Part of a series on the truly heroic and forgotten African American Rochester based badasses. In February, we recall Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X, but history has forgotten some of these truly noteworthy people. This group includes the African American men and women of Rochester and in some mentions of Corn Hill. In the Semi-Centennial History of the City of Rochester published in 1884, Amy Post (who lived in SW Rochester) wrote the chapter “The Underground Railroad.”  Amy Post, and the Post House on what is now Post Avenue in the 19th Ward was a very important station and destination for escaped slaves traveling on the Underground Railroad.  The Post family along with two other local farmers and their farms were key station masters on the Underground Railroad, so Amy Post knew of what she spoke.  These reports of the role of African American men and women in Cornhill are also substantiated in the account of William Falls (Democrat and Chronicle on 6/20/1881) in his article “A Few Leaves from the Diary of an Underground Railroad Conductor.” (see below at bottom).

The first two sections are from “the Underground Railroad” by Amy Post. In that Chapter, she relates a number of stories. Here are two of them. 

© words by Dan DeMarle 2020