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Utica Tour Includes History of 1835 Mobbing
On October 21, 1835, six hundred New York State abolitionists convened in Utica NY to form the New York State Antislavery Society. However, the delegates were threatened by a mob led by Congressman Samuel Beardsley. Gerrit Smith invited the abolitionists to Peterboro to hold the meeting safely. Through the night 400 of the men traveled to Peterboro to form the New York State Antislavery Society on October 22.
At 4 pm on Friday, October 10th Jan DeAmicis and Mary Hayes Gordon, Co-Chairs of the Oneida County Freedom Trail, will provide a one hour, one mile tour of Underground Railroad and abolition sites in Utica – including the history of the Utica mob that forced the 600 abolitionists to leave Utica. Interested persons meet with DeAmicis and Gordon at 120 Bleeker Street (Legal Aid Office) across the street from the Utica Resource Center for Refugees and next to the Centro Bus facility where there are restrooms. There are several places to eat or snack at the final stop on the tour and several restaurants nearby.
The Utica mob history is followed the next day in Canastota on the “brink of the canal” where 104 of the delegates got off the barge that was hired in Utica to get away from the mob. An account of the walk from Canastota to Peterboro was written by abolitionist James Caleb Jackson. For the fourth year the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, which is located in the building where that inaugural meeting of NYS Antislavery Society was held, invites folks to participate in a state trooper escorted walk (or ride) where the abolitionists traveled at the beginning of their walk to Peterboro. Five descendants of Jackson will join the walk this year in honor of their great, great, grandfather James Caleb Jackson.
Information, registrations, and sponsorships: www.AbolitionRoad.org.
Registrants receive a long-sleeved tee shirt with the Abolition Walk logo.
The first 104 students who register to walk are free.
National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum
PO Box 55 5255 Pleasant Valley Peterboro NY 13134
www.NationalAbolitionHallofFameandMuseum.org 315.308.1890
Oneida County Freedom Trail Tour at the Devereux in Utica. (DeAmicis 2024)
Oneida County Freedom Trail Tour gathers at Gerbers building in Utica. (DeAmicis 2024)
COME! REGISTER and PUT ON A CLEAN SHIRT!
​Abolitionist James Caleb Jackson’s account of the October 21,1835 walk from the “ brink of the canal” in Canastota to Peterboro to attend the first meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society reported that the 104 walkers called out Come! Put on a Clean Shirt and come with us. We have begun the grandest revolution the world has ever seen; and if we do not die, we mean to see that revolution accomplished, and our land free from the tread and fetter of the slave.
​The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum is calling out, Come! Register for the 2025 Abolition Walk Saturday, October 11 and put on a clean new event tee shirt. To walk or ride the Abolition Walk register online, or at Erie Canal Brewing on October 8th, 9th, and 10th at 4 pm, or at 8 am at the event morning October 11. The first 104 students to register are free!​​​
The Erie Canal Brewing Company at 135 South Peterboro Street in Canastota brewed a special Abolition Ale for the first Abolition Walk in 2022 and continues to brew the ale. Joyce Menikheim, one of the family of owners, explains that “Our brew is indicative of the style of beer that would have been available at the time of the Peterboro gathering in 1835. We are very proud to produce this beer for the fourth time.” Erie Canal Brewing is a local NYS Farm Brewery and is owned and operated by the Menikheim family and has been located in Canastota since 2013. The brewery uses local products whenever possible. The hops used in the craft beer come from their own hop farm in Manlius, NY and the malt comes from NY Craft Malt in Batavia, NY.
The sheriff-escorted Abolition Walk begins at 102 South Peterboro Street in Canastota NY with registration and tee shirts at 8:00 am, a brief program at 9:00 am, and the walk launch at 9:30 am. Walkers arrive in Clockville at about 10:30 am where a recently installed Pomeroy sign describes the Abolition Walk through Clockville. The Abolition Walk then returns to Canastota at the Erie Canal Brewing Company for a party at approximately noon. Folks can also ride a bus for the walk, and the bus is available for brief rests for walkers.
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Canal Town Museum at 122 Canal Street will be open from 8:00 am to 9:30 am on October 11. Across the street from the museum there is an outdoor exhibition on the Erie Canal in Canastota.
The Abolition Walk begins at 8:00 a.m. Saturday October 11 outside the Farr Building at 102 South Peterboro Street, Canastota NY
Descendants Will Walk the Abolition Trail of Ancestor
James Caleb Jackson age 35 (Burdick)
The first registration for the Fourth Annual Abolition Walk was from James M. Jackson from Amasa, Michigan, who wrote: 190 years ago, my great-great-great grandfather James Caleb Jackson was one of the 104 who made the trek from Canastota to Peterboro. Although I'd love to be around for the 200th anniversary, actuarial tables suggest that might be pushing my luck. Jim, his wife, sister, and children will be walking in the footsteps of his ancestor on Saturday, October 11, 2025, along the Abolition Road from Canastota NY to Peterboro NY.
The firsthand account of the October 21, 1825, canal boat ride from Utica to Canastota - followed by a nine mile walk up the hill to Peterboro for an abolition meeting - was provided by James Caleb Jackson from Mexico in Oswego NY. He attended that October 22, 1835, inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society and then moved to Peterboro in 1838 to work with Gerrit Smith in the abolition movement. His residence in Peterboro is one of the sites on the 2006 Madison County Freedom Trail. He lectured on abolition for a short time in Massachusetts and became corresponding secretary for the Massachusetts Antislavery Society. Jackson came back to Peterboro in 1842. He became secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840, and published antislavery newspapers including The Albany Patriot, The Liberty Press, and the Madison County Abolitionist in Cazenovia. Jackson was also the inventor of granula. When Kelloggs in Battle Creek began producing the same cereal with the same name, there was a lawsuit- at which time Kelloggs started making granola!
The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum invites folks to join the Jacksons to follow in their ancestor’s footsteps from the “brink of the canal” on Saturday, October 11, 2025, at 102 South Peterboro Street in Canastota NY. Registration starts at 8:00 am. The launch program is at 9:00 am, and the sheriff-escorted walk steps off at 9:30 am traveling along The Oxbow at an easy group pace for 2.7 miles to Clockville, where David Sadler, Town of Lincoln Historian, will speak to the recently installed Pomeroy sign in recognition of the abolitionists who walked there in 1835. The walk returns to Canastota for a party at Erie Canal Brewing. A bus is at ready for registrants unable to manage all or part of the walk along Abolition Road.
Lingo Family Singers to perform at Abolition Walk
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The Lingo Family Singers of Peterboro, will perform a tribute to The Hutchinson Family Singers on Saturday, October 11, 2025, 8 am at the Fourth Abolition Walk, 102 South Peterboro Street, Canastota NY 13032.
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Judson. Abby. Joh, and Asa Hutchinson
The Hutchinson Family began musical performances in the 1840s in their home state of New Hampshire. Their four-part harmony copied the touring Tyrolese Minstrels, but soon they started writing their own songs which addressed the reforms of abolition, emancipation, temperance, and women’s rights.
John Brown Kin Returns Assistance to Gerrit Smith
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Gerrit Smith of Peterboro NY became an ardent abolitionist in 1835 when he witnessed 600 men being threatened and physically mobbed in Utica as they attempted to assemble on October 21, 1835, to address the need for the end of enslavement. Smith invited the 600 delegates to the safety of Peterboro. 400 delegates traveled from Utica to Peterboro through the hills of Vernon Center. 104 delegates rode an empty lumber barge on the Erie Canal from Utica to Canastota and then walked nine miles up the nine hundred feet of elevation to Peterboro. Thus, on October 22, 1835, the inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society was held in the Presbyterian Church in Peterboro. That building became a school and is now the Town of Smithfield municipal building and the home of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum.
Gerrit Smith was considered to be among the wealthiest landowners in New York State. He believed that his wealth was a divine gift to give away and it pleased him most to purchase the freedom of enslaved persons. His fight against enslavement evolved from being an officer in the American Peace Society to doing “whatever it takes” to abolish slavery. When John Brown made his last trip to Peterboro in 1859, he convinced Smith and Franklin Sanborn, a house guest of the Smiths, to financially support Brown’s plan
to raid the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry to arm the enslaved for their escape to freedom. Smith and Sanborn were two of the “Secret Six” that supported Brown’s desire to free the enslaved. Smith’s support was $140,000 in today’s currency and was the largest monetary support of Brown.
On August 27, 2025, a John Brown kin came to Peterboro by way of an online sponsor campaign. This time John Brown supplied assistance to Smith! The October 11, 2025, reenactment of the 1835 convention is an educational event, as well as a major fundraiser for Smith’s legacy of the first state meeting of the New York abolitionists. That legacy seeks donors, and it was Alice Keesy Mecoy from Texas that sent the first sponsorship of $1835.00 (in honor of the year 1835). Brown supporting Smith. One good turn deserves another – even if it is 156 years later!
Mecoy is the great, great, grand-daughter of John Brown. On one of her visits to Peterboro she met with fourth graders from four local elementary schools during Living History Day to talk about her famous grandfather.
Gerrit Smith, was one of the “Secret Six” who supported John Brown’s desire to help enslaved people to escape. In today’s currency Smith’s support of Brown would be approximately $140,000.
John Brown’s great, great, great grand-daughter Alice Keesey Macoy sponsored August 27, 2025, the Abolition Walk which reenacts Smith’s invitation to the abolitionists to come to the safety of Peterboro to form the New York State Antislavery Society.
Abolition Walk Through History
The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro NY is pleased to announce the Fourth Annual Abolition Walk from Canastota to Clockville, and return to Canastota, tracing the beginning footsteps of the one hundred four abolitionists who walked nine steep miles from the Erie Canal to Peterboro in the middle of the night on October 21, 1835.
The sheriff escorted Abolition Walk begins at 102 South Peterboro Street in Canastota NY with registration at 8:00 am, a brief program at 9:00 am, and the walk launch at 9:30 am. Walkers arrive in Clockville at about 10:30 am and return to Canastota at Erie Canal Brewing for a party at approximately noon. Folks can also ride a bus for the walk, and the bus is available for brief rests for walkers.
The abolitionists of New York State intended to form an organization that would address the need to end enslavement in the United States. 600 delegates assembled in Utica where they were physically threatened and mobbed. Not yet an ardent abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, witnessing the thwarting of First Amendment rights, invited the delegates to the safety of Peterboro. Through the cold, rainy night of October 21, 1835, four hundred delegates traveled through Vernon Center to Peterboro, and the one hundred four came through Canastota. Thus, on October 22, 1835, the inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society was held in the Presbyterian Church, which now the Town of Smithfield/Hamlet of Peterboro municipal building and the home of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum.
Registrations and sponsorships have opened at www.AbolitionRoad.org.
Registrants receive a long-sleeved tee shirt with the Abolition Walk logo.
The first 104 students who register to walk are free.
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Information:
National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum
PO Box 55 5255 Pleasant Valley Peterboro NY 13134
NAHOFm1835@gmail.com www.NationalAbolitionHallofFameandMuseum.org 315.308.1890
Abolition Walkers begin the route from Canastota to Clockville to retrace the steps of 104 abolitionists in 1835 to establish the New York State Antislavery Society.
Abolition Walkers returning to Canastota from the 5.4 mile walk to Clockville and back to Canastota - retracing the steps of 104 abolitionists in 1835 to establish the New York State Antislavery Society.
Abolition Ale Joins Abolition Road
Erie Canal Brewing on Peterboro Street in Canastota responded to a request from Joe DiGiorgio, President of the Canastota Canal Town Museum, and Roseanne Warner, Mayor of the Village of Canastota, to brew something special for the Abolition Walk. Situated at the beginning of the Abolition Road to Peterboro, the brew business has created a craft beer named 1835 Abolition Ale. The Classic Lite N' E Zee Thirst Quenching Pale Ale is available at the Canastota taproom and at Seneca Street Brew Pub in Manlius.
