ODESSA — In celebration of Juneteenth 2023, the Historic Odessa Foundation’s National Park Service Network to Freedom exhibit and tour: “Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story” will be free to the public
June 19. Reservations are available for the 2 p.m. tour.

As part of the Juneteenth celebration, visitors will have the opportunity to have their silhouette cut in the method typical at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and will discover how the camera obscura was used to create profile likenesses for posterity. Silhouettes have been made in all forms of art across all cultures, times and places.

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.”

Odessa was a key player in the Underground Railroad both geographically on the border of freedom and in terms of its population of abolitionists. 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.

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

According to Ms. Corbit Warner’s 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.

“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 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.

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