Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Archaeology at the Parvin Homestead: Searching for the Material Legacy of the Underground Railroad

  • Article
  • Published:
Historical Archaeology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Archaeological evidence of the Underground Railroad is difficult to identify and interpret, as the archaeological signature of sites relating to the Underground Railroad is defined by the clandestine and transient nature of the movement of fugitives. Archaeologists’ understanding of the material legacy of the Underground Railroad is further clouded by legends identifying houses of local luminaries as Underground Railroad sites, often with minimal corroborating evidence. In 2000 and again in 2005, archaeological investigations were conducted at the Parvin Homestead, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, reputed by local oral tradition to be an Underground Railroad safe house. The current owners contend that 19th-century occupants harbored African Americans escaping from slavery and that a network of tunnels used for this purpose crisscross the property. Historical research and archaeological excavations were conducted to determine whether tunnels existed on the property and whether any other material legacy of the Underground Railroad could be identified.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Armstrong, Douglas V. 1990 The Old Village and the Great House. University of Illinois Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, Douglas V., and LouAnn Wurst 2003 Clay Faces in an Abolitionist Church: The Wesleyan Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York. Historical Archaeology 37(2):19–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ashworth, John 1995 Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakey, Michael L., and Lesley M. Rankin-Hill (editors) 2004a The New York African Burial Ground Skeletal Biology Final Report, Vol. 1. Manuscript, The African Burial Ground Project, Howard University, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakey, Michael L., and Lesley M. Rankin-Hill (editors) 2004b The New York African Burial Ground Skeletal Biology Final Report, Vol. 2. Manuscript, The African Burial Ground Project, Howard University, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blight, David W. 2004 Why the Underground Railroad and Why Now? A Long View. In Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory, David W. Blight, editor, pp. 233–247. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blockson, Charles L. 1977 A Black Underground Resistance to Slavery, 1833–1860. Pennsylvania Heritage 4(1):29–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blockson, Charles L. 1981 The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. Flame International Press, Jacksonville, NC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blockson, Charles L. 1987 The Underground Railroad. Berkley Publishing Group, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blockson, Charles L. 1994 Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad. Hippocrene, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordewich, Fergus 2005 Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. HarperCollins, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collison, Gary Lee 1997 Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collison, Gary Lee 1998 Revisiting the Underground Railroad. Cultural Resource Management 21(4):7–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Courtaud, Patrice, Andre Delpuech, and Thomas Romon 1999 Archaeological Investigations at Colonial Cemeteries on Guadeloupe: African Slave Burial Sites or Not? In Island Lives: Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean, Paul Farnsworth, editor, pp. 277–290. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeCorse, Christopher 1999 Oceans Apart: Africanist Perspectives on Diaspora Archaeology. In “I, Too, Am America”:Archaeological Studies of African American Life, Theresa Singleton, editor, pp. 132–155. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delle, James A. 1998 An Archaeology of Social Space: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. Plenum Publishing, New York, NY.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Delle, James A. 2002 Power and Landscape: Spatial Dynamics in Early-Nineteenth-Century Jamaica. In The Dynamics of Power, Maria O’Donovan, editor, pp. 341–362. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Carbondale, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delle, James A., and Mary Ann Levine 2004 Excavations at the Thaddeus Stevens/Lydia Hamilton Smith Site, Lancaster PA: Archaeological Evidence for the Underground Railroad? Northeast Historical Archaeology 33:131–152.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emerson, Matthew C. 1994 African Inspirations in a New World Art and Artifact: Decorative Clay Tobacco Pipes from the Chesapeake. In “I, Too, Am America”: Studies in African American Archaeology Theresa Singleton, editor, pp. 47–82. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faragasso, Frank, and Doug Stover 1998 Slavery and Resistance: Expanding Our Horizons. Cultural Resource Management 21(4):4–5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, Leland 1992 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African-America 1650–1800. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fruehling, Byron, and Robert H. Smith 1998 Subterranean Hideaways of the Underground Railroad in Ohio: An Architectural, Archaeological, and Historical Critique of Local Traditions. Ohio History 102:97–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gara, Larry 1961 The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad. University of Kentucky Press, Lexington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gara, Laura 1964 The Fugitive Slave Law: A Double Paradox. Civil War History 10:229–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geiger, Amy L. 1998 The Underground Railroad in Berks County. Berks County Historical Society, Reading, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holt, Michael F. 1978 The Political Crisis of the 1850s. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homan, Wayne E. 1958 The Underground Railroad in Berks County. Historical Review of Berks County 23(4):112–118, 126–128.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homan, Wayne E. 1974 A History of the Parvins of Berkley. Sunday Eagle Magazine [no date, no pages]. Reading, PA. [Photocopy in possession of author Delle.]

    Google Scholar 

  • Kammen, Carol 1998 The Underground Railroad and Local History. Cultural Resource Management 21(4):11–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaRoche, Cheryl J. 2004 On the Edge of Freedom: Free Black Communities, Archaeology, and the Underground Railroad. Doctoral dissertation, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCurdy, Linda 1969 The Underground Railroad. Historic Pennsylvania Leaflet, No 29. Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission, Harrisburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Medford, Edna Greene 2004 The New York African Burial Ground History Final Report. Manuscript, The African Burial Ground Project, Howard University, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Diane 2004 The Places and Communities of the Underground Railroad: The National Park Service Network to Freedom. In Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory, David W. Blight, editor, pp. 279–289. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Randall M., and William Pencak (editors) 2002 Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth. The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montgomery, Morton L. 1909 Historical and Biographical Annals of Berks County, Pennsylvania: Embracing a Concise History of the County and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families. J.H. Beers and Company, Chicago, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mullins, Paul 1999 Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture. Kluwer/Plenum Academic Publishers, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nash, Gary B., and Jean R. Soderlund 1991 Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orser, Charles E., Jr. 1988 The Material Basis of the Postbellum Tenant Plantation. University of Georgia Press, Athens.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orser, Charles E., Jr. 2004 Historical Archaeology, 2nd edition. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parvin, Robert 2000 The Parvin Family of Berkley. Manuscript, Berks County Conservancy, Reading, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinsker, Matthew 2000 Vigilance in Pennsylvania: Underground Railroad Activities in the Keystone State, 1837–1861. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rankin-Hill, Lesley M. 1997 A Biohistory of Nineteenth-Century Afro-Americans: The Burial Remains of a Philadelphia Cemetery. Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaeffer, Paul N. 1941 Slavery in Berks County. Historical Review of Berks County 6(2):110–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sernett, Milton C. 2004 Reading Freedom’s Memory Book: Recovering the Story of the Underground Railroad in New York State. In Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory, David W. Blight, editor, pp. 261–277. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shackel, Paul A. 1996 Culture Change and the New Technology: An Archaeology of the Early American Industrial Era. Plenum Publishing, New York, NY.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shadd, Adrienne L., Afua Cooper, and Karolyn Smardz Frost 2002 The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto! Natural Heritage Books, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shellenhamer, Jason 2001 Trails to Freedom: A Case Study of the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. Senior honors thesis, Department of Anthropology, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siebert, Wilbur H. 1898 The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. Reprinted 1967 by Russell and Russell, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singleton, Theresa A. 1985 Archaeological Implications for Changing Labor Conditions. In The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp. 291–307. Academic Press, Orlando, FL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singleton, Theresa A., and Mark Bograd 2000 Breaking Typological Barriers: Looking for the Colono in Colonoware. In Lines That Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender, James A. Delle, Stephen A. Mrozowski, and Robert Paynter, editors, pp. 3–21. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slaughter, Thomas P. 1991 Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smardz Frost, Karolyn 2006 I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: The True Story of Two Runaway Slaves Whose Flight to Freedom Changed History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smedley, Robert Clemens 1883 History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania. The Office of the Journal, Lancaster, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, Charles McCool 1961 Oswego’s Abolitionists and Their Tunnels. New York Folklore Quarterly 17(2):95–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stine, Linda F., Melanie A. Cabak, and Mark D. Groover 1996 Blue Beads as African-American Cultural Symbols. Historical Archaeology 30(3):49–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Edward R. 1912 The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Magazine 36:309–318.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vlach, John M. 2004 Above Ground on the Underground Railroad: Places of Flight and Refuge. In Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory, David W. Blight, editor, pp. 95–115. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkie, Laurie 2000 Creating Freedom: Material Culture and African American Identity at Oakley Plantation, Louisiana, 1840–1950. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkie, Laurie 2001 Methodist Intentions and African Sensibilities: The Victory of African Consumerism over Planter Paternalism at a Bahamian Plantation. In Island Lives: Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean, Paul Farnsworth, editor, pp. 264–275. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, Jane 2004 Telling It Like It Was at Rokeby: The Evolution of an Underground Railroad Historic Site in Vermont. In Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory, David W. Blight, editor, pp. 249–260. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wurst, LouAnn 1999 Residues of Reform: Problems and Prospects for the Archaeology of Social Movements. Paper presented at the 32nd Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Salt Lake City, UT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yakutchik, Maryalice 1987 The Underground Railroad in Berks County. Reading Eagle Times (15 February):E1,E5. Reading, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yentsch, Anne 1994 A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA, 19530, USA

    James A. Delle

  2. The Louis Berger Group, Inc., 2445 M Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC, 20037, USA

    Jason Shellenhamer

Authors
  1. James A. Delle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jason Shellenhamer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Delle, J.A., Shellenhamer, J. Archaeology at the Parvin Homestead: Searching for the Material Legacy of the Underground Railroad. Hist Arch 42, 38–62 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03377073

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03377073

Search

Navigation