Castellani exhibit highlights Underground Railroad

by Susan Mikula Campbell
Tribune, Dispatch, Sentinel, September 7-9, 2006

In the photo, Stephen Powell, of Odessa Pictures, films a scene of Lewiston abolitionist, Josiah Tryon (Timothy Henderson) rowing an escaped slave (Adonis Dawkins) across the Niagara River to freedom in Canada. The resulting video, called “Josiah’s Crossing,” is part of the new Underground Railroad exhibit opening Friday, Sept. 15, at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. The exhibit will be open for at least eight years, and serves as a regional interpretive center.

See Lewiston’s Josiah Tryon row a slave across the Niagara River to Canada. Hear how free black employees at the Cataract House hotel in Niagara Falls helped slaves escape their masters. Learn about donations Lockport Quakers made to help clothe and feed those who sought freedom.

Step into the new Underground Railroad exhibit at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University and find not dry facts and figures, but videos, voices, photographs, art and artifacts that bring to life the story of the Niagara-Buffalo region’s important role in this vital chapter of freedom’s history.

“Freedom Crossing: The Underground Railroad in Greater Niagara” opens Friday, Sept. 15, and will be a permanent exhibit for at least eight years. It’s a regional interpretive center, made possible by a $79,500 state grant from Heritage New York and represents a collaborative effort between the Castellani and several other local organizations.

“We at the Castellani are truly honored to have our museum chosen as the main Underground Railroad interpretive center for all of Western New York,” said Laurene Buckley, museum director. “We will do our very best to attract the community (local, national, international) to the center; give them the incentive to travel out to our partner sites; and, hopefully, instill in our visitors a lifelong understanding of the importance of this sometimes dreadful, sometimes courageous bit of United States history.”

Denise Easterling of Niagara Falls expects to cry at the opening of the exhibit that has been a year in the making.

“It’s emotional, and I hope that’s how people are affected when they go to the center,” she said.

Easterling, who has been researching the Underground Railroad since the 1980s and owns and operates Underground Railroad Tours by Denise, was one of several local historians involved in the new Castellani exhibit. In 1993, she was part of a group that helped the Castellani research where to place seven Underground Railroad sculptures created at Artpark.

The local people who worked on the Underground Railroad were simple, ordinary people, not necessarily rich, and the exhibit tells their stories.

“I love to talk about it really being a love story. It’s just beautiful and it’s relevant today,” said Easterling, who hopes museum visitors will think about not only what stance they would have taken if they lived when the Underground Railroad was active, but what sacrifices they can make for freedom today. “It’s really about people, people who loved themselves and each other enough to make real sacrifices to help each other.”

It wasn’t just geography that made this area so important to the Underground Railroad. Kate Koperski, Castellani curator of folk arts, points out that there were 274 anti-slavery societies in New York state at the time. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 – which promised fines of up to $1,000 and even imprisonment for people who aided escaping slaves – only enraged people here.

Most people don’t realize that nationally known conductors such as Frederick Douglass, Harriett Tubman and William Lloyd Garrison were known to have come to this area.

“National and local people who operated here could not have been successful if they found the people of the greater Niagara region unwilling to help,” Koperski said.

As visitors enter the exhibit through three clear panels, there’s an illusion of moving through the woods and the presence of a river. On one of the panels is printed the picture of a slave family escaping, inspired by historic fugitive slave posters. The walls are painted “Niagara green” and the visual impact is very dramatic, Koperski said.

The exhibit will attract not only the usual museum visitors, but the growing market for heritage tourism, she said. It also will be a valuable learning experience for area fourth- and seventh-graders who study local history.

As visitors walk through the exhibit, motion detectors activate audio recordings by local actors telling the stories of the people of the Underground Railroad. Artifacts displayed include handcuffs used to chain enslaved people. Visitors can choose to watch two videos at the touch of a button. One tells the story of the Michigan Street Baptist Church in Buffalo and the importance of African American churches in aiding escaped slaves. The other depicts the story of real-life local tailor and abolitionist Josiah Tryon, played by Tim Henderson of Lewiston, and a runaway slave played by Emmy-award winning cinematographer Adonis Dawkins. Addison Henderson, Los Angeles-based actor and director, does the narration.

The Lewiston Council on the Arts, one of the Castellani’s partners in the Underground Railroad exhibit, organized the “Josiah’s Crossing” video, which is just one of many history-related projects the organization has sponsored in the past 10 years. Scenes were filmed in the Village Cemetery, in the cellars at the site of the original “Tryon’s Folly” and on the Niagara River using a replica of an 1850s rowboat

Documentary filmmaker Steven Powell of Odessa Pictures in Buffalo produced and directed the approximately 10-minute video, not an easy task when modern distractions are factored in, such as the technical challenge of dealing with noise from the Jet Boat passing while Josiah is rowing on the river. Ironically, scenes shot in the Village Cemetery also were recently interrupted by the noise of State Police helicopters searching for escaped fugitive “Bucky” Phillips.

The video does include a rare view of Tryon’s Folly, also known as the House of the Seven Cellars,” an 1800s mansion on the lower Niagara River, which was purportedly a safe house for slaves en route to Canada. The house is privately owned and the filmmakers were granted exclusive access for this video, Powell said

“We’ve illustrated the point that Lewiston did have a very clear, very distinct role in the Underground Railroad,” Powell said. “The main message of the story is to teach people about the role Lewiston played, and we put human faces to it.”

The grand opening for Freedom Crossing will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 15, at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. Speakers at the open-to-the-public event will include NU president, the Rev. Joseph L. Levesque, C.M.; elected officials; and project partners. A program of live music, poetry and dance will kick off the seventh annual Freedom Trail Festival, a weekend of activities celebrating Niagara County’s historic legacy of the Underground Railroad, which will follow the ribbon cutting ceremony. After Sept. 15, Freedom Crossing will be open during museum hours, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission to the exhibit and the museum is free, but special guided tours are $2 per person. Docent tours for schools, groups and organizations may be arranged by calling 286-8200.

The Castellani’s partners in Freedom Crossing include: Lewiston Council on the Arts, the McClew Interpretive Center at Murphy Orchards, the Michigan Street Baptist Church, Black Pioneers of Niagara, the Freedom Trail Festival, Niagara Movement Foundation and the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp.