech...
05/29/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1851, Sojourner Truth delivers her famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Although much celebrated at the time and increasingly popular in the decade that followed, the exact transcript of her presentation was never made available, and her words would vary greatly depending on the recollections of those who attended.
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Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1790, the US Constitution is approved after Rhode Island ratifies i...
05/29/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1790, the US Constitution is approved after Rhode Island ratifies it—the colony did not send a delegate to the Constitutional Convention the previous year. Instead, Rhode Islanders vote on ratification town-by-town before it is approved. The document leaves the question of slavery up to the 13 individual states.
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Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1863, 1,044 officers and men from the famed 54th Massachusetts sail...
05/28/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1863, 1,044 officers and men from the famed 54th Massachusetts sail from Boston to face Confederate forces in South Carolina. More than 120 members of the 54th come from Columbia, Wrightsville and surrounding towns in South-Central Lancaster County.
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Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1826, Bartholomew Fussell marries Lydia Morris in Chester County, P...
05/26/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1826, Bartholomew Fussell marries Lydia Morris in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Their home in Kennett Square—known as The Pines—becomes a station on the Underground Railroad that brings an estimated 2,000 freedom seekers one step closer to safety.
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Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1836, Congress passes the Pinckney Resolutions, which include the G...
05/26/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1836, Congress passes the Pinckney Resolutions, which include the Gag Rule, by a vote of 117 to 68. It stated: “All petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid on the table and...no further action whatever shall be had thereon.” The resolution, crafted by Henry Laurens Pinckney, was passed each year until the end of 1844, when years of work by John Quincy Adams, who built a coalition of Whigs and Democrats to repeal it.
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Today in Underground Railroad History…On this day in 1854, a large public meeting is held in Boston’s Faneuil Hall featu...
05/25/2026

Today in Underground Railroad History…
On this day in 1854, a large public meeting is held in Boston’s Faneuil Hall featuring emotional speeches by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips in defense of Anthony Burns, a freedom seeker who had settled in the city after his escape from a Virginia plantation. The crowd moves en masse to the Boston Courthouse in an attempt to free Burns, triggering what will become known as The Boston Slave Riot. They are unsuccessful, but a deputy is killed in the fight. Burns is returned to Virginia but the Bostonians later raise the $1,200 needed to buy his freedom.
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? Memorial Day—which was initially called Decoration Day during the 1800s—became a commonly observed day of remembra...
05/24/2026

? Memorial Day—which was initially called Decoration Day during the 1800s—became a commonly observed day of remembrance in the U.S. in 1868, when graves of both the Confederate and Union fallen were decorated at Arlington National Cemetery. Three years earlier in Charleston, SC, recently freed slaves joined missionaries in a re-burying ceremony of more than 250 Union dead who had been interred in a mass grave. The soldiers had died while being held as prisoners in what had been a racecourse in that city. Prior to the May 1 ceremony—which was attended by about 10,000 people—a group of Black Charlestonians carefully laid out the graves in 10 rows, built a white fence around the cemetery and erected an archway with the words “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Around 3,000 Black schoolchildren opened the ceremony by marching around the course holding roses and singling “John Brown’s Body.” After several hours of speeches, Black and white Union regiments drilled on the property. According to the NY Tribune, the gravesites looked like “one mass of flowers” and “the breeze wafted the sweet perfumes from them” and “tears of joy” were shed.

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331 Locust Street
Columbia, PA
17512

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+17174613491

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