PRESS RELEASE
Contacts: Liz Clayton
The Drinking Gourd Project
107 Brister’s Hill Rd, Concord, MA 01742
978.318.3910
Or Louise Axon
978.371.5652

The Drinking Gourd Project Sponsors Traces of the Trade Event

Concord, MA – The Drinking Gourd Project will present a screening and discussion of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. This award-winning film documents – the DeWolfe family’s exploration of their slave-trading legacy. Their journey retraces the Triangle Trade – from Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba. A discussion with DeWolfe family members will follow the film. This free event will be held on March 5th from 7:00 – 9:00 pm at the Concord Art Association, 37 Lexington Rd,. Concord, MA.

Historian Jayne Gordon will link the film to local history – discussing the life stories and struggle for freedom of early African residents of Concord, as well as the town’s leadership in the Abolitionist movement. Additionally, Concord teachers will share how they are bringing this history to life with their students.

The Drinking Gourd Project is dedicated to shedding light on Concord’s “untold revolutions.” The Town’s role in the American Revolution and in the literary and philosophical ‘revolution’ of Transcendentalism has long been celebrated. Less well known are the struggles and contributions of Concord’s African residents and the leadership that women of Concord provided to yet another revolution – the abolition of slavery on the United States. For decades, the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society sponsored speakers, raised funds, wrote and distributed publications, signed petitions, sheltered fugitive slaves, and assisted African Americans in the community. Long before Emerson and Thoreau spoke out against slavery, their wives, daughters, and female friends were crusading abolitionists. Mary Merrick Brooks and others worked with leading figures in the movement, including William Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John Brown and Harriet Tubman – all of whom spoke and fund-raised on Concord.

The Drinking Gourd Project currently is leading an effort to save the Caesar Robbins house, built in 1780 by a freed man and Revolutionary War patriot. The only remaining house in Concord built by an 18th century African resident, the cottage was home to six generations of Caesar Robbins family. They lived there from 1780 to 1881, a period that witnessed the African American struggle for freedom against the backdrop of our nation’s fight for independence and civil rights. The last African inhabitant of the house was Peter Hutchison, who is registered as Concord’s first African voter, and is also the subject of Emerson’s poem, “Peter’s Field.”

With assistance from the Town and private donors, the group plans to move the house close to its original location near The North Bridge and restore it as an education center focused on Concord’s African and Abolitionist history. In addition to private donations to fund moving, preserving and restoring the house, the group is asking Concord voters to support warrant articles 35 and 36 at Town Meeting, Warrant article 35 provides CPC funding for restoring the house; Warrant article 36 provides a long-term lease for a parcel of land nest The North Bridge as the new location of the Caesar Robbins house.

For further information, contact The Drinking Gourd Project at drinkinggourd.cchumanrights.org.

# # #

You’re invited to join
Concord’s Untold Revolution
with a screening & discussion of

This award-winning film documents one family’s journey to retrace their legacy of Northern slave-trading — from their old hometown in Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba, and their powerful & inspiring message of restorative justice. A discussion led by family members follows.

• When: Friday, March 5th, 7:00 pm

• Where: At the Concord Art Association/Underground Railroad station

• What: is Concord’s Untold Revolution?!

• the amazing stories of our early African residents — their struggle for freedom, their contributions and their triumphs
• together with heroic stories of the well & lesser known abolitionists in Concord: Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, Mary Brooks, Ann Bigelow, so many more…
• the effort to save the Caesar Robbins house, built in 1780 by one of Concord’s earliest freed slaves and Revolutionary War Patriot, now for sale
• and the mission to move his house near its original site by the Old Manse and capture these untold stories in a Robbins House Educational Center for our students, scouts, visitors and all to hear!

Support is urgently needed to help secure the Caesar Robbins house before April’s town meeting, so that Community Preservation Act funds can be passed for its preservation in Article #35 & the town is allowed to lease land next to the North Bridge parking lot for its future site, Article #36. Come March 5th to learn more.

Your hosts,
The Drinking Gourd Project

For decades, the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society sponsored speakers, raised funds, wrote and distributed publications, signed petitions, sheltered fugitive slaves, and assisted African Americans in the community. Long before Emerson and Thoreau spoke out against slavery, their wives, daughters, and female friends were crusading abolitionists. Mary Merrick Brooks and others worked with leading abolitionists, including William Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman – all of whom spoke and fund-raised in Concord. Local children also supported the cause – 195 Concord school children signed a petition requesting that Lincoln “free all slave children.” Today, copies of this petition, together with Lincoln’s response, hang in the 3 Concord public elementary schools – a tribute to the pioneering work of Concord’s women abolitionists.

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Liz Clayton
The Drinking Gourd Project
107 Brister’s Hill Rd., Concord MA 01742
978.318.3910

Community Preservation Committee Supports Caesar Robbins House

The Drinking Gourd Project (DGP) received a strong show of support from the Community Preservation Committee (CPC), this past week. In a letter from the CPC to the Project members, the CPC recommended funding for the DGP’s proposal for acquisition, sustainability, preservation and restoration of the Caesar Robbins / Peter Hutchinson house.

This show of support goes a long way in assisting the DGP to envisioning a civil liberties museum that could exist near the North Bridge parking lot, restoring the Robbins house as the Caesar Robbins Educational Center. “The Caesar Robbins house project is a high priority for us,” said CPC Vice Chair Lynn Huggins. The final decision on funding the Caesar Robbins Center will be determined at the April 2010 Town Meeting.

The Caesar Robbins / Peter Hutchinson house at 324 Bedford St. is the only remaining house in Concord built by an 18th Century African Concord resident, and former slave, Caesar Robbins. Mr. Robbins was a Revolutionary War patriot; he and six generations of his descendants lived in the home for nearly 100 years. They lived in the house from 1780 to 1881, a period that witnessed the African American struggle for freedom against the backdrop of our nation’s fight for independence and civil rights. The last African inhabitant of the house was Peter Hutchinson, who is registered as Concord’s first African voter, and is also the subject of R.W. Emerson’s poem “Peter’s Field”. Much of what is known about these extraordinary citizens was documented by H.D. Thoreau.

The Drinking Gourd Project would like to move this house closer to its original site near the Great Meadows across from the Old Manse, closer to Caesar Woods and Peter’s Path (eponymous locations designated by earlier Concord Town Planners). The house would become an educational center to highlight Concord’s African American, abolitionist and civil liberties history in conjunction with the Minuteman National Park staff. The history of the educational center would cover the antebellum period through Concord’s agrarian movement, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Bill of Rights.

The DGP plans first to purchase the property and house. The CPC support would take the DGP a long way toward this initial goal. “Unlike other CPC funding projects, the Caesar Robbins house could disappear if purchased by someone else. The CPC’s warrant article for the Caesar Robbins House will request a bond application for funding, so that funds aren’t tied up should any of the CPC’s contingencies not be met,” explained Lynn. The CPC detailed a list of conditions in their letter, to be addressed by the DGP before town meeting. Happily, these conditions are already in process. They include:

• Obtaining a professional current, fair market appraisal of the property with and without the house on it. (Scheduled for mid-January, 2010)
• Getting an engineering survey of the property, which has wetlands buffer issues. Also obtaining an engineering survey of the building to make sure it can be relocated. (Scheduled for mid-January, 2010.)
• Securing an agreement with the land owner of the future site. (There are two possible sites near the North Bridge Parking lot, and the DGP is currently exploring which site would be most viable.)
• Applying for non profit corporation status, so that the DGP can use the CPA funds to purchase, move, and restore the house as an educational center. (Paperwork has been signed and is ready to submit pending our lawyer’s approval.)
• Providing a plan for the future use and configuration of the building. (The DGP is currently working with a number of professionals as they put together their plan.)

Meanwhile, the Drinking Gourd Project fundraising and awareness campaign has been in full swing.

The Barber family’s challenge for matching $2-to-$1 donations (for every $2 raised, the Barbers will contribute $1, up to $10,000) has achieved over half of its goal so far: the DGP has raised $12,000 in donations, and needs to raise an additional $8,000 to gain the full benefit of the Barber’s $10,000 contribution. Your donations are a show of confidence to the CPC for this project, and worth 1 1/2 of their face value! (Please see drinkinggourd.cchumanrights.org to help save this untold piece of Concord’s history.) A remarkably generous individual donor has contributed $30,000, bringing total fundraising to date to $48,000.

During the Concord Holiday Shopping evening and the Tree Lighting event, the Drinking Gourd Project sold gift bags of Concord Antislavery Cake and Fair Trade Coffee, raising $600 dollars. The Antislavery cake is made from the authentic recipe of Mary Merrick Brooks, Concord’s leading Abolitionist of the 1800s, who served her tea cake at all Concord Antislavery Society meetings and sold it at Antislavery Fairs to raise money for William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper, The Liberator. Minuteman Technical High School students baked 30 loaves of Mary Brook’s tea cakes according to the original recipe, learning local history with their baking lesson.

On March 5th, the Drinking Gourd Project is sponsoring a screening of the film Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, documenting the Rhode Island DeWolf family’s legacy of slave trading, and dispelling the myth that slavery and slave trading was a southern institution. This film aired nationally on PBS in 2008; details are available at tracesofthetrade.org. Family members Dain and Constance Perry will hold a discussion after the film, a service they’ll provide free as their effort to help support this worthy project. Proceeds from the screening and accompanying sales of Concord Antislavery Cake will go toward the Barber’s donation offer to preserve the Caesar Robbins house.

The more research DGP members do on the Caesar Robbins house for the CPC funding process, the more convinced they become that the Robbins House Educational Center will further humanize the history already drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world to this exceptional town each year.

# # #

Historic house in Concord, home to several generations of early African-American families faces extremely unstable future, and impending demolition

The Caesar Robbins House in Concord has been named one of Massachusetts’ “Most Endangered Historic Resources”. Since 1993, this list is compiled annually by Preservation Massachusetts, the state’s historic preservation advocacy organization.

The house serves as physical evidence of Concord’s Black Heritage, built by one of Concord’s freed slaves, Caesar Robbins in about 1780. Robbins was freed along with several others as a result of a series of 1780’s court decisions declaring slavery unconstitutional in Massachusetts. Architecturally, the house is a significant example of a house-type rare in Concord today-the l-story five bay, one room deep cottage of the 18th century. Historically, the house served as the meeting place for at least one Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society.

Jim Igoe, President of Preservation Massachusetts feels strongly about the future of the Caesar Robbins House in Concord. “This tiny cottage holds an incredible, if not widely unknown, history. The direct ties to Concord’s early African-American roots and the nearby Old Manse give this modest home an incredibly diverse history. The great local efforts on the Robbins’ house behalf will hopefully benefit from even more visibility and support as to the importance of this house.”

The immediate concern is that the town’s “Demolition Delay” for the house expires on September 12, 2009 which means after this date the current owner is free to demolish this important and evocative piece of African American history in Concord.

The Cisco Homestead in Grafton was also listed amongst 2009 Massachusetts Most Endangered Historic Resources List.

The other endangered sites are: Milton Poor Farm (Milton), Peace Haven (Freetown), Blackstone Viaduct (Blackstone, Foreclosed and Abandoned Neighborhood Properties (Massachusetts), and Lincoln Square (Worcester).

Please visit www.preservationmass.org or call 617-723-3383 for more information on this year’s endangered list.

About the ‘Massachusetts Most Endangered Historic Resources’ List

The Massachusetts Most Edangere Historic Resources Program marked its 15th anniversary in 2008. This list has become an effective tool for preservationists to focus statewide attention on the condition of individual historic properties and their importance to communities. Of the more than 130 historic sites designated as endangered since the list’s inception in 1993, fewer than a twenty have been lost.

This year’s list was culled from nominations submitted by preservation-minded groups and individuals throughout the state. Submissions are judged by several criteria, including their historic significance, the extent of the threat and the community’s commitment to preserving the resource.

Founded in 1985, Preservation Massachusetts is the statewide non-profit organization that actively promotes the preservation of historic buildings and landscapes as a positive force for economic development and the retention of community character.
-END-

Members included:

Mrs. D. Gerrish, President

Miss Helen Louisa Thoreau, Vice President & Founding Member
Thoreau’s sister
The Thoreau home was a haven for fugitive slaves.
(1812–1849)

Mrs. Tewksbury, Treasurer

Mrs. Mary Brooks, Secretary & Founding Member
“Perfectly fearless” Mary Merrick Brooks, wife of Concord lawyer Nathan Brooks, was the cornerstone of the Concord anti-slavery efforts and she corresponded quite frequently with Wendell Phillips, understanding that his visits played an important role in raising anti-slavery awareness in Concord. The Brooks home was situated at the intersection of Main Street and Sudbury Road, where the Concord Free Public Library is now located. It was moved to 45 Hubbard Street in 1872, prior to the Library’s construction.

Susan Barrett, Founding Member
In October of 1837, not long after a visit from Sarah and Angelina Grimké, the Concord Female Antislavery Society was formed. Its founding members included Mary Brooks, Prudence Ward, Susan Garrison, Cynthia, Sophia and Helen Thoreau, Mary Wilder, Susan Barrett, Maria Prescott, and Lidian Emerson.

Mrs. Ann Bigelow
Wife of blacksmith Francis Bigelow, Ann was a most earnest, devoted, and influential abolitionist from the start and to the end. She welcomed to her house most of the well-known anti-slavery orators and friends, and also many a fugitive slave, including Shadrach Minkins. The Bigelows lived across the street from Mary Brooks, at 19 Sudbury Rd.
“Mr. Nathan Brooks and Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson were always afraid of committal, we women, never,” Ann Bigelow remembered proudly at the end of the century.

Mrs. Lidian Emerson, Founding Member
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s wife. Lidian was an abolitionist and expressed her feelings by draping a black cloth over the gate and fence posts outside her house on July 4, 1855. She was protesting the continued presence of slavery in the United States.
(1802-1892)

Mrs. Susan Garrison, Founding Member
Wife of John Garrison, a fugitive slave from New Jersey who found freedom in Concord and was a hard working laborer. CFASS members visited Mrs. Garrison to discuss their plans and to eat her “delicious cookies.”

Mrs. Harriet Hanson Robinson
A Lowell mill-girl who had written for the Lowell Offering, Harriet married William Stevens Robinson, an anti-slavery newspaper editor who used the pen-name “Warrington.” Besides helping her husband with his anti-slavery and reform activities, Harriet Robinson became active in the advancement of women’s rights.
(1825-1911)

Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, Founding Member
Thoreau’s mother
(1787–1872)

Miss Sophia Thoreau, Founding Member
Thoreau’s youngest sister
(1819–1876)

Mrs. Joseph Ward & her daughter Miss Prudence Ward, Founding Member
They lived with the Thoreaus at 255 Main St.

Ann Whiting

Louisa Whiting

Mrs. Mary Wilder, Founding Member
First President of CFASS, and wife of Trinitarian Reverend John Wilder, who regularly invited abolitionists to speak at his church.

Miss Mary Rice
A little old gentlewoman who lived behind the Old Burying Ground, “quaint in dress and blunt of speech and with the kindest heart that ever beat.” She was a ‘stationmaster’ in the Underground Railroad and went from school to school to collect 350 signatures of Concord schoolchildren on a petition to President Lincoln asking him to abolish slavery.

Mrs. John Brown
Wife of the abolitionist John Brown, who was controversial because of his use of violence. Franklin Sanborn brought the Browns to live in Concord in 1857.

Mrs. Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, aka Caroline Downes Brooks Hoar
The daughter of Concord lawyer Nathan Brooks, stepdaughter of his wife Mary Merrick Brooks (president of the Concord Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society), a contemporary of Henry David Thoreau and girlhood companion of his sister Sophia. Caroline Brooks assiduously avoided sugar produced by slave labor and that she helped her stepmother make the famous “Brooks Cake” to raise funds for antislavery purposes.
(1820-1892)

Mrs. Abigail May Alcott, “Abby”
Bronson Alcott’s Unitarian wife — abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and pioneer social worker, supported her husband and the Fruitlands community through her labor and resources. She provided the model for “Marmee” in her daughter Louisa May Alcott’s novel, Little Women.
(1800-1877)

Miss Louisa May Alcott
While she is best known for her writings, Louisa May Alcott was also a supporter of reform movements including antislavery, temperance, women’s education, and women’s suffrage (right to vote).
“I became an abolitionist at a very early age, but have never been able to decide whether I was made so by seeing the portrait of George Thompson hidden under a bed in our house during the Garrison riot, and going to comfort the ‘poor man who had been good to the slaves,’ or because I was saved from drowning in the Frog Pond some years later by a colored boy.”
(1832-1888)

Miss Ellen Emerson
The first daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lidian lived in Concord throughout her life. She did not marry. Her adulthood was devoted to family, community, and religion.

Mrs. Harriet Tubman
Born into slavery on the eastern shore of Maryland as Araminta “Minty” Ross, is perhaps the most famous individual hero of the Underground Railroad. She was toughened by slavery from an early age, suffering from a blow to her head by a slavemaster that caused her to suffer from seizures the rest of her life. Tubman had escaped to Pennsylvania in 1849, but she returned in 1850 to help some of her relatives who were up for auction. Harriet also returned to Maryland in 1851 to bring her husband, John Tubman, to Pennsylvania only to find he had taken another wife and did not to wish to return with her. This incident perhaps toughened Tubman as nothing else; rather than grieve the loss, she instead dedicated herself to helping others escape. She never remarried. John Brown referred to her as “General Tubman.”
(1820-1913)

Mrs. Martha Bartlett
Wife of Dr. Josiah Bartlett of 35 Lowell Rd.
(1857-1905)

Maria Prescott
In October of 1837, not long after a visit from Sarah and Angelina Grimké, the Concord Female Antislavery Society was formed. Its founding members included Mary Brooks, Prudence Ward, Susan Garrison, Cynthia, Sophia and Helen Thoreau, Mary Wilder, Susan Barrett, Maria Prescott, and Lidian Emerson.

Miss Angelina Grimké
Angelina and her sister Sarah, converted Quakers and abolitionists from South Carolina, were the first women in the United States to publicly argue for the abolition of slavery. They made a revolutionary speaking tour in New England, and visited Concord in 1837, after which the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society was formed.
(1805-1879)

Miss Sarah Grimké
Sarah and Angelina Grimké, converted Quakers and abolitionists from South Carolina, were the first women in the United States to publicly argue for the abolition of slavery. They made a revolutionary speaking tour in New England, and visited Concord in 1837, after which the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society was formed.
(1792-1873)

Brooks Cake Recipe

To raise funds for the antislavery cause, Mary Brooks baked and sold
her signature tea cake, widely known as Brooks Cake. It was served at
all Concord anti-slavery meetings. This tea cake tastes great with jam.

Ingredients

One pound flour (4 cups)
One pound sugar (2 cups)
Half pound butter (2 sticks)
Four eggs
One cup milk
One teaspoonful baking soda
Half-teaspoonful cream of tartar
Half-pound currants (8 ounces), add in half of it
Makes two loaves
(Directions not given in original recipe.)
This makes two loaves; and, if such faithful hands and careful eyes as
hers attend to its making, it will be fit for the banquet of the gods. The
devoted woman lived to see the cause for which she so earnestly
labored as successful as was always her recipe for “Brooks Cake.”

— from the writings of William S. Robinson, 1877

Notes:

Mary Merrick Brooks was the daughter of a slave owner, the wife of a conservative senator, and the leading, most persistent abolitionist in town! The Brooks house was moved from its original site where the main Concord library now stands, to 45 Hubbard St. in 1872.

Join Minuteman National Park Park staff and volunteers for programs in the Untold Stories series. All programs are free and open to the public.

“Our Friend the Fugitive”
Sunday, September 6th, 2:00 P.M.
Sunday, October 25th, 2:00 P.M.
Minute Man Visitor Center, Lexington

The Wayside sheltered slave owners, the enslaved African of the Whitney family, and fugitive slaves. Join Park Volunteer Jane Sciacca and explore the actions of Casey, the Alcotts and the extended Hawthorne family as they faced the realities of slavery. Free.

Friends of Minute Man National Park
174 Liberty Street, Concord, Mass. 01742 ~ 978.318.7822 ~ info@friendsofminuteman.org