Historic Odessa presents ‘Freedom Seekers’ exhibit

Delaware State News
Posted 2/3/23

ODESSA — In celebration of Black History Month, the Historic Odessa Foundation invites the public to explore the local history of the Underground Railroad in Delaware. Nationally recognized as …

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Historic Odessa presents ‘Freedom Seekers’ exhibit

Posted

ODESSA — In celebration of Black History Month, the Historic Odessa Foundation invites the public to explore the local history of the Underground Railroad in Delaware. Nationally recognized as part of the United States National Park Service Network to Freedom and as a stop on the Harriet Tubman Byway, HOF’s “Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story” exhibit allows visitors to follow in the footsteps of Sam, a fugitive slave who is given refuge in Odessa after escaping from enslavement in nearby Maryland.

Tours of the Historic Odessa’s National Park Service Network to Freedom exhibit and National Historic Landmark Corbit-Sharp House will be free Wednesday and Feb. 22, from noon to 3 p.m.

On Feb. 22, at 4:30 p.m., Historic Odessa, in partnership with the Corbit-Calloway Library, will present “Escape to Freedom: The Odessa Story.” This event, for students in grades three through 12, will present readings of narratives describing the harrowing stories of enslaved people trying to make their way north to freedom. Students will then be escorted to the Corbit-Sharp House where they will follow in the footsteps of Sam, a fugitive slave who is given refuge in Odessa while being hunted by a posse of slave catchers coming from nearby Middletown and the Maryland plantation from which he escaped.

Reservations are required by contacting Jennifer Cabell Kostik at 302-378-4119 or jennifer.cabell@historicodessa.org

“Freedom Seekers” is part of the Historic Odessa Foundation’s mission to encourage the use of its historic buildings by the general public, students and scholars. The program has been developed as part of the nonprofit’s Living History Education program in order to educate visitors and to broaden the interpretive mission on the role Odessa played in the Underground Railroad.

The tour includes the exhibit
“Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story”as well as an exploration of the Corbit-Sharp House and the hiding places and routes used by local abolitionists in Odessa to conceal and conduct slaves along in their journey to freedom in Philadelphia.

Slavery in Delaware was truly a “peculiar institution.” The population struggled between powerful slave interests and defiant anti-slavery groups. The port town of Odessa reflected this and stood at a crossroads both geographically and culturally. Odessa’s Quaker, abolitionist and free black communities offered help to fugitive slaves while economic interests lobbied to ensure Delaware remained firmly pro slavery. Proximity to Maryland, a more deeply embedded slave state, further entrenched resistance to emancipation.

In 2009, the foundation’s Corbit-Sharp House, a National Historic Landmark and a stop along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, was accepted into the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom by the National Park Service, which evaluated the site as “making a significant contribution to the understanding of the Underground Railroad in American history.”

Built in 1772 and one of Delaware’s most historic homes and important examples of Georgian architecture, the Corbit-Sharp House is one of nine sites, two programs and two facilities in Delaware on the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom.

The home of a noted Underground Railroad sympathizer, the Corbit-Sharp House was the site of a close-call on the Underground Railroad described in the later-in-life reminiscence of Mary Corbit Warner, the fourth child of prominent Quakers Daniel and Mary C. Corbit.

Ms. Warner’s account, first given as a speech to the Delaware Chapter of the Colonial Dames in 1914, was most recently published by the historian William H. Williams in his 1996 book “Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865.”

According to the account, a freedom seeker named Sam asked for and received refuge from a quickly pursuing sheriff. Her father was away from home when Sam arrived at the back door seeking aid. Her mother quickly decided to hide Sam in a small eave closet in the attic accessed only by a very small door. The pursuing sheriff requested to examine the house for the fugitive. Mrs. Corbit toured him through looking in every room. Access to the eave closet was not requested because, as Mary recalled, he commented it was too small to hide the man he sought.

For more information on the Historic Odessa Foundation’s Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story Tour, special exhibits, and Living History Education Program, visit here or call 302-378-4119.

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