The Freedom Trail

— The Underground Railroad —

"...when Susan B. Anthony urged Republicans to take a stand against slavery, Syracusans burned her in effigy in Hanover Square."
Hanover Square (1) was a busy commercial district and civic gathering place in the mid-19th century, and African Americans were highly visible here at the heart of the city. Two major hotels, the Syracuse House (2) and the Sherman House (3), stood along Genesee Street, where African Americans worked as porters, waiters, housekeepers, cooks, and cartmen.
In 1851, George B. Vashon, first African American lawyer in New York State, had offices in the Dana Block (4), at the northwest corner of Warren and Water Streets. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1824 and educated at Oberlin College, Vashon taught classics in Haiti and became New York State's first African American lawyer in 1847. From 1855-1858, he taught Latin at the abolitionist New York Central College in McGrawville, New York. After the Civil War, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., taught at Howard University, and became a clerk in the Treasury Department. He died in Mississippi in 1878. The Syracuse Standard noted that Vashon was "a Scholar, Lawyer and Orator, of . . . high endowments." St. Louis, Missouri, named a school in honor of Vashon's contribution to education.
Hanover Square witnessed



many political rallies, some opposed to abolitionism. In January 1861, Samuel J. May and Susan B. Anthony spoke in Syracuse under the slogan "No Compromise with Slave Holders." Men armed with knives and pistols invaded the hall, paraded the effigies of May and Anthony through the streets, and burned them in Hanover Square.

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