Abolitionist Gerrit Smith: One Loud Voice Among Many

By Theresa St. John

“Our concern, however, is with slavery as it is, and not with any theory of it.” Gerrit Smith

We learn a bit about slavery in school. A little of this and some of that as we pass through grade, middle and high school.  Now that I’ve turned 60, I find myself often wondering about chapters never making it into the history books at all, even though they should have.

I’d never heard the name Gerrit Smith before the Summer of 2017 when I happened upon a little museum, The Northstar Underground Railroad Museum, in Ausable Chasm, New York. It’s an emotional visit, meandering through several rooms, each filled with exhibits highlighting slavery and stories of active abolitionists fighting against it.

Off to one side, tucked into the corner, is another small room. John Thomas and his life, as a slave and then a free man, stands beyond the doorway. I’m invited to sit and watch a short, 10-minute film, narrated by a deep baritone voice that might very well have been John Thomas’s at one time.

Mesmerized, I listen as he talks about Gerrit Smith, a philanthropist who gifted several acres of land to 3,000 poor blacks throughout the Adirondack region. His plan was for these settlers to become productive farmers.

Many men gave up trying to grow on land unsuitable for farming, deciding to travel on, towards Canada instead. John Thomas chose to stay, becoming a well-known and respected character in the area over time.

As a farmer, he was so successful that eventually, he was able to sell the 40 acres Smith had given him, buying a better plot of land to cultivate. In August 1872, John wrote a letter to his benefactor, thanking him for his gift.

He described how he’d wanted to stay in America as a free man, rather than follow the others to Canada and safety. 

It was heart wrenching, to hear him speak, recalling his birth, and twenty-nine years in fettered slavery. It was tough to keep my composure when John Thomas, his voice breaking with the memory, relayed the story of his wife and children being sold by his master, sending him into a downward spiral of despair.  

Tilling the land, making the farm profitable helped John Thomas thrive. He wrote to let Gerrit Smith know how much the chance for a new life meant to him.

After his death in 1895, at the age of 83, John’s thank you letter was lost and remained so for over 100 years, his name all but forgotten.

The note resurfaced and months of research ensued. In 2007 the town of Franklin held a Pioneer day, honoring John Thomas and his descendants, most of whom had never heard of him before. Family members were reunited, some not having seen each other for over 47 years.

Fast forward to Fall, 2018. And 197 miles away from Ausable.

I’m spending part of my afternoon visiting The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, after a stop down the street at the historic Gerrit Smith Estate and Land Office. Both are in Peterboro, New York.

In my heart, I know that the anti-slavery movement was far-reaching, at the start mostly in the northern states. But there’s something surreal, standing in the rooms of Gerrit Smith’s Estate, thinking about those who met together in the land office, speaking of slavery, of freedom, of ways to bring people to safety, outside the reach of their master.

I cannot help but think about John Thomas and how I’d learned about his life and death just months ago, so many miles away.

Gerrit Smith was an influential abolitionist and social reformer who played a crucial part in operating the Underground Railroad. He believed abolitionists should defy the law, that it was each man’s duty and call in life to help fugitive slaves escape to freedom. 

I stand quietly in his land office, a place where he spoke with conviction, urging society to help make America better by fighting slavery. I learn more about the farm tracts he sold for one dollar each to 3,000 poor African Americans, John Thomas just one of them.

It doesn’t matter to me that his family had extensive land holdings in New York. It matters that this man chose to transfer approximately 140,000 acres between 1846 and 1850, to men he did not even know.

A few miles up the road, I walk into a beautiful room filled with images of inductees to the National Abolitionist Hall of Fame and Museum. Their Eyes are piercing. They seem to jump off banners that describe their lives and personal sacrifice to the cause.

“Where do you stand in your conviction to abolish racism? What are you doing to help move the cause forward?” I can almost hear them whispering, urging each of us to join the cause.

Because it’s true – It may be 2018, but there’s still much work to be done. And it’s going to take all of us to do it.  

All photos by Theresa St. John