Hidden History: Underground Railroad in Lewisburg to be featured in documentary, educational path

Feb. 3—LEWISBURG — A recognized stop on the Underground Railroad in Union County is the subject of ongoing projects at Bucknell University.

The former carriage house beside the Bliss-McClure house at 63 University Ave., Lewisburg, was a hidden stop on the network of safe havens for escaped slaves in the mid-19th century. Recognized as the only stop on the Underground Railroad in Union County, the location is remembered for its important place in the history of Pennsylvania.

The Bliss-Mclure House will be one site on the educational and historical path planned for the second phase of the 4-mile Bucknell Greenway, a walkway that spans the exterior of Bucknell's campus. Under the direction of Paul Siewers, associate professor of English, with assistance from Gabriel Diego, assistant professor of practice in markets, innovation and design, at least 30 students are working on the Greenway project as well as a documentary with WVIA about Bucknell's connections to the Underground Railroad and the Civil War.

"This came out of a conversation about how in this day and age when this country and people are very divided, how do we bring people together in various ways and help to encourage students to come together and think of these projects," said Siewers, a member of the President's Sustainability Council. "This Greenway effort came out of those discussions. The education path with the historical features is part of Bucknell's history, natural history and human history. It can really bring people together regardless of their points of view."

PBS describes the Underground Railroad as "a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada" that "was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many individuals — many whites but predominantly Blacks — who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year. According to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850."

The Greenway project will include commemorative plaques, native plantings and trees and benches. The students are working on writing articles and multimedia so visitors can scan QR codes to look up more information on their phones through clips from the documentary, Siewers said.

In addition to the Civil War and Bucknell University, the educational path will include the founding of Bucknell; the female institute, one of the first educational programs for women at the college level; Native American aspects; and ecological restoration, said Siewers.

"It will be an ongoing project," he said. "By the end of this semester, we plan to have more developed educational material for the website and also designs for some of these public art spaces along the Greenway. The actual implementation of those, like building them and putting up the commemorative plaques, will take longer. My hope is spring of 2025."

The documentary, which will feature prominent figures from Bucknell's and Union County's connection to the Civil War and the Underground Railroad, is expected to be finished by the end of the semester. It will also feature Charles R. Bell, a former slave who fled to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Bell, who worked as a janitor at the university for 38 years, did not use the McClure-Bliss House as part of his journey.

Student involvement

Bucknell senior Cat Jamison, a creative writing major from Huntington, N.Y., got heavily involved with the documentary project in her sophomore year in the fall of 2022. Over the last two years, she helped research the topics, conduct interviews, edit the videos and narrate the 27-minute documentary.

"This is where I'm living," said Jamison. "Being able to learn that there's so much deep history in just the places I walk by every day was really exciting and eye-opening. You don't always know what you're passing on the street until you have an opportunity to learn something like this."

Working on the project allowed Jamison to make history more personalized and provided her with a more empathic understanding of the past, she said.

"It's impressive, considering the time," said Jamison about George Ripley Bliss. "Even someone in charge had to keep his help and efforts so hush-hush for a multitude of reasons. He still did it anyway, knowing what was on the line and believing in freedom and being a part of it."

Bucknell graduate Isabella Carréga and Bucknell senior Libby Nieporte were two other students who were deeply involved in the documentary project.

Bliss built in 1854

George Ripley Bliss, a professor and president in the 1850s and 1870s at the University at Lewisburg — now Bucknell University — built the three-story house in 1854. The home and carriage house are placed next to Limestone Run and the railroad tracks with its back part of the property surrounded by aging picket fences.

He lived there with his wife, Mary Ann Raymond Bliss, and their 13 children. Bliss, professor Thomas F. Curtis and college President Howard Malcom instituted the Underground Railroad in the Lewisburg Area, using the carriage house, or stable house, as the secretive stop on Bliss's property, according to records from the Union County Historical Society and The Daily Item.

"This old stable was a station on the Underground Railroad," according to the history marker placed next to the property in November 1954 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. "Here fugitive slaves were hidden, fed, and aided in reaching the next station on their journey."

It is believed that Curtis and Malcom also had places in their barns in the vicinity of Bliss's property, but those structures are no longer standing, according to Lewis Edwin Theiss's "Centennial History of Bucknell University," published in 1946.

"Both Malcom and Curtis had taught in the South and slavery was very repugnant to them both," Theiss wrote.

George Bliss's daughter, Lucy, spoke many years later about making nighttime trips with blankets and food for the runaways, according to the historical society.

Lucy remembered making up beds in the barn for Black fugitives, (with bedding kept for that purpose. So dangerous was it to harbor runaway slaves that she never knew whence they came or whither they went. Mostly these fugitives traveled at night, usually concealed under a load of hay or other material," according to Theiss's book.

An article published in The Daily Item in 1934 said Bliss stored bedding in his barn to accommodate Black fugitive slaves overnight, having been sent there from another station near Montandon.

A girl named Sally Maxell also wrote in her diary that she and Lucy looked after the slaves, according to the historical society.

The Bliss family left Lewisburg in about 1874. The property was the home of U.S. Middle District Judge James F. McClure when the historical marker was placed in 1954.

Bucknell University purchased the property for $875,000 in June 2019 from Elizabeth McClure, the widow of Judge McClure, who died Dec. 17, 2010. Plans have still not yet been finalized for use of the space, according to Bucknell officials.

No strong support

Dr. William J. Switala, of Pittsburgh, author of "Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania," wrote that "The abolitionist movement did not have strong support in Union County, however. In 1844, only eight votes were cast for James G. Birney, the Liberty (Abolition) Party's nominee for president."

Switala wrote that the Underground Railroad activity at Bucknell was "significant because colleges and universities in Pennsylvania were not always centers of abolitionist support. Many schools hoped to attract Southern applicants, and almost all administrators in higher education desired to avoid public or legal controversy. Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, for example, banned student discussion of abolitionism in the 1850s."

Switala said the Bliss connection to the Underground Railroad was detailed in Lucy Bliss's diary as well as Herbert Bell's "A History of Northumberland County" in 1891, Charles Snyder's "A History of Union County" in 1976 and an undated article in The Mifflinburg Telegraph. It was mentioned in earlier books, but not in great detail, he said.

If a person reached Lewisburg, Switala said they would have likely been coming from Harrisburg by way of Chambersburg or Gettysburg. Their goal was to get to Muncy. Muncy was a major channel north to New York, east toward Towanda or west toward Williamsport.

Lewisburg was not a major stop, likely only channeling hundreds of runaway slaves. The majority of slaves coming through Pennsylvania would have been traveling through the Philadelphia or Pittsburgh networks, he said.

Other stops

Switala said two houses in Lewisburg are believed to have been stops on the Underground Railroad at 28 S. Water St., built by Robert Irwin, and 17 Market St., built by Johnathan Nesbit. The Water Street residence had a secret compartment under the kitchen floor while the Market Street residence had a secret crawlspace in the bedroom. Sunbury also had a station run by Quaker Elida John and the former Gov. Simon Snyder mansion at 121 N. Market St., Selinsgrove, had a 350-foot tunnel used by runaway slaves moving between its basement and a house on the banks of the river.

None of these are officially recognized though, said Switala.

"It's based on oral tradition," he said. "The documentation isn't strong, not like the Bliss House."

Making history more visible

Bucknell University's Vernese Edghill-Walden, vice president for equity and inclusive excellence, and Cymone Fourshey, director of Bucknell Griot Institute for Study of Black Lives and Culture, said the Bliss-McClure House is discussed in some of the curriculum, but it's not a focus.

"There are lots of opportunities to continue our engagement with the Underground Railroad and its history," said Edghill-Walden. "I don't know if anyone sees it as a deficit, we definitely see it as a part of our history that we need to understand better. We need to cherish it and see it as something that we can make more visible. What else can we do with that area and that house, the telling of that story, and the significance that it has in Lewisburg? That's definitely something as an institution that we want to embrace."

The fact that the Underground Railroad was in Lewisburg should reflect on the "values we put forth moving forward," she said.

"What does that mean for this area, what did it mean for that time and what does it mean today?" said Edghill-Walden. "If we as an institution, as Bucknell, are supporting and making sure that there is healthy and critical dialogue across diverse perspectives and we are promoting as we do in the classroom, then tying that history to what it is we should be doing now in and outside of the classroom is really important."

Edghill-Walden said Bucknell has the opportunity to make the Underground Railroad and local Native American contributions more visible on campus.

"It is important for us to not only know about it but to acknowledge it in a way that the communities that come here can see themselves and also the communities who may not be a part of that particular identity can also understand and appreciate those contributions," said Edghill-Walden. "What does it look like to belong at Bucknell and what does it mean to be inclusive? Part of that is knowing your community or the people you are connected or identify with were very much a part of this community. It is clear there are groups here that have been a part of this history and we need to be able to acknowledge that."

Fourshey said society should not forget past events even if they were negative.

"We don't want to forget the history," said Fourshey. "There's a huge debate in history and museum studies. What should we be re-remembering? What should we be commemorating? How do we do that? What's appropriate or inappropriate? Is it dragging us down to remember history? As a historian, I would say no. We have to know what we've done in the past and how we want to move forward. Erasing history doesn't help."

Fourshey said society should think deeply about how to remember these sites and events.

Historical Society discussion

Union County Historical Society President Bruce Teeple will be giving a talk at 1 p.m. Feb. 11 entitled "Enslavement in Central PA ... and How They Got Away With It" in the Union County Museum and Gallery, located at former Annex at 15 N. Water St., Lewisburg.

"We were always led to believe when I was kid growing up that it (the Underground Railroad) was all these old Quaker ladies with the dust ruffles and holding a lantern and helping the slaves run away in the middle of the night, that it was very secretive," said Teeple. "It wasn't anything of the sort. There wasn't a lot of advertising in ways to help people run away. It was predominantly Black people helping other Black people run away and aiding in their escape. It's not all these white people. Quakers are helping, but it's not just them."

Teeple said the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law is the "most evil piece of legislation ever passed by the United States government." It required slaves to be returned to their owner even if they were found in a free state, people could face jail time or fines if they refused to help capture runaways or if they helped runaways in any way.