A mere mention of Harriet Tubman or Fredrick Douglass conjures up images of formerly enslaved people, abolitionists and the struggle for freedom for enslaved Africans. Both New York residents, Tubman was from Auburn and Douglass from Rochester, they directed thousands of enslaved people to freedom.

But less is widely known about the role central New York played in creating the “underground railroad,” a network of safe houses and routes, from points in the southern United States to the country’s northern borders, used during the 1800s to get runaway enslaved people to freedom in free states and Canada.

Curator of history for the Onondaga Historical Association, Robert Searing, says Syracuse, New York became the “great