Tom Calarco

In “The Underground Railroad in the Adirondack Region,” Tom Calarco painstakingly builds a weighty narrative of abolitionist fervor and illicit transportation of runaway slaves in Upstate New York in the 1830s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. It’s an illuminating and intriguing read.

Mr. Calarco shows how, against the backdrop of faith-based reform movements – suffrage, temperance, and abolition – the growth of abolitionist sentiment generated a very active clergy and legal community which show more helped runaways. He also recounts the additional hardships placed on coloreds – the accepted term at the time – which pervasive racial prejudice imposed.
I had never explored this subject before. Here are some of the aspects of the movement Mr. Calarco brought to light for me:

- The abolitionists were divided among themselves: various factions favored a “whatever means necessary” approach to immediate abolition, while others thought such militant talk was dangerous and counterproductive. They did agree, however, that abolition should be immediate and universal.

- Abolitionists did not immediately split from the colonization movement (which favored relocation of blacks to Africa and support for their government there), but ultimately learned of the movement’s racial hatred and reactionary nature, and avowed their opposition.

- One odd aspect of the movement: its adherents were quite slow to pursue political action to achieve its ends, but this is perhaps because of the very long odds they faced in that arena.

Along the way, we get an up-close view of the stiff-backed and uncompromising John Brown, some of whose opinions even Frederick Douglass found objectionable; the frightening practice of kidnapping, by which slave hunters abducted free blacks and sold them into slavery; the insights of the intuitive and charismatic Sojourner Truth.

Mr. Calarco tells us the Underground Railroad story of Upstate, particularly eastern, New York State has been omitted from the history texts; well, now there is no longer any excuse for that. Closely researched and engagingly told, Mr. Calarco’s work very ably fills the gap for those of us lucky enough pick it up. Recommended.

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I found this book inspiring -- not just because of its subject but because the author, Tom Calarco, has created such a meticulous and readable account of what is, after all, a rather esoteric corner of American history – the existence and operation of the Underground Railroad in one relatively small part of the country -- with few of the usual academic or professional credentials that conventional wisdom says are needed to snag a publisher's interest. Calarco is, as is noted on the back of show more the book, a “professional writer and researcher” who became interested in the subject of the Underground Railroad and set himself to learning as much about it as he could, and after a decade of poring through historical archives and old newspaper articles from the period, visiting sites thought to have been stops on the Underground Railroad, tracking down local legends and oral history, and interviewing locals in towns and villages throughout the Adirondack region, he had the material for a book, and here it is.

The book has the physical dimensions of a textbook, and at first I expected it to be dry and academic, but it was anything but. Calarco takes us into the lives of the fugitive slaves who became abolitionists after successfully escaping their own bondage – like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth – as well as the many white abolitionists – most of them deeply religious Christians who actually took the precepts of their faith to heart. The book is filled with detailed maps, drawings, and both current and contemporary photographs. Amazingly, Calarco drew all the maps himself. I learned a lot from this book. For one thing, I had not realized how many slaves gained their freedom via the Underground Railroad – thousands, maybe tens of thousands. It's instructive to realize that even at a time when both the existence and the legitimacy of slavery were taken for granted by so many white Americans – probably most – there were still significant numbers who were not 'men and women of their time,' as the exculpatory cliché goes. Even in the worst periods of our history, there have been those individuals who remained decent and humane, who did not accept the seemingly immovable realities of the time in which they were born when they knew them to be wrong, and who did something about it. show less

This is a simple book, its mainly use would come to those looking for genealogical records and for specific information on the underground railroad. It does what it sets out to do, to talk about the Underground Railroad in upstate New York. Like a lot of books that just focus on a certain region there are a lot of names to wade through, and many different relationships. And this book is no different. But it does provide a portrait of the region as it tried to come to terms of a changing show more country. It might over blow the importance of this region on the Underground Railroad, that is a problem that these type of books have, but it does provide a historian a more nuance look at a specific place during a specific time period. A place that might get lost in the larger overall picture. show less

Tom Calarco simply intended to write the story his title implies, the history of The Underground Railroad in the Adirondack region and, although the book has a few minor flaws, Calarico exceeded his goal. My problems with the book are minor. As someone more familiar with the Underground Railroad than the Adirondacks I would have welcomed a simple map or description of the area being covered early in the book. I know I am nit picking here, it was very easy for me to familiarize myself with show more the area and most people reading the book will already be familiar with the region. Calarco also mentioned using local histories in his research. As a “professionally trained” historian I know that many of these were published in the late 19th century simply as “vanity history”. Families were interviewed and, if they ordered copies of the books, their stories were included. My concerns about the book being built on family myths were unfounded. Calarico looked at these sources skeptically and used them only when their stories were supported by solid primary evidence.

Calarco concentrated on the Adirondack Region but he did not ignore other areas or national actors when they were important to the narrative. The Improvement Associations and Vigilance Committees started in the 1830s by men and women of color are correctly given credit as the earliest resistance organizations in the area and as the origins of what became known as the Underground Railroad. The Liberty Party, an abolitionist political party that recommended secession, for the North, long before the American Civil War is covered in more detail than I have seen in my other readings. Abolitionist newspapers were a major resource for the book and they were well used. Calarco extracts names, puts together membership roles and, what I most enjoyed, he managed to give examples of the writings that have been criticized for making escape more difficult for freedom seeking bondsman by taunting the slaveholders. Also included are examples of these messages being used for misdirection, printed reports that specific slaves were in Canada when in fact they were close to discovery by slave hunters.

Part two of Calarco’s book consists of chapters mapping out theoretical routes of the Underground Railroad through the various towns and counties in the region reconstructed using the names extracted from membership roles and newspaper articles. Because these routes are theoretical Calarco is able to make full use of all the stories he has gathered and he fully explains that they need further documentation. Like the first section this is well illustrated with contemporarily illustrations and modern photographs. This section of the book and the appendices will be very popular with local historians and genealogists with its many names and dates.

I recommend the book for anyone researching the Underground Railroad or the Adirondack region, it is a well-documented, well-researched history and it is an enjoyable read. I look forward to reading more of his work. show less