Phoenixville Underground Railroad claims disputed (did we expect anything less?)

Nice try.

Unfortunately, this article has no balance whatsoever.

Where are the interviews with those who have first-hand knowledge of the stories of slave burials on the former Reeves mansion/Phoenix Park grounds?

Where are the comments of those who actually entered the tunnel(s)?

Just as well. This case is going to court, and, if need be, I and others can and will testify to our intimate knowledge of the mansion and it's grounds.

There are some things which just won't stay buried.


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Phoenixville Underground Railroad claims disputed

Sunday, August 2, 2009

By Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

PHOENIXVILLE — Claims that the site of a controversial senior housing project at the eastern gateway to the borough was once home to a station on the Underground Railroad are unsubstantiated in a 30-page report to the state, according to the project's developer.

The project — an 81-unit facility for low-income seniors, proposed by the nonprofit St. Peters Housing Development Corp. — is currently before Phoenixville Borough Council, which has announced its intention to issue a decision Aug. 11 on a conditional-use application.

The 1.8-acre parcel, near the corner of Starr and Bridge streets, is also the subject of a legal dispute in which two factions connected to the Holy Ghost church are both claiming ownership of the property.

Further complicating deliberations is the question of whether the site, once home to the Reeves family mansion, was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the unofficial name given to the network of safe-houses used by abolitionists to help runaway slaves escape in the time preceding the Civil War.

The Rev. James Evans, of St. Peters Housing, said Thursday that a Temple University professor of African American Studies sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission which claimed just that, and which said tunnels on the site nearly 2,000 feet in length were once used to hide runaway slaves.

Nilgun Anadolu Okur sent the letter and also wrote that the site may host African-American grave sites that could be disturbed by the construction.

Not so, according to the report by Noble Preservation Services, Evans said. The PHMC contacted him and alerted him to the letter, asking for a report addressing the concerns raised in Okur's letter.

Earlier attempts to contact Okur via e-mail were unsuccessful.

Evans said the report, which he declined to provide to The Mercury prior to the state agency's ruling, found little or no evidence to support Okur's claims. He said the professor's letter "had very precise dimensions" for the tunnel, which was said to run from the Reeves mansion to the Schuylkill River, which turned out "to be the exact dimensions of the Black Rock railroad tunnel three-eighths of a mile away."

Further, in addition to the consultant finding no physical evidence of the tunnels, Evans said the report concluded the likelihood of one existing from the mansion to the river is almost non-existent.

"The mansion was built in 1850," Evans said. "So the tunnel would have had to go under the railroad tracks, and a tunnel that long would have required a massive number of workers and could not have been done in secret."

Further, he said, the report noted that the work force available to the Reeves family, majority owners of the Phoenix Steel" were largely Irish, "and the Irish workers of that period were very anti-abolitionist and there's no way a project of that size, dug by Irish workers, could be kept secret."

The report also cites two detailed books on the abolition movement in Chester County from the 1800s, one written just 10 years after the end of the Civil War, which make no mention of the Reeves family; although, they do mention other Phoenixville abolitionists, Evans said.

The report also noted that while the Reeves family may well have had paid African-American servants, they would not have been buried on the property, but in cemeteries in the community, said Evans.

What is on the site, Evans said, is most likely "an extensive root cellar and wine cellar" that could well have extended beyond the foundation of the house.

Evans said he was "pastor to Tom Reeves, the last member of the Reeves family to be raised in that house," who died last year.

"I specifically asked him if there were any family stories about them being involved in the Underground Railroad, and he said, 'Absolutely not,'" Evans said.

Noble also interviewed David Frees Jr., the president and a founder of the Phoenixville Historical Society, whose grandparents lived on the Reeves property, "and there were no stories about the Underground Railroad."

Evans said he has spoken "with people who are believable" who said they were in a tunnel, but that they were "collapsed" 17 to 18 feet from the mansion, "but that could well be a root cellar."

The earliest information linking the site to the Underground Railroad is not prior to the 1960s, he said.

Evans said he expects a decision from the state historic agency within the next three weeks.

In the end, Evans said he views these claims as another attempt to block the project, which does not yet have funding from the federal Housing and Urban Development agency, like other St. Peter's facilities; although, a funding request will be made at some point.

"One year ago, those who opposed this project wanted to stop it based on environmental issues," but after an environmental cleanup was done at the site, "then those opposed stopped going on about the environment and started talking about the Underground Railroad," Evans said.

"I still think it's a good site, but I don't know if it will happen because of the lawsuit" between the two church groups, both of which claim to be the title holder," Evans said.

"That's an internal issue for the church to settle and we are not party to that in any way," Evans said.

"We're just trying to provide housing for low-income elderly, which I view as an act of Christian charity."





http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2009/08/02/news/srv0000005990110.txt