Pictured is the monument in Clinton Square, Syracuse, to honor the Jerry Rescue of Oct. 1, 1851. John M. Rudy, National Park Service, will share his research on the freeing of a fugitive in a program at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark in Peterboro Saturday, Oct. 1, at 2 p.m.
Jermain Wesley Loguen of Syracuse was one of the primaries in the rescue of Jerry McHenry from a jail in Syracuse Oct. 1, 1851.
(Peterboro, Syracuse, NY – Oct. 2011) On Oct. 1, 160 years ago, a captured fugitive slave named Jerry was freed by a mob of Syracuse citizens. For seven years after that date, Central New York abolitionists celebrated the Jerry Rescue with an event that commemorated its importance.
In 1859 Gerrit Smith refused requests by the Jerry Rescue Committee to speak because people had not maintained the high level of commitment to abolition that the Jerry Rescue had demonstrated.
On Oct. 1, exactly 160 years after the Jerry Rescue, John M. Rudy of the National Park Service will present “The Jerry Level: Gerrit Smith and the Memory of the Jerry Rescue” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro.
Oct. 1, 1851, events in downtown Syracuse drastically altered the course of the lives of countless Central New Yorkers. As abolitionists battered down the door to a Syracuse police station and freed the fugitive slave Jerry Henry, they embarked on a journey which would span the course of the next decade.
The Jerry Rescue was a catalyst for Upstate’s abolition activity from 1851 until the dawn of the Civil War.
Among those who turned the freeing of one man on Clinton Square in Syracuse into mass action were Gerrit Smith and Jermain Loguen. Smith advocated living life to the “Jerry Level” regarding the need for radical action. Loguen took the Jerry Rescue as inspiration to become more active in the Underground Railroad in Central New York.
Throughout the 1850s, the two men grew more radical every year until, by 1859, civil war seemed inevitable.
Rudy will share some of the history he unearthed during research for his thesis. Daniel Webster, in his May 1851 speech in Syracuse which challenged the abolition community, leads off the study. The next chapter centers on Loguen, Syracuse’s “King” of the Underground Railroad.
Third is a discussion of Smith’s disillusionment with the Upstate abolition community over the course of the 1850s and his eventual alliance with John Brown. The final chapter discusses Samuel May and the “death” of the Jerry Rescue spirit in Syracuse at the coming of the war.
It seems that the abolition world for about 10 years revolved around Syracuse and its personalities – Smith being key among that community of thinkers.
A native of Pompey, Rudy has been studying the history of Upstate New York’s abolition community since 2005. He holds a master’s in applied history from Shippensburg University and a bachelors in history with a minor in Civil War Era studies from Gettysburg College.
Rudy currently lives in Gettysburg and works with the National Park Service’s Interpretive Development Program in Harpers Ferry, W.V., creating training materials for park rangers across the entire park system.
The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum are open from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays from May 14 to Oct. 23. Admission to each site is $2. Stewards and students are free.
For more information, call (315) 684-3262 or visit gerritsmith.org or abolitionhof.org.
