The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro NY is pleased to announce the Fourth
Annual Abolition Walk from Canastota to Clockville, and return to Canastota, tracing the beginning
footsteps of the one hundred four abolitionists who walked nine steep miles from the Erie Canal to
Peterboro in the middle of the night on October 21, 1835.
The sheriff escorted Abolition Walk begins at 102 South Peterboro Street in Canastota NY with
registration at 8:00 am, a brief program at 9:00 am, and the walk launch at 9:30 am. Walkers arrive in
Clockville at about 10:30 am and return to Canastota at Erie Canal Brewing for a party at approximately
noon. Folks can also ride a bus for the walk, and the bus is available for brief rests for walkers.
The abolitionists of New York State intended to form an organization that would address the need to end
enslavement in the United States. 600 delegates assembled in Utica where they were physically
threatened and mobbed. Not yet an ardent abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, witnessing the thwarting of First
Amendment rights, invited the delegates to the safety of Peterboro. Through the cold, rainy night of
October 21, 1835, four hundred delegates traveled through Vernon Center to Peterboro, and the one
hundred four came through Canastota. Thus, on October 22, 1835, the inaugural meeting of the New York
State Antislavery Society was held in the Presbyterian Church, which now the Town of Smithfield/Hamlet of
Peterboro municipal building and the home of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum.
