2024 Stone Academy UGRR Symposium:
Putnam Connections
A New Venue: The Historic Putnam Presbyterian Church
Register by completing the form below
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Register by completing the form below 〰️
The Putnam Presbyterian Church was the religious center of the Putnam’s abolitionist community. Its founder’s support of Abolition and the Underground Railroad was based on their religious beliefs and led to the church’s founding in 1835.
The UGRR activity of church members is well documented in the Siebert Collection, county histories, and personal reminisces. The first pastor was William Henry Beecher, eldest brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. When Stowe visited in 1837, in a letter to her husband, she reported that half of Putnam’s residents were abolitionists. The Ohio Anti-Slavery Society held its 1839 Convention at the church. Frederick Douglass spoke there in 1843. However, the association and significance of the church to the Underground Railroad is best illustrated by examining contributions of some of its original members which included Matthew Gillespie, several Guthrie families, Horace and Lucinda Nye, Solomon and Lucy Hale Sturges, and Levi Whipple.
The church is a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site. It is listed on the National Register of Historic places as part of the Putnam Historic District, and is an Ohio’s Friends of Freedom Society location.
Online, mail-in, and telephone registration will begin on August 15th. Unlike 2023 when seating was limited, registrations will not be cut off. As in the past , the Symposium is open to the public free of charge due to the generosity of our sponsors, Park National Bank and North Valley Bank.
Register by completing the form below.
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Register by completing the form below. 〰️
Symposium Program
Session 1: Frederick Douglass
Speaker: Dr. Robert Wallace, Northern Kentucky University
Session 2: The Beecher Sisters
Speaker: Christina Hartlieb, Executive Director, Harriet Beecher Stowe House
Session 3: Family Connections
Presenter: Tom Wolf , Ohio History Connection
Session 4: The Lane Rebels
Speaker: Timothy Kraus, Historian and Author
Session 5: Wilson Bruce Evans
Speaker: Carol Lasser, Emerita Professor of History, Oberlin College
Session 6: Margaret Garner
Speakers: Dr. Joan Ferrante and Dr. Robert Wallace, Northern Kentucky University
Register by completing the form below.
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Register by completing the form below. 〰️
