By Cynthia Van Ness, MLS

"Such fictions rely for their plausibility on the premise that the operations of the Underground Railroad were so secret that the truth is essentially unknowable. In fact, there is abundant documentation of the underground’s activities..."
  --Fergus M. Bordewich, "History's Tangled Threads."  New York Times, Feb. 2, 2007

Featured here are addresses associated with the Underground Railroad (UGRR) in Buffalo, New York, according to eyewitnesses and other primary sources.

I do not presume to suggest that these are the only possible UGRR sites in Buffalo; only that these are addresses for which I have found period evidence.   I will update this list whenever I find new evidence.

I created this page because I noticed, just as night follows day, that any identification of a pre-Civil War building is inevitably accompanied by an Underground Railroad claim, which in turn is unsupported by any evidence.  

Unfortunately, we suffer from a supply and demand problem.  Demand for authentic Underground Railroad sites exceeds the supply, which inevitably results in spurious attributions.  Everyone longs  to claim the moral high ground for a favorite old building.   Unfortunately, there just weren't many hiding places in Buffalo.

Why is that?  One reason, to Buffalo's credit, is that many African-Americans who escaped from slavery found enough safety and opportunity here to live openly, hold jobs, and own property without having to be concealed or flee to Canada. Examples include:

• William Wells Brown (1816-1884)
• Walter Hawkins (1809-1894)
• Daniel Davis.  
• Henry Moxley (1808-1878)
• Henry Thomas (1817-?)

The fact that New York State abolished slavery in 1827 contributed to their sense of freedom. In 1843, Buffalo hosted the National Negro Convention.  By 1855, five years into the Fugitive Slave Act, there is evidence that Buffalo didn't always enforce it.  This is not to imply that Buffalo was a racial paradise, as Daniel Davis found out, but it was still a big improvement over living in bondage. This begs the question of whether an address where a formerly enslaved person lived openly should be considered part of the Underground Railroad.

Historian Frank H. Severance (1856-1931) supplies another reason.  Severance was the first to write about the Underground Railroad on the Niagara Frontier.  In 1903, he noted the paucity of sites in Buffalo:

"...comparatively little seems to have been gathered up regarding Buffalo's stations and workers.  The Buffalo of ante-bellum days was not a large place, and many personally escorted refugees were taken directly from country stations to the river ferries, without having to be hid in the city."   (Severance, Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier, p. 195, emphasis added)  

Today, my guess is that maybe 1% of Buffalo's urban fabric predates the Civil War, meaning that out of any 100 houses and buildings, only one dates from before 1865.  This is a generous estimate; perhaps only one in 200 or 500 Buffalo buildings is from before the Civil War. At any rate, this means that out of all possible Underground Railroad locations in Buffalo, we have probably lost 99% of them. My findings bear this out.

Modern claims about UGRR sites must be approached with skepticism.  If those who were present  at the time left no record of a site that has been uncovered after 150 years of research, we must ask: how can the average layperson today "know" that a previously undocumented site was on the Underground Railroad? These claims can rarely be traced back to eyewitnesses, such as "My great-grandma was there and she told my mom who told me.". 

It is interesting to note how many tales first appear in the 1920s and 1930s, after virtually all eyewitnesses who could refute them were deceased, and UGRR efforts began to be considered romantic and laudable.

Even when a story's provenance can be established, genealogists and historians know that myths can be handed down through generations just as easily as facts, if not more so.  This is why we look for documentary evidence to substantiate or disprove legends.

We must also note a puzzling absence in the popular folklore.  For anyone trying to evade capture, the knowledge of which houses to avoid was as critical as which houses to approach.  If the level of danger was high enough that everyone escaping from slavery needed to be concealed whenever possible, why are there are no legends of unsafe houses? How is it possible that not one single surviving pre-Civil War building was owned by someone who opposed freedom for African-Americans or betrayed a fugitive to the authorities?

Also missing from UGRR folklore in Buffalo is the reality that African-Americans, disproportionate to their numbers in the larger community, provided most of the assistance to fugitives:

"Perhaps the most tenacious Underground Railroad myth of all was the monochromatic narrative of high-minded white people condescending to assist confused and terrified blacks. Only recently have African Americans begun to be restored to their rightful place at the center of the story, both as fugitives who liberated themselves by fleeing bondage, and as organizers and leaders of the Underground Railroad itself. During the long night of Jim Crow politics, this truth was actively suppressed, or at least aggressively forgotten."   --Fergus Bordewich, The Underground Railroad: Myth and Reality.  June 27, 2005 [emphasis added].

"The colored people of Buffalo are noted for their promptness in giving aid to the fugitive slave."   --William Wells Brown.  Narrative of William Wells Brown, an American slave: Written by himself.  London: Charles Gilpin, 1850, p. 112 [emphasis added].

My findings bear this out.  Pine Street, a small African-American neighborhood in the ante-bellum period, is linked to at least two UGRR sites in Buffalo.  

So, to sum up:

1.  Saying that a house was on the Underground Railroad is an extraordinary claim.  It is a rare and honorable distinction, like liberating concentration camps, that should not be awarded lightly.  We've all seen politicians claim bogus military service and it demeans everyone who did serve.

2.  As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."  Tunnels legends are usually just that: legends.  They are not proof of UGRR activity any more than chimneys are proof that someone owned a Jewett stove.   Carol Kammen's essay explains why tunnel legends are suspect in Upstate New York.

3.  Wishful thinking and fakelore are not enough, or we might as well admit that in Buffalo, we automatically award UGRR status to all buildings found to pre-date the Civil War (and probably a few post-Civil War ones!), because what owners, neighbors, bloggers, and promoters want to believe is sufficient..

4.  Lovable old houses are usually just that: lovable old houses.  Because of their relative scarcity, pre-Civil War houses are special and worth saving on their own merits.  None of them should have to claim UGRR status to be considered important.  It is just plain wrong to commit historical fraud in the service of historic preservation.

So where is all this evidence?  On paper.  You may have to turn off your computer and visit actual libraries. Researchers should study:

• Slave narratives (the most important source)
• Pioneering UGRR histories and scholarship  (funny how none of them mention tunnels)
  
• WPA Life Histories
• Black newspapers
• Abolitionist memoirs and newspapers
• 19th century denominational newspapers (especially Quaker) 
• Buffalo atlases
• Building permits (to see if a house really is that old)
• Letters & diaries
• Census records
• Ctiy directories
• Deeds

First-hand accounts from before the Civil War are the most credible.  This just scratches the surface of sources that might substantiate or disprove a UGRR legend.

Note to teachers, students, webmasters, bloggers, authors, journalists, etc.: This page is the result of lengthy and painstaking original research.  If you use these addresses in your work, please link back to it or cite it properly