Press Release: Bowne House Historical Society Awarded National Grant to Research and Map Civil War-Era Underground Railroad Escape Routes in Queens and Long Island

The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom has awarded Flushing, Queens’ Bowne House Historical Society a significant grant to research, identify and map Underground Railroad networks and escape routes used by freedom-seekers through the relatively unknown “backwaters” of Civil War-era Queens and Long Island.

Mapping the Underground Railroad at the Bowne House: Flushing & Beyond aims to document the museum’s ties to various Underground Railroad networks, the broader Abolition Movement, and other now vanished Black history sites throughout Queens and Long Island.

Press Release: 300 Years of Queens Records Prepare to Go Public: New Grant Awarded to Bowne House Historical Society Will Facilitate Access Back to 1661

On September 29th, Bowne House Historical Society of Flushing, Queens received a substantial grant from the New York Preservation Archive Project in a ceremony on the Bowne House grounds. This grant, part of NYPAP’s Shelby White & Leon Levy Archival Assistance Initiative, will allow Bowne House Historical Society to digitize and share its rich archival collections, which chronicle nine generations of one New York City family from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

The Leon Levy Foundation website features the Bowne House press release announcing the substantial grant to the museum made possible by the Foundation through the New York Preservation Archive Project.

Bowne House in "New York City and the Path to Freedom" Story Map

“New York City and the Path to Freedom”

Landmarks Associated with Abolitionist & Underground Railroad History

Bowne House is thrilled to be featured as one of only two designated landmarks in Queens associated with the Underground Railroad.

Introduction to “New York City and the Path to Freedom” Interactive Story Map:

New York City played an important role in the effort to abolish slavery nationwide, and to assist those seeking to escape it. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission created this interactive story map to bring greater awareness to the city’s abolitionist history through designated landmarks that embody it. Organized by borough, the map documents designated buildings associated with the multiple ways people and institutions engaged with the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War, whether through political and religious activism or by housing freedom seekers as part of Underground Railroad networks. The map also highlights landmarks associated with New York’s free black communities established in the 19th century in the period before nationwide emancipation.

-The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission, February 2022

Thrillist: Where to Learn About NYC's Black History

Bowne House is featured on Thrillist:

Where to Learn About NYC’s Black History

This list of museums, burial grounds, and landmarks across New York City, highlights Bowne House as an Underground Railroad Safe House.

From Thrillist:

Underground Railroad Safe Houses

Flushing, Queens
Flushing, Queens, has been documented as a part of the Underground Railroad—a clandestine network of people, houses, and routes that transported Africans escaping enslavement in the South to freedom in the North—and one of its most important stops was Bowne House. As the oldest building in Queens that was built in 1661, its rich history of three centuries documents the Bowne family’s abolitionist activities and role in anti-slavery movements, and not only is it an official New York City landmark, but it’s also on the National Register of Historic Places. An additional documented historic landmark connected to the Underground Railroad is the Flushing Quaker Meeting House, built in 1694 by John Bowne and other Quakers as a monument to early religious freedom in the colonial United States.

- Kemi Ibeh, “Where to Learn About NYC’s Black History,” February 2022

Bowne House Featured in New York Archives Magazine, Winter 2022 Issue

Bowne House Historical Society is featured in New York Archives Magazine’s Winter 2022 issue, in celebration of the museum's induction into the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

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Credit: NY Archives Magazine, Winter 2022, www.nyarchivestrust.org

From New York Archives Magazine, Winter 2022:

Congratulations to the Bowne House Historical Society for its induction into the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The only designation of its kind in Queens, Bowne House joins more than 695 other Network admissions made since the program’s founding in 1998.

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Bowne House in "Beyond the Village and Back" Story Map

Bowne House is featured in Village Preservation’s new Story Map project, titled "Beyond the Village and Back." This series highlights landmarks and cultural institutions throughout New York City outside of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, celebrating their special histories and revealing their (sometimes hidden) connections to the neighborhoods of lower Manhattan.

Follow this virtual map throughout 35 sites, including Bowne House! Learn about John Bowne's foundational role in establishing the American system of religious freedom and his connection to one of the East Village's earliest -and most notorious- residents.

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This project is based on a series in Village Preservation’s Off the Grid blog, which featured a post about Bowne House titled “Bowne House in Flushing Queens-Birthplace of Religious Freedom in America” by Joey Rodriguez, published on September 18, 2020. Rodriguez explores the Bowne House’s foundational role in establishing the American system of religious freedom, the Flushing Remonstrance, and the connection of many of John Bowne’s descendants and residents of the Bowne House to abolition and the anti-slavery movements, including their participation in the Underground Railroad.

Bowne House Historical Society Has Been Admitted to the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

The National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom has announced the selection of the Bowne House Historical Society in Flushing, Queens as one of its newest members.

The only Network to Freedom designation in the Borough of Queens, and one of only a few in Greater New York, Bowne House is one of 18 new admissions made during the 42nd round of Network applications. Recognized for the strength of its extensive archival holdings, Bowne House has been designated as a facility for the research of Underground Railroad history in New York.

The Bowne House Celebrates Its 360th Anniversary

The Bowne House has been featured in The Magazine ANTIQUES, in celebration of the home’s 360th anniversary. The magazine is America’s premier publication on the fine and decorative arts, architecture, preservation, and interior design.

Bowne House Article Reflects on the 100th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage

Bertha Parsons, circa 1940s (Bowne House Archives)

The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York was the first women’s rights convention. Among the signers of the “Declaration of Sentiments” promulgated at the convention was Lucretia Coffin Mott, a Quaker, abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Lucretia Mott attended the same Quaker Nine Partners boarding school as Eliza Bowne (1787-1852), a Bowne House resident, and graduated soon after her before embarking on her distinguished career.

Flushing, Queens has its own heroines to celebrate when the United States marks the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage on August 18, 2020. The Parsons sisters Anna (1859-1948) and Bertha (1869-1946), the last of the Bowne/Parsons descendants to live in the Bowne House, were contemporaries of Eliza MacDonald (1845-1937), organizer and President of the Flushing Equal Franchise Association in 1913 and Vice-President of the Queens branch of the New York Woman Suffrage Party in 1916. We do not know if the Parsons sisters knew Eliza MacDonald or if they were ever publicly involved in advocating for suffrage, but we do know they took their civic responsibilities seriously. Anna participated in the Flushing Female Association which provided free education to African-American children in Flushing, including those of former slaves, and Bertha assisted the Flushing Workers Association in providing daycare and other aid to children of working women. They were also both pioneers in preserving the legacy of the Bowne House.

The Parsons sisters were the last occupants of the Bowne House in a long line of strong independent minded women in the Bowne/Parsons’ families who lived in the house since 1661 and whose social and civic contributions to the Flushing and greater New York City community are detailed in an article which is newly published here on August 18, 2020.  

New Bowne House Article in Summer 2020 Issue of New York Archives

Letter of introduction by George Fox for Hannah Feake Bowne’s 1675 religious voyage to England. Source: Bowne House Archives

The pivotal role the Bowne House, built ca. 1661 in Flushing, Queens, played in the struggle for religious freedom in the United States is showcased in “Archives Around New York,” a column published in New York Archives (Summer 2020), the quarterly magazine of the New York State Archives Partnership Trust: https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/new-york-archives-magazine (Click this link to subscribe and read full issue, or scroll to bottom of page to read article posted below.) Each issue of the magazine profiles a historically important collection housed in New York State. Written by Bowne House archivist, Charlotte Jackson, and researcher, Kate Lynch, the current profile, titled “An Illustrious Family,” draws on documents in Bowne House’s rich archival holdings, which are professionally managed and conserved by the Bowne House Historical Society.

Jackson and Lynch’s article tells the story of 17th century Flushing residents John Bowne and his wife Hannah, Quaker converts whose commitment to personal liberty and the freedom of worship made them early examples of the spirit later enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens freedom of religion.  The article also documents the role played by pre-Civil War era Bowne and Parsons family members in abolition and emancipation, at the time when the Bowne House was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The story of Bowne family activism is particularly relevant in the twenty-first century, as the struggle for religious freedom and personal liberty continue.

Juneteenth, Freedom Day

On June 19, the Bowne House celebrated Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, an American holiday acknowledging the emancipation of the last remaining enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy on June 19, 1865. Juneteenth is an exploration and celebration of African-American history and heritage, a long arduous ordeal commencing with the first enslaved African Americans brought to this country in 1619. Although we cannot celebrate with each other in person as we had hoped, this virtual acknowledgement is a sign of our respect and recognition of the importance of examining this history.

We must acknowledge the efforts made by so many in the last three centuries to see equal justice under the law for all, including Bowne House residents’ participation in the Underground Railroad to assist fugitive slaves to escape to freedom. Bowne and Parsons residents also helped to form the Flushing Female Association in 1814 which provided free education to a mixed racial group of students, including children of former Flushing slaves. In that tradition, museums like the Bowne House, a New York City Landmark, continue to educate and facilitate an examination of history and lessons to be learned for the future as we as a society consider how we can best live up to the values in the U.S. Constitution to fully embrace the humanity of each of us.

Bowne House celebrates Liberty 2020, the 375th Anniversary of the 1645 Flushing Town Charter

Flushing Creek 1756

The 1661 Bowne House is celebrating Liberty 2020, the 375th anniversary of the 1645 Flushing Town Charter. The Charter guaranteed "liberty of conscience" to all residents of the Dutch village then called Vlissingen. This document inspired both the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance and John Bowne’s later appeal to the Dutch West India Company after his 1662 arrest for practicing his religion.

John Bowne (1627-1695), an Englishman for whom the historic house is named, cited the charter in his plea for religious freedom after being deported to Holland for allowing Quakers to worship in his home shared with his first wife Hannah, a Quaker minister. Bowne’s courageous stand was an important step to ensuring that Quakers and others in New Netherland enjoyed the freedom to practice the religion of their choice in their homes, and helped inspire the principles of liberty of conscience and religious tolerance later enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. 

This celebration will include presentations of research undertaken by the staff and volunteers of the Bowne House and Bowne House descendants into Flushing’s early history, including a weekly blog entitled Profiles of the Flushing Charter Signers. This blog will introduce Flushing’s founding document and feature biographical profiles of its 18 original signers.

If you have questions or sources to share, please contact the Bowne House Historical Society via the website or email office@bownehouse.org.