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

[jack]

Hello.

Don't get me wromng either, but there is of course a source here. I'm not 
going to get ninvolved in a local thing, as I pride myself on having no axes 
to grind. But there is a source and a "single source" is still a source and 
a pretty valid source if it is unrefuted. You can dismiss it as being 
unsubstantiated, but all that means is you don't agree with it.

You know, the real problem here is the undocumented nature or the 
Underground Railroad. There are no schedules and no t a lot of people wrote 
things down. They might send a warning ahead, but they were unlikely to keep 
detailed journals.

This is a situation in where you havev to look at the story and see if it 
makes sense. The story makes sense. And it has a source.

You can believe it or disbelieve it. You have chosen not to believe it. Fine 
with me.

I don't have a dog inthis one.

 Regards,

jaCk


But you still can't disprove it.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Rudy" <john.m.rudy at gmail.com>
To: "GDG" <gettysburg at arthes.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:00 PM
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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