As he was preparing preliminary drafts of the text that would eventually be cast in metal as part of the area’s newest Illinois State Historical Society historical marker, Larry McClellan wanted to include a concept that seemingly could downplay the significance of the site being marked.
The marker was dedicated amid fanfare and speeches Saturday at Chicago’s Finest Marina on the north bank of the Little Calumet River in Chicago, across the water from Dolton and Riverdale. It signifies the historic presence of a farm belonging to Dutch immigrants, the Ton family, a federally recognized stop on the Underground Railroad.
It’s an important place that helps connect the south suburbs to a national historical narrative, McClellan said, and the new marker will help spread the word.
But the significance of the Underground Railroad pales in comparison to the people who made use of it. While it’s nice to recognize and celebrate those who helped people escaping slavery, often at great risk, the real heroes of the story are those who faced greater risk and required even more courage.
So the first words at the top of the new historical marker are “Freedom Seekers.”
McClellan, an emeritus professor at Governors State University, lecturer and author of “The Underground Railroad South of Chicago” and other books, said many people preferred to “travel independently.”
“The Underground Railroad was very helpful for a number of people traveling, but a number of people did it on their own,” he said. “They got directions, and they slept outside and they were very careful. These were remarkable people. Many people walked hundreds of miles to become free people, and that’s remarkable.”
By McClellan’s estimation, up to 4,300 Freedom Seekers made their way through northeastern Illinois in the decades before the Civil War, including some who undertook their journeys when Chicago was still in its infancy.
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Daily Southtown
Landmarks: New historical marker highlights area’s Underground Railroad journeys
By Paul Eisenberg
Daily Southtown
•
Published: Sep 25, 2022 at 12:10 pm
A historical marker is unveiled Saturday during a ceremony at the former Ton farm along the Little Calumet River at Chicago’s Finest Marina in Chicago Joining the unveiling are, from left, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, marina owner Ronald Gaines, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelley, Netherlands Consul General in Chicago Bart Twaalfhoven, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller and Tom Shepherd of the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project.
A historical marker is unveiled Saturday during a ceremony at the former Ton farm along the Little Calumet River at Chicago’s Finest Marina in Chicago Joining the unveiling are, from left, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, marina owner Ronald Gaines, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelley, Netherlands Consul General in Chicago Bart Twaalfhoven, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller and Tom Shepherd of the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project. (Michael Gard / Daily Southtown)
As he was preparing preliminary drafts of the text that would eventually be cast in metal as part of the area’s newest Illinois State Historical Society historical marker, Larry McClellan wanted to include a concept that seemingly could downplay the significance of the site being marked.
The marker was dedicated amid fanfare and speeches Saturday at Chicago’s Finest Marina on the north bank of the Little Calumet River in Chicago, across the water from Dolton and Riverdale. It signifies the historic presence of a farm belonging to Dutch immigrants, the Ton family, a federally recognized stop on the Underground Railroad.
It’s an important place that helps connect the south suburbs to a national historical narrative, McClellan said, and the new marker will help spread the word.
But the significance of the Underground Railroad pales in comparison to the people who made use of it. While it’s nice to recognize and celebrate those who helped people escaping slavery, often at great risk, the real heroes of the story are those who faced greater risk and required even more courage.
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So the first words at the top of the new historical marker are “Freedom Seekers.”
McClellan, an emeritus professor at Governors State University, lecturer and author of “The Underground Railroad South of Chicago” and other books, said many people preferred to “travel independently.”
“The Underground Railroad was very helpful for a number of people traveling, but a number of people did it on their own,” he said. “They got directions, and they slept outside and they were very careful. These were remarkable people. Many people walked hundreds of miles to become free people, and that’s remarkable.”
Ronald Gaines, left, owner of Chicago’s Finest Marina, and Underground Railroad expert Larry McClellan discuss their collaboration during a dedication Saturday of a historical marker at the marina, which is the site of the former Ton farm along the Little Calumet River. Gaines is refurbishing the marina and working with the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project to highlight the important history of the project.
Ronald Gaines, left, owner of Chicago’s Finest Marina, and Underground Railroad expert Larry McClellan discuss their collaboration during a dedication Saturday of a historical marker at the marina, which is the site of the former Ton farm along the Little Calumet River. Gaines is refurbishing the marina and working with the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project to highlight the important history of the project. (Michael Gard / Daily Southtown)
By McClellan’s estimation, up to 4,300 Freedom Seekers made their way through northeastern Illinois in the decades before the Civil War, including some who undertook their journeys when Chicago was still in its infancy.
The federal government established a road from Detroit to Chicago in 1820, and though steamboats starting plying the Great Lakes and railroads connected the cities shortly after that, most people traveling clandestinely from Chicago to Detroit and then on to safety in Canada took the overland route, McClellan said.
Remnants of the Detroit-Chicago road, which crossed the Little Calumet River at what is now the Indiana Avenue bridge and left modern traces as Michigan City Road in Calumet City as well as portions of Sauk Trail, was just a few blocks from the Ton property, offering the abolitionist Dutch farmers an opportunity to help with food and shelter for fugitives in the 1850s, when the federal Fugitive Slave Act made bounty hunting legal even in northern states.
As he conducted the research necessary to get the Ton Farm, along with sites in Crete and Lockport, listed with the National Park Service as Underground Railroad sites as part its Network to Freedom program, McClellan said he found anywhere from 500 to 800 people passed through what’s now the Dolton area as they escaped slavery.
“What we know as the network for the Underground Railroad are the responses to the decisions and movement of the Freedom Seekers,” he said. “The Ton Farm is important, yes, because uniquely these Dutch settlers assisted Freedom Seekers, but it’s equally important because it’s just a few blocks from the historic road where hundreds of people traveled on their way to freedom in Canada.”
Rather than diminishing the importance of the Ton Farm site and its new marker, that enhances it, McClellan said.
“This is a pretty compelling ‘in your own backyard’ story,” he said.
The effort to tell that story has taken more than 20 years, according to Tom Shepherd, the lead project organizer of the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project. An initial effort to promote the area’s abolitionist history started around 1999, but “petered out after five or six years,” he said, before being revived in 2016.
“We were moving along pretty well until the pandemic hit and slowed us down again,” he said.
Just before that, they had a big success with the National Park Service designation. Then, about a year after McClellan submitted the application for the marker, they placed the new marker at Chicago’s Finest Marina, where owner Ron Gaines has been an enthusiastic supporter of the effort.
The marker, Shepherd said, “is another distinction we’re proud to have. There aren’t too many in the area.”
Homewood resident Elaine Egdorf, a past vice-president of the Illinois State Historical Society, represented the organization at Saturday’s event as the Ton Farm was officially added to the society’s system of historical markers.
“It’s quite a validation that they recognize what we’ve done, recognized this site and recognized its significance,” Shepherd said. “They don’t give these out very lightly.”
Once they received word the historical marker was a go, as well as a grant to fund its creation, the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project volunteers started meeting with nearby community members, a group they began marshaling in 2017 to hash out just what the marker would say.
One element, McClellan said, that people from the neighborhood wanted was representation and recognition of another, earlier uprooted population. Before the marker begins to dive into the story of Freedom Seekers who passed through, it mentions that all happened after the removal of the Indigenous people from the region.
But 250 words isn’t a lot to work with, so to give people a better idea of why the site is significant, more interpretive signs are planned.
They’ll tell a story of courageous people making their way though what we now know as the south suburbs toward a better life, and the people who lived here who had the opportunity to help.
“It’s right in our backyard,” McClellan said. “We now have a history marker statement, saying this is how we connect to the great national story of the journeys of Freedom Seekers on the Underground Railroad.”
He said it’s something that can enhance our understanding of the nation’s past, as well as our link to the region where we live.
“All of us, we’re proud to hear a story of something that happened right where we lived,” McClellan said. “Across the Southland, we have a remarkable set of experiences and stories that are essentially unseen. They’re not forgotten, they’re just not seen.
“People in Homewood can see there was Underground Railroad stuff in Crete, in Lockport, along the Little Calumet River, and that’s a powerful element. It’s not just out there, it was here.”
That element is something Shepherd notices when his group gives free tours of the Ton site.
“People come out and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know,’” he said. “It’s always nice to hear that. Someone is leaving with the knowledge of something they weren’t aware of before.”
Source: www.chicagotribune.com