Underground Railroad in Sodus Point

This mural depicts a scene of the Underground Railroad. From stories passed down there were several safe houses in this area that were used to harbor “Freedom Seekers”. These included the old Cohn Farm (formerly the Horn Farm) and the old Sodus Fruit Farm and what is now Maxwell Creek B & B and Silver Waters B & B. Sometimes a schooner, out of the old Sodus Point ore dock, would pick up slaves on its way to Canada.

Also pictured in the mural are the images of Frederick Douglass (Rochester, NY) and Harriet Tubman (Auburn, NY) who were well known area African-American abolitionists.

Austin Steward was a slave who spent a year in Sodus Point and later would become a free man and well known author and abolitionist. In his book entitled “Twenty-Two Years A Slave and Forty Years a Freeman”, he devotes a chapter about his experiences in Sodus Point. He wrote this about the Underground Railroad: “ Is not the necessity of an “under ground railroad,” a disgrace to the laws of any country? Certainly it is; yet I thank God, that it does afford a means of escape to many, and I pray that the blessings of Heaven may ever rest upon those who willingly superintend its interests”.