FREEDOM BOUND

LOCAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

WEBSITE TO BE UNVEILED

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2003 at 7:30 PMG-11, HEIM BUILDING, LYCOMING COLLEGE

Lynn Estomin, director Freedom Bound, a public art project on local Underground Railroad sites, will unveil the new Freedom Bound website and answer questions about the project on Thursday, October 9 at 7:30 PM in the Barclay Lecture Hall in the Heim Science Building at Lycoming College.

Estomin, Associate Professor of Art at Lycoming College, and Tom Lee, one of her former students who is now working as a web designer, created the site to accompany large-scale banners that will be displayed in the community over the coming year.

 The website features streaming audio of oral historian Mamie Sweeting Diggs telling stories that were passed down in her family from her great grandfather, Daniel Hughes. Hughes was a conductor on the Underground Railroad who brought escaped slaves from Baltimore and hid them in the caves on his property on Freedom Road. The site also features original animation, photographs and history about Underground Railroad sites in Lycoming County and music by Kim and Reggie Harris. In addition there is a resources section for teachers to use when the banners travel to the Williamsport Area School District.

 The website will be posted on October 9 at www.lycoming.edu/underground.

 In June 2003, 5 three feet by ten feet banners featuring images from local Underground Railroad sites were unveiled on the front of Wegmans Supermarket in Williamsport, PA. Wegmans is built on the site of former warehouses where slaves arriving in Williamsport on trails over Bald Eagle Mountain or on the river were hidden until they could be transported to Freedom Road.

 The banners and the new website are part of a public art project, directed by Lynn Estomin, which highlights the history of the Underground Railroad in Lycoming County, PA. In February 2003, twelve senior art majors from Lycoming College, Professor Estomin, Visiting Artist Steven Marc and Local Historian Mamie Sweeting Diggs documented seven local Underground Railroad sites, shot over 2500 digital images and designed the banners.

Estomin, Marc and the students photographed the caves and cemetery on Freedom Road and the site of the former Thomas Lightfoot Inn in Williamsport; the McCarthy House in Muncy; the Pennsdale Quaker Meeting House, the "House of Many Stairs" and the John Adlum House in Pennsdale; and the Apker House in Trout Run. The webiste also includes information on routes to freedom in the area, Wildwood Cemetary, the Exchange Hotel, and the Doebler House in Williamsport; and Wolf Run House, the Mt. Equity Cottage, Spring Farm, Ridge Farm, Edgend, the Mansion House and the Brick House in Pennsdale.

 This project was supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Williamsport/Lycoming Arts Council; the City of Williamsport Department of Economic & Community Development; and Lycoming College.

For more information, please contact Lynn Estomin, 321-4055, estomin@lycoming.edu