Belgian Transit of Venus Observation Site TX12188

The year 1639 marked the first recorded observation of Venus crossing the Sun. Sir Edmund Halley (1656-1742) later predicted that using data from such crossings, known as transits, scientists could precisely quantify the astronomical unit of distance and measure the size of the solar system. The transits of Venus predictably come in pairs, eight years apart, approximately every 120 years. Scientists from around the world traveled to observation sites during the next events, in 1761 and 1769, but timing of the transits was difficult due to the "black drop effect," in which two objects against a bright background appear to blend. For more than a century, astronomers prepared for the next opportunity to record Venus' transit. Jean-Charles Houzeau (1820-1888) was a Belgian astronomer with an eclectic history. From 1859 to 1861, he worked as a surveyor in Uvalde, Texas. An abolitionist, he left Texas at the start of the Civil War. In the late 1870s, he returned to Belgium, where he became director of the Royal Observatory and planned the Belgian teams that would go to the western hemisphere to observe the December 1882 transit of Venus. He chose one site in Chile and one (22 feet east) in San Antonio. Good observations required clear skies, and San Antonio offered the chance of favorable weather, as well as good logistics for communication and transportation. A U.S. Naval Observatory team observed from a site on the grounds of nearby Fort Sam Houston. Using a heliometer, a device he had developed for the observation, Houzeau obtained 124 photographic plates of Venus silhouetted against the Sun. Because of clearer conditions, the team in Chile obtained 606. The Belgian findings equaled those of larger nations, and Houzeau's decision to bring an international team to San Antonio provided the city recognition as part of astronomical history.

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Thomas Embree 1A29
In 1791, Seth Smith, a Pennsylvania stonemason, built the house 0.6 mile W. of Telford and 300 yards N. of the road for the Quaker father of Ellihu Embree, an early abolitionist, and his brother, Elijah, an early ironmaster. The family came from New Jersey. Sarah Hawkins, first wife of John Sevier, is buried near the house.

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Reverend John Graham : West Union Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church OH16-1

John Graham (1798-1849), pastor of the West Union Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church from 1841-1849, erected the house he called Pleasant Hill in 1842. An outspoken abolitionist who preached against the evils of slavery, Graham used his house as a station on the Underground Railroad. "Black Joe" Logan, an escaped slave who lived nearby, conducted runaways from Pleasant Hill to stations north. Reverend Graham died of Asiatic cholera in 1849 and is buried in the old West Union South Cemetery.

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Members of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church settled in Adams County as early as 1797. The West Union congregation was organized in 1812, and a lot was purchased for the construction of a public house of worship. This brick church, erected circa 1835, was used until 1895 when the congregation united with the Presbyterian Church. Under the leadership of Reverend Graham, many members of the congregation were actively involved in the Underground Railroad.

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John H. and Sarah Tibbets IN495

Side one:
The Tibbets provided assistance to fugitive slaves here in their home (now part of National Park Service, Network to Freedom); John piloted them to the next safe haven. Both were members of Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society and Anti-Slavery Regular Baptist Church at College Hill. John served as a trustee for the church and Eleutherian College.

Side two:
Free blacks from Madison and surrounding area and white abolitionists helped fugitive slaves. The Underground Railroad refers to a widespread network of diverse people in the nineteenth century who aided slaves escaping to freedom from the southern U.S.

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Owen Lovejoy Home IL18
The two-story frame structure was the home of abolitionist Owen Lovejoy, who was born in Maine in 1811. Lovejoy moved into the house in 1838, when he became a Congregationalist minister. He was a leader in the formation of the Republican Party in Illinois, and he served as a Representative in the State Legislature, 1855-1857, and in the United States Congress from 1857 until his death in 1864. His home was well known as a shelter for runaway slaves. Owen was a younger brother of Elijah Lovejoy, abolitionist editor, who was killed by a mob at Alton in 1837.

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Colonel William Preston KG8
One mile west is Smithfield, old home of Col. Wm. Preston, who materially guided the destiny of the Virginia frontier from the French and Indian War through the Revolution. On this estate two Virginia governors were born; James P. Preston, 1816-19; John B. Floyd, 1849-52. The latter was son of another Virginia governor, John Floyd, 1830-34, who while in office advocated before the legislature abolition of slavery in Virginia. Virginia State Library, 1950.

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Holley Graded School O48
In 1868, Caroline Putnam (1826-1917) established a school for children of former slaves here. In 1869, her lifelong friend, Sallie Holley (1818-1893) of N.Y., abolitionist and suffragette, purchased this two-acre site. Holley was an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society from 1851 to 1870. In 1917 this site was deeded to the board of eleven local black trustees. The third school built here was begun in 1914 and completed in 1933 with funds raised solely within the black community. The four-room structure was the largest black elementary school in Northumberland County. Since 1917 Holley Graded School has remained under the trustees’ control.

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Lombard Street Riot PA2513
Here on August 1, 1842 an angry mob of whites attacked a parade celebrating Jamaican Emancipation Day. A riot ensued. African Americans were beaten and their homes looted. The rioting lasted for 3 days. A local church & abolition meeting place were destroyed by fire.

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Freemanville Settlement FL162

Founded soon after the U.S. Civil War, the settlement that would become “Freemanville” was established by Dr. John Milton Hawks, an abolitionist and Union Army surgeon, along with other Union Army officers and the Florida Land & Lumber Company. In 1866, roughly 500 former slaves, many of whom had fought for the Union during the war, and their families initially settled here. An additional 1,000 freed slaves would arrive via steamboats in the following months. Of the 3,000 blacks that made Florida their home, roughly half settled near the Halifax River, thus making this area the most populous in Volusia County at that time. In 1867, Dr. Hawks named the settlement Port Orange. Due to harsh farming conditions and poor supplies, the settlement, the Florida Land & Lumber Company, and the integrated school, disbanded in 1869. Many of the settlers returned to their home states or headed for area citrus groves looking for work. However, a few of those original freed slaves stayed. Over time, the settlement became known as “Freemanville.” Mt. Moriah Baptist Church is the last remaining structure from the pioneering African-American community in Port Orange known simply as Freemanville.

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Samuel Pleasants Parsons House SA62
Completed in 1819, 601 Spring Street was the home of Sameul Pleasants Parsons (1783-1842). Parson, a Quaker, was an early reform-minded superintendent (1816-1822, 1824-1932) of the Virginia State Penitentiary, formerly located across Belvidere Street. The Parsons family was part of a network of important Richmond Quaker families that were collectively involved in a series of abolition and prision reform activities. Parsons later served as a superintendent for the James River and Kanawha Company and was a founder of the Mechanicsville Turnpike. The house is part of the Oregon Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

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