Harriet Tubman National Historical Park

This article is about the historical park in New York. For the park in Maryland, see Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park.

Harriet Tubman National Historical Park
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
U.S. National Historical Park
Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged
Interactive map showing the location of Harriet Tubman National Park
Location	Auburn, New York
Coordinates	42°54′39.97″N 76°34′4.01″W
Website	Harriet Tubman National Historical Park
NRHP reference No.	74001222 (original) 01000073 (increase)
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	May 30, 1974 (original) January 3, 2001 (increase)
Designated NHL	May 30, 1974
Designated NHP	January 10, 2017

Harriet Tubman National Historical Park is a US historical park in Auburn and Fleming, New York. Associated with the life of Harriet Tubman, it has three properties: the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, in Auburn; the nearby Harriet Tubman Residence, just across the city/town line in Fleming; and the Thompson A.M.E. Zion Church and parsonage in Auburn. They are located at 180 and 182 South Street and 47–49 Parker Street, respectively. The A.M.E. Zion Church unit is administered by the National Park Service (NPS), and the South Street properties, including a historic barn and a visitor center, are jointly managed and operated by both the NPS and the Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. The church also works with the NPS in park operations. The Harriet Tubman Grave, in nearby Fort Hill Cemetery, is not part of the park.

The group of properties also makes up a National Historic Landmark, with the first parcel being declared in 1974 and two others added in 2001.

Tubman was a major conductor on the Underground Railroad and was known as the "Moses of her people." She moved to Auburn with her parents after she had spent eight to ten years in St. Catharines, Ontario. She continued working as a suffragist and worked all her life to care for others who were unable to care for themselves.

The Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged is the house in which she fulfilled her dream of opening a home for poor and elderly African-Americans. In 1911, she was admitted there herself, and she remained there until her death in 1913.

The Harriet Tubman Residence was Tubman's home during much of the time that she lived in Auburn, from 1859 to 1913. The land was sold to her in 1859 by the politician William H. Seward.

Thompson A.M.E. Zion Church is the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in which Harriet Tubman attended services. Later in her life, she deeded the Home for the Aged to the church for it to manage after her death.

History of home

Harriet Tubman Residence

Thompson A.M.E. Zion Church

Harriet Tubman moved with her parents from St.Catharines, Ontario to Auburn, New York, in 1857. They relocated to a brick home on the outskirts of Auburn located at 180 South Street that she had purchased from an acquaintance William H. Seward, which was an illegal transaction. Seward's deal along with being illegal was fairly priced with flexible terms, which probably stemmed from their friendship from the Underground Railroad.

In 1896, Tubman purchased a 25-acre parcel from a property next door, 182 South Street, for $1,450 (~$53,105 in 2023). The land would later become the Home for the Aged.

In 1903, she was forced to give it up because she could not afford to pay for it anymore. She donated it to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion Church) the same year with an agreement that it would continue to run the Home for the Aged. She was an active member of the AME Zion Church and supported the construction of the Thompson AME Church building as well.

In 1908, after working for five years to equip the staff the house become the Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly in which Harriet Tubman also lived. In 1911, her health would not allow that anymore, and she later became a patient herself until 1913, when she died. The Home for the Elderly continued to function for a couple of more years but then closed. The house became vacant in 1928 and was demolished in 1944 after it had been vacant for nearly 16 years.

In 1953, the house was rebuilt and restored in memory of Tubman's life and accomplishments. All of that was organized by the AME Zion Church to which Tubman had given the property to over 50 years earlier. Since 1953, two more buildings have been added to the property from the transitions of it becoming a historic site, national park, and public attraction.

The site received a prestigious Save America's Treasures grant in 2000.

In 2017, multiple sites related to Harriet Tubman had been labeled part of the National Historic Park:

Home for the Aged 180 South Street Auburn, NY 13021

Residence 182 South Street Auburn, NY 13021

AME Zion Church 33 Parker Street Auburn, NY 13021

National Historical Parks

The park in Auburn was established on January 10, 2017 at a signing ceremony at the US Department of the Interior in Washington, DC. US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell was joined by New York lawmakers and local and federal officials in creating the 51st National Historical Park and the 414th US national park system unit. The park will focus on the later years of Tubman's life.

The park joins another NPS area in Maryland in interpreting the life of Tubman. Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park includes her birthplace, as well as Underground Railroad routes in three counties of Maryland's Eastern Shore. The sister park in Maryland was established first, on December 19, 2014, and incorporates much of the previously-authorized Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, which had been designated in 2013.

Tubman moved to Auburn, New York, after she had spent eight to 10 years in St. Catharines, Ontario, from which she also moved her parents. Tubman's life is commemorated in the Ontario city at Salem Chapel National Historic Site, the church that she frequented, and it is still home to an active congregation. Federal plaques there include one that says she was designated as a National Historic Person.

See also

• List of Underground Railroad sites
• Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway (Maryland)
• Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway (Delaware)

External links

• Official website at the National Park Service
• Harriett Tubman at NY History
• Harriet Tubman Home - visiting information
• Aboard the Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Harriet Tubman Residence, and Thompson AME Zion Church, at National Park Service Archived June 10, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
• Places Where Women Made History: Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, at National Park Service