A group listens as Steve Strimer leads the African American Heritage Trail in the David Ruggles Center For Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies on Martin Luther King Day. —GAZETTE STAFF/CAROL LOLLIS
People on a walking tour listen as Steve Strimer talks about the African-American Heritage Trail at the Sojourner Truth statue in Florence, Monday. GAZETTE STAFF/CAROL LOLLIS
A group lead by Steve Strimer on the African American Heritage Trail walks into the David Ruggles Center For Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies on Martin Luther King Day. —GAZETTE STAFF/CAROL LOLLIS
A group listens as Steve Strimer leads the African American Heritage Trail on Martin Luther King Day. —GAZETTE STAFF/CAROL LOLLIS
@kate_ashworth
FLORENCE — Walking through Florence on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, some took a look back at the 1840s and 1850s when African-American abolitionists formed a community in the area.
The walking tour was part of the 34th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration organized by the nonprofit The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice. The organization held events and workshops throughout the day focused on peace and solidarity.
In 1842, abolitionists formed the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in what is now known as Florence, according to Steve Strimer who leads walking tours for the David Ruggles Center for History and Education in Florence. Strimer said many called it a “utopian” commune.
Strimer walked the group to a mulberry tree on Nonotuck Street. Across the street was the site of the Nonotuck Silk Co., where members of the association worked. He said mulberry tree leaves were fed to silkworms for cultivation.
About four years later, the association was in debt and sold the silk company, Strimer said.
In 1850, around 60 of the 600 residents in the Florence area — or 10 percent — were African-American, Strimer said, citing the 1850 census.
However, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed later that year, Strimer said, which more than doubled the penalties for harboring fugitive slaves. Many African-Americans moved to Canada, he said, and by 1860, only 22 African-Americans were in the area.
Martha and Colleen Duroshea, of Belchertown, walked with around 40 people, all bundled up to keep warm on the cold Monday morning.
“I didn’t realize the extent of history Florence has,” Martha Duroshea said. Colleen Duroshea said she was intrigued by “how much things have changed, and how much things have not changed.”
Andy Grant of Amherst has attended the walk on the holiday in the past. He said it’s important to understand the “invisible history” of race.
The group stopped at the David Ruggles Center. Ruggles was involved in the Underground Railroad and helped hundreds of fugitives, including Frederick Douglass, escape to freedom, according to the center’s website.
Ruggles moved to Massachusetts in the 1840s and became involved with the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, Strimer said. Ruggles treated his own health problems with water cure, or hydrotherapy and treated others, Strimer said.
The tour also stopped by the homes of Basil Dorsey, a fugitive slave, and Sara Askin, a free black who housed fugitives.
The last stop was at abolitionist Sojourner Truth’s home on Park Street where she lived from 1850-57, according to the center. She was able to purchase her home in Florence from the sales of her memoir, “The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave,” and her visiting card, or carte-de-visite, which has the quote “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance,” according to the center’s information pamphlet of the trail.
Truth gave her first anti-slavery speech in 1844 in Northampton, Strimer said, and that day launched her career.
Caitlin Ashworth can be reached at cashworth@gazettenet.com.
