Tracing the Steps of Harriet Tubman in Auburn, New York

I’m sure you know about Harriet Tubman, who famously saved many enslaved people during the Civil War by personally transporting them through the Underground Railroad. But I’ll bet there’s a lot you don’t know about her, such as the fact that she settled in Auburn, Cayuga County, New York and lived there until her death in 1913.

As a result, you can visit her grave, her home, and her church in the area, as well as other sites significant to the Underground Railroad.

I was fortunate to take part in a recent subsidized press trip through the area, along with other travel journalists and influencers. It was extremely moving, and the region is exceptionally beautiful because it’s situated in New York’s Finger Lakes area.

Our first stop on our itinerary was the New York Equal Rights Heritage Center at 25 South Street, which focuses on much more than Harriet, but she is certainly a big part of it. For example, there’s a beautiful bronze statue of her in the courtyard of the building and a Harriet Tubman Memorial Mosaic on the rear wall (facing Lincoln Street).

Just steps from that building sits the Seward House Museum at 33 South Street. It’s the home of William H. Seward, a New York State Senator, a U.S. Senator, a New York Governor, and the U.S. Secretary of State under President Lincoln. He also famously negotiated the purchase of Alaska, so his home contains some Native Alaskan artifacts from that time.

His wife, Frances Seward, is the one who invited Harriet to move to Auburn from Canada, and Frances even sold Harriet the property where she built her home. That sale was illegal at the time because women were not allowed to own property.

Frances Seward was an avid abolitionist, while her politician husband was more “anti-slavery.” Abolitionists wanted to end all slavery immediately, while anti-slavery advocates wanted to end it gradually so as not to cause economic problems.

Despite this disagreement among the Sewards, their basement was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad and now houses an exhibit called, “Forged in Freedom: The Bond of the Seward and Tubman Families.”

Almost everything in the Seward home is original, and it contains quite a few historic artifacts, including Seward’s diplomatic gallery with many photos of presidents, kings, queens, foreign ministers, and diplomats from around the world during his time period. There are also gorgeous family portraits by Emanuel Leutze, who is the famous painter of “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

After visiting the Seward House Museum, take a stroll on Auburn’s historic South Street. It’s not only lovely but contains several historic buildings.

From there, we visited Fort Hill Cemetery, which is where you can find Harriet Tubman-Davis’s grave and headstone, which is engraved, “Servant of God, Well Done.” Her nieces and nephews planted a pine tree behind it, which makes her grave easy to find. The tree is now quite large.

Another stop is the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park on 47 Parker Street in Auburn. This is the site of Harriet’s church at the time of her death, which she helped raise funds to build. She specified in her will that the church would oversee her estate and legacy. Called the Thompson Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion Church for short), it’s open to the public and has been restored to its 1913 appearance. It now acts as a welcome center for the Park.

We were also very excited to meet one of Harriet’s very own descendants. While we were visiting the church, Harriet’s great great grandniece drove by in her car and graciously chatted with us for a few minutes. That was a huge and welcome surprise!

Not to be missed is the Harriet Tubman Visitor Center on the grounds of her home and the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, which she built for former enslaved people who needed a place to live as they grew older. The AME Zion Church established a non-profit called the Harriet Tubman Home, Inc., which maintains the homestead.

The highlight of our visit to this location was the presentation by Reverend Paul Carter, who is the last person to live in the home and the last pastor at AME Zion Church in its original location. Watch the video to learn the proper terms to use when talking about slavery.

Rev. Carter has been giving these presentations for more than 30 years and doesn’t seem to have tired of it at all. Clearly, he’s passionate about communicating Harriet’s legacy, and he does so in a way that masterfully strikes a balance between reverence and humor. I think it takes great skill to bring tasteful humor to a presentation on such painful subject matter. He was so much fun to listen to!

But now, let’s talk a little more about Harriet herself. She was born into slavery around 1820 in Maryland (her exact birthdate, as is true of many enslaved people of the time, is uncertain). She escaped at the assumed age of 27, after which she traveled back to Maryland at great risk to rescue more members of her family and other enslaved people as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

Harriet is also the only woman who led troops during the Civil War, and there is no record of her ever losing a soldier. She served as a spy and a nurse for the Union Army as well.

When she was 13 years old, a white enslaver threw a two-pound weight in anger toward an enslaved man. Harriet jumped in the middle and took a blow to the back of her head, which left her with what doctors now believe is a type of epilepsy. At first, they thought it was narcolepsy because she periodically passed out from the injury and would wake up sometime later ready to finish her sentence.

She suffered great pain from this for most of the rest of her life until she had surgery. But she chose to bite on a bullet rather than be given anesthesia. Wow!

We were told that Harriet was the type of person who would give someone else the last two coins in her purse. Sometimes, people diminish her legacy because she wasn’t the only conductor on the Underground Railroad. But after you hear more about her, even beyond her days as a conductor, you become aware of what an extraordinarily strong, courageous, and unfailingly generous woman she was. Considering everything she went through, it’s amazing she lived to be about 91 years old.

Harriet never had any biological children, and her second husband predeceased her by a few years. She did adopt a child, however, named Gertie Davis.

If you’ve seen the film, Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo, you know some of what you’re reading here, but we were told that the film is not 100% accurate. Still, it’s “mostly” accurate.

To get to Auburn, you can fly into Rochester and drive about 1-1/4 hours or fly into Syracuse and drive just over a half hour.

If you start in Rochester or just want to make that trip, you can visit the graves of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass at Mt. Hope Cemetery, as well as the Let’s Have Tea Sculpture at 31 Madison Street depicting Susan and Frederick having tea together, as they were good friends. This sculpture is in a small park across the street from the Susan B. Anthony Museum, which I will have to go back to visit.

While you’re in the area, be sure to do some hiking and visit the Finger Lakes because it’s absolutely stunning. But I can’t recommend visiting the Harriet Tubman sites enough, especially if you’re a history buff. It will bring this important historical figure to life for you and help you see her as she truly was.

We stayed at the three-star Hilton Garden Inn at 74 State Street in Auburn, which was perfectly fine for our purposes, but there are more luxurious places to stay if you prefer. Nearby Aurora, New York is famous for its historic Inns of Aurora, so you might want to check those out. I wasn’t able to go inside them, but their exteriors were gorgeous.

Be sure to also read my article on where to eat in the area, and let me just say you will NOT be disappointed! There are a number of incredible restaurants that I can’t praise enough, and you simply must try to have a meal at each one. Of course, this area is also famous for its wineries. We only had time to visit one that makes wine from apples, which I wrote about in my “where to eat” story.