Jackson Homestead Included in
National Underground Railroad
Network to Freedom

May 17, 2001

The Newton History Museum's Jackson Homestead has been accepted for inclusion in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The 1809 building was the home of William Jackson, a politician, businessman, and abolitionist, whose daughter Ellen left a written account of the Homestead use as a safe house for "freedom seekers."

Today, the building houses a nationally-accredited history museum and is a site on the National Underground Railroad Millennium Trail. The Homestead is also a Library of Congress Local Legacy participant as a station on the Underground Railroad.The Jackson Homestead offers education programs that help teachers and students explore issues surrounding the Underground Railroad. "Songs and Stories of the Underground Railroad," "Underground Railroad: Passage to Freedom," and "Abolition: Examining the Evidence" are offered to students in grades 1-12 throughout the year.

Currently, the Homestead has a small permanent exhibit on Abolition. Museum staff are in the processes of planning a large-scale exhibition on Abolition and the Underground Railroad in Newton, within the context of regional, national, and international activities. The Homestead is looking for ways to collaborate with other organizations as part of this exhibition process.

Documentation of Underground Railroad Activity

The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, implemented by the National Park Service in response to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998, serves to coordinate nationwide efforts to preserve and interpret the many stories of the Underground Railroad in American history. The Homestead’s Certificate of Acceptance states that "the National Park Service has evaluated this site as making a significant contribution to the understanding of the Underground Railroad in American history and it meets the requirements for inclusion in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom."

The Jackson Homestead is one of the first 10 sites accepted nationwide for inclusion in the Network. Because of the dangerous and illegal activities of the Underground Railroad, many of the freedom seekers and those who assisted them did not record their stories. Therefore, the written documents and oral tradition supporting the Homestead’s role on the Underground Railroad are precious and important evidence."

In 1894, Ellen Jackson (1825-1902), daughter of William Jackson (1783-1855), wrote Annals from The Old Homestead, which includes an account of her father and his activities. William Jackson, businessman, railroad promoter, developer, State Representative, and U.S. Congressman, was an active supporter of the abolition movement. Two original, hand-written copies of the Annals are preserved in The Jackson Homestead collections, one dated 1894 and the other 1895. Ellen wrote:

On reading the "Annals" Caroline thinks I have omitted what had better have been given, a distinct recognition of the Antislavery sentiments with which the inmates of the "Homestead" were thoroughly impregnated, especially father. He did indeed give his time, money and much of his thoughts to the abolition of slavery. Thus the Homestead’s doors stood ever open with a welcome to any of the workers against slavery for as often and as long as suited their convenience or pleasure. The Homestead was one of the Stations of the "Under Ground Rail Road" which was continually helping runaway Slaves from the South to Canada. One night between twelve and one o’clock, I well remember father was awakened by pebbles thrown against his window. He rose asked what was wanted? Dr. Bowditch replied it was he, with a runaway slave whom he wished father to hide till morning, and then help him on his way to Canada, for his master was in Boston looking for him. Father took him in and next morning carried him fifteen miles to a Station where he could take a car for Canada. He could not have safely left by any Boston Station.

Other evidence corroborates Ellen’s reminiscence. An 1893 letter from William I. Bowditch (1819-1909), the conductor mentioned in Ellen’s account above, to Wilbur H. Seibert, author of The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898), provides this evidence. Bowditch’s letter is preserved in the W. H. Siebert papers at the Ohio Historical Society. In this letter Bowditch was answering some of Seibert’s questions as the author was preparing his book. Bowditch wrote:

We had no regular route and no regular station in Massachusetts. I have had several fugitives in my house. Generally I passed them on [to] Wm. Jackson at Newton. His house being on the Worcester Railroad, he could easily forward any one.

The letter is referenced in a footnote on page 132 of The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. Bowditch, whose Brookline home is also on the National Underground Railroad Network the Freedom, is known to have harbored William and Ellen Craft, Henry "Box" Brown, as well as other freedom seekers.

Underground Railroad activity took place at the Homestead prior to William Jackson’s death in 1855. Additional dates connecting William to abolition and Underground Railroad activity are found in The Boston Vigilance Committee Treasurers Accounts book, begun October 21, 1850. William’s brother, Francis Jackson (1789-1861) an associate of William Lloyd Garrison, was treasurer of the Vigilance Committee. Donations made by William Jackson between December 1850 and June 1851 attest to his involvement in Underground Railroad activity in the Boston area in the early 1850s. The Jackson Homestead owns a facsimile copy of the book; the original is in the collections of The Bostonian Society.

The consistent oral tradition of Underground Railroad activity associated with The Jackson Homestead is recorded in Alice and Bettina Jackson’s book, Three Hundred Years American, published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1951. Record of the oral tradition of fugitives being harbored at the Homestead was based on an interview with William Jackson’s granddaughter, Louise Jackson Keith, who was one of the last Jackson descendants to live at The Jackson Homestead before it was given to the City of Newton and became a museum.

Historic Newton/The Jackson Homestead and Museum A department of the City of Newton, Setti D. Warren, Mayor Cynthia S. Stone, Director Questions or comments: Email © 2003 Historic Newton