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BORDENTOWN CITY: ‘A corridor to the Northeast’ on the Underground Railroad

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
BORDENTOWN CITY — Last week, at the beginning of Black History Month, two residents came together to shed some light on the city’s own past.
    Crayle Green and Vivian Ward gave a presentation Feb. 4 to the Bordentown Historical Society. While neither woman is a member of the BHS, they both said they share a passion for history. Ms. Ward is the vice-chairperson of the trustee board for Mount Zion AME Church on East Burlington Street.
    “I just started doing this on my own because I’ve always loved history,” said Ms. Green, 58, of Chestnut Street. “I also wanted to let everybody know that Bordentown is rich in cultural history and in black history, too.”
    Ms. Green’s presentation focused on how the city participated in the Underground Railroad as a major point of “a corridor to the Northeast.
    “There were four main routes” to freedom, she said, “and up through those four, the ‘mecca,’ or center point, was Bordentown.”
    That stop on the path came after Burlington City where Ms. Green said most slaves escaping north could find food and shelter. They then would follow the actual railroad path up to Bordentown City. After Bordentown, the next stop was Princeton.
    Ms. Green said there are a few suspected locations for safe houses in Bordentown City, including a residence on West Burlington Street. Another possibility was a building on East Burlington Street, which was to become the site of the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, one of the major vocational schools for African-Americans in the nation until it closed its doors more than 50 years ago.
    But, “because of the secretness of the Underground Railroad,” Ms. Green explained, “it’s hard to track the history.”
    She said a major reason the city was such a haven for African-Americans at the time was the presence of the Religious Society or Friends, or Quakers, who were abolitionists. Locals, she added, worked with slaves such as Harriet Tubman and free men like William Still as well as with the Quakers.
    Those involved in the Underground Railroad had a particular code they used to communicate in speech, song and sewing, Ms. Green said.
    “There were specific words that were used, very few of them written, when they spoke to one another,” she explained. “A plethora of codenames were used to communicate amongst the slaves and Quakers to help get them to safe passage.”
    A “station,” for instance, was defined as a temporary refuge or safe house. Other code words included “stockholder” for someone willing to donate money, food or clothing to the cause and a “load of potatoes,” which referred to escaping slaves hidden in a wagon under produce, Ms. Green said.
    Another form of communication for the slaves was through quilt patterns, she added. Of 10 different quilts, each one had a specific meaning. Slaves would hang the right one over the fence to send a specific message; the lack of a quilt meant the house had been compromised.
    “Since it was common for quilts to be aired,” Ms. Green explained, “no one would suspect.”
    Patterns included a wagon wheel, which told escapees to prepare to board a wagon. A flying geese pattern could point in the direction in which they were to continue.
    Spirituals also were used to pass along instructions, such as “Wade in the Water” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd.”
    Not all slaves chose to move on from Bordentown City. A number of families stayed here, making them some of the first blacks in the city, Ms. Ward said, while other African-Americans arrived there as servants.
    By the early 20th century, she said, “the majority of blacks lived on Borden Street, West Burlington, Carpenter and Hopkinson streets.”
    Before the desegregation of schools in the mid-’50s, all the black schools in the city were on Burlington Street, she said. Besides the Manual Training school, another was the Elementary School Number Two, which served students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Its former site is now parking for the Clara Barton School, but a monument commemorates the former institution.
    During that period, Ms. Ward said there were also a number of black-owned businesses, such as food stores, restaurants and salons. Many of them shared a one-story building next to the Shiloh Baptist Church.
    “The churches and the black school were the center and the most influential part of our lives,” Ms. Ward said. “Our pastors and teachers were highly respected by all. Our church gave us hope that one day we would be free to enjoy equal opportunities and not to be judged by the color of our skin. Our educators were the vessels to the key that would open this door to success and freedom.
    “Therefore, the churches, the families and the community embraced, encouraged and supported our black educators that taught every black child in Bordentown until the school closed its doors in 1948. We love and salute them for their determination, patience, nurturing, mentoring and genuine concern for our welfare. Without their devotion and direction, we would not be standing here today.”