Talk: Freedom-Seeking Families in Farmington

A local history talk in Macedon this week is really about something much bigger — how freedom-seeking Black families moved through western New York and found protection inside Quaker communities. Historian and author Marjory Allen Perez will present a free program on Sunday, May 17, at Macedon Academy, focused on families who came out of slavery in Maryland and Delaware and settled near Farmington and Macedon. The event is being co-sponsored by the 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse Museum and the Macedon Historical Society. ### Why this talk now? Because the story people usually know is the broad one — “the Underground Railroad” as a heroic network. But the useful question is what happened after escape. Perez’s program shifts the lens from routes and hiding places to families, settlement, and community ties in the Farmington circle between 1800 and 1865. (fingerlakes1.com) ### What is Perez actually covering? The talk is framed around three freedom-seeking families: Aaron and Betsey Brister, Anna Riggs Woodlin and her five children, and Hanson and Eliza Waples. That matters because it turns an abstract history into named people with routes, kin, and choices — not anonymous figures passing through. (fingerlakesdailynews.com) ### Why Farmington? Farmington was not just another small town with sympathetic residents. The 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse describes itself as a site tied to equal-rights movements involving African Americans, women, and Native Americans, and local history groups describe the Farmington Quaker community as an integral hub in the network that helped freedom seekers leave slavery. Basically, this was a place where antislavery belief and organized community overlapped. (macedonhistoricalsociety.org) ### Why does Macedon fit into that story? Because Macedon sat inside the same regional reform geography. The academy hosting the event promoted equality, drew many students from Quaker families, and even hosted Frederick Douglass on March 6, 1861. So the venue is not random — it is part of the same moral and political landscape the talk is about. (farmingtonmeetinghouse.org) ### Was this only about escape routes? No — and that is the interesting part. One local Erie Canal history project tied to Perez’s work makes the point directly: canals and canal towns were not only pathways to freedom, but places where people stayed and built lives. The shift from “flight” to “settlement” changes the story. It becomes about schools, churches, work, neighbors, and whether a region could actually absorb people leaving bondage. (wgpfoundation.org) ### Why focus on families instead of famous conductors? Because families show the risk more clearly. A single person fleeing enslavement is one story. A mother with children, or a couple trying to relocate together, is a different level of difficulty — slower, more visible, and much harder to protect. That is where communities like Farmington’s Quaker network become historically legible. They were not just cheering from the sidelines. (discovertheeriecanal.com) They had to make refuge practical. This last point is an inference from the family-centered framing of the program and the local descriptions of Farmington as a hub. ### So what should people know about the event? It is scheduled for 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 17, at Macedon Academy, 1185 Macedon Center Road, and it is free. Perez brings decades of family-history and African American research to the subject, which fits the talk’s emphasis on tracing real people through local records. (fingerlakesdailynews.com) ### Bottom line? This is a local program, but the theme is national. It asks a sharper question than most Underground Railroad events do — not just who escaped, but who helped entire families stay free once they arrived. (fingerlakesdailynews.com)