15th Annual Peterboro Emancipation Day
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Gerrit Smith Estate
National Historic Landmark
5304 Oxbow Road Peterboro NY 13134.
Each year the committee replicates activities that ancestors began in 1925 to commemorate the abolition of enslavement.
Registration and morning refreshments begin at 9 am. The exterior interpretive signage will be open, as well as exhibits in the Land Office, The Barn, and with limited access to The Laundry. At 10 am co-chairs and cousins Jim Corpin and Max Smith will welcome the attendees and announce the proceedings of the day. At 11 am the annual group photo is taken. At 11:15 am the annual procession to carry two wreaths to the Peterboro Cemetery begins by walking and driving. At the cemetery one wreath honors the humble grave of wealthy landowner Gerrit Smith, and the second wreath honors an ancestor whose gravestone reads Born a Slave. Died free.
At 1:00 pm back in The Barn at the Gerrit Smith Estate, Nell Ziegler, President of the Smithfield Community Association, which owns the Gerrit Smith Estate, will report on the purpose of Peterboro census research accomplished by a grant from the Preservation League of New York State, and describe the upcoming renovations at The Lodge made possible by a partial grant from the Central New York Community Foundation.
At 1:30 pm Donna Dorrance Burdick will discuss her research on African American Peterboro Families: An Historical Perspective. Burdick has created more than thirty informational binders on black families and will also later be at the Peterboro Area Museum. A walking tour of the Gerrit Smith Estate, guided by Norman K. Dann PhD head docent, will begin at the Land Office at 2:45.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own picnic to be enjoyed on the grounds and/or pickup pre-orders at the Peterboro Table (315.684.1088). The Peterboro Table restaurant will be open.
The Peterboro Area Museum and the National Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum will be open in the afternoon.
For more information for this free event:
www.PeterboroNY.org info@GerritSmith.org, 315.657.8461
