Special thanks to the William G. Pomeroy Foundation®, a grant-making foundation based in Syracuse, N.Y., which fully funded the “Samuel Lyman” New York State Historic Marker.

Samuel Lyman was on the board of managers of the Rose Temperance Society, and a well-known vigorous abolitionist in the Town of Rose.  In 1850, Lyman and a group of citizens from the area, signed and submitted a petition to the United States House of Representatives seeking to abolish slavery.  The anger and displeasure of the Pearl Incident, the way it was handled, and the outrage of the imprisonment of Captain Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayre were voiced in this petition.  Also voiced in this petition were charges of abuse of official power against certain officers, and a request that the law and practice in relation to passports be so amended as to abolish all distinction of color.

Samuel Lyman's barn is said to have been a safe house on the underground railroad, and is said to have been the first framed structure in town raised without the use of liquor (referred to as a cold water raising).