GDG- Another few cents on the New Museum...

Wed Apr 16 12:24:40 CDT 2008

John,

One of the best books I've read on the subject, and which looks at many of the claims about the UGRR with great skepticism, is "Runaway Slaves" co-authored by John Hope Franklin. One of the greatest dangers in planning and attempting escape was betrayal by fellow slaves either out of fear or greed. Secrecy was essential so, as you point out, hard evidence is very hard to find and often piecemeal. 

Regards,

Margaret
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: "John Rudy" <john.m.rudy at gmail.com>

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:00:32 
To:GDG <gettysburg at arthes.com>
Subject: Re: GDG- Another few cents on the New Museum...

Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:

Don't get me wrong, Jack, I will be one of the first to jump for joy if we
can nail Hopkins to the wall as an active participant in the UGRR.  I think
I have a pretty good inkling on who gave that presentation at HACC.
Hopkins', and the Black Ducks', story is mistifying and very exciting, if
true.  Hence why so many people keep passing it along on shoddy evidence:
because it's a great Hollywood-style tale.

And I DO use Jack's tale in my tour pamphlet and on the campus, although I
focus more in his status in the community and the verifiables.  His funeral
WAS the only other time the college community processed anywhere as a group
other than Lincoln's speech.  His damage claim, placed by Baugher's wife and
Mrs. Hopkins after his death, is a trove of expensive goods, an anomoly for
a freedman.  But the source for his abolitionism?  Unverifiable and
solitary.  Was he most likely, as a leader in the black community, a man
with abolitionist tendencies?  Yes.  But can we definitivelty call him one
without the proper preponderence of sources?  That's all I'm asking for in
this case: hard evidence and not simple conjecture.

I use the Black Ducks in tours of the campus, too, but I always qualify
(unfortunatley my qualifications were edited out of my pamphlet by the
college PR office) that this tale is not history, but merely commonly held
myth around town.  The connection to "Glim's Cave" on Culp's Hill, the dance
master Manuel and the supposed runaway slave "black as the ace of spades,
master after him" who was brought to the door of the fraternity is only
verifiable with ONE source.  That single source is relatively self-serving,
chronologically-distant and self-congratulatory, at that.

Why do I use the tale?  I assume that some students on the campus would have
felt this way.  It peers into the feelings of the campus in the 1850s.  I
always offset the story with an equally interesting story of the 1850
Valdevictorian of Penn. Coll, who later went on to fight in a Virginia
infantry regiment and be captured in Pickett's Charge.

The UGRR was an ad-hoc arrangement, but certainly wasn't a paperless
society.  Letters were transmitted between "stations" warning of new
"passengers," so that if problems arose the conspirators knew they might
have a few extra black faces to take care of.  People wrote about the
fugitivies in diaries and daybooks, noting they watched someone for a night
here or two there.  I've found diaries actually stating that a "fugitive"
passed through one night. We DO have hard evidence of passages along the
route.

BUT, I've yet to see hard evidence of passages involving the Black Ducks or
Jack Hopkins.  If it solidly dates from the 1850s, then it holds much more
weight than items like the lithograph or the post-war articles by J. Howard
Wert.

I want these tales to be true just as much as you all do, but right now
compelling evidence says I still need to call them myth and conjecture.  I
desperately want someone to prove me wrong on this, believe me.  When
someone finds the smoking guns, or even finds the right sources to form this
argument, then I'll promptly eat my hat.

But until then we need to stop making unqualified statements, such as the
one sentence summary on Third Ward Gettysburg's site "John "Jack" Hopkins,
janitor at Gettysburg College, worked closely with Thaddeus Stevens and a
secret fraternity known as the 'Black Ducks', or BD's to help runaway slaves
passing through Gettysburg. "
(http://www.thirdwardgettysburg.org/7.html)

-John Rudy

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 8:15 PM, jack <jlawrence at kc.rr.com> wrote:

>
> I attended a talk about Hopkins at the HACC a few yeas ago. John "Jck
> Hopkins" became one of my real f Gettysburg, surpassing Lee, Chamberlain
> whomever.
> Hopkins was a freedom fighter before the term was coined.
> John "Jack" Hopkins, janitor at Gettysburg College, worked closely with
> Thaddeus Stevens and a secret fraternity known as the "Black Ducks", or BD's
> to help runaway slaves passing through Gettysburg. They constructed a man
> made cave on culps hill out of two slabs of parallel standing stone. It is
> still there today, never incorporated into the uster. Hopkins was the
> connection between the balck community and tgese left wing students of the
> day. When Hopkins brought a fugititive through, a few of the ducks would
> distract the Southern students, often by rolling cannonballs up and down the
> hallways. Others would lead the escaped slaves up to the man made cave or
> other places of refuge. It was the sort of ad hoc arrangement that typified
> the underground railroad.
>
> Hopkins was a storied citizen of Gettysburg, despite his supposed low
> status as originally a free dman. When  Hopkins retired, he invited a lot of
> townsmen to a party at his house. It was a mark of status to be invited. The
> crowd was so large that the dancers danced out of the house and around the
> block. He was revered in his day.
>
> The house is still there at 219 Washington street, down from the hospital.
> There is an interpretive sign outside.
>
> It marks the house. Because the house is outside of  he park, the town
> does the interpretation. Not wanting to disturd any of the followers of the
> Lost Cause Mythos, it does not even touch on slavery, let alone the bravery
> of Hopkins or hie heroic efforts. It makes him seem like part of the
> janitors hall of fame.
>
> I'm hoping that the new VC, in some hiddeen cranny or obscure pamphlet, at
> least talks about Jack hopkins and the BLACK DUCKS.
>
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