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AUBURN –The Androscoggin Historical Society will host an informative hour with author Mark Alan Leslie, whose historical novel, “True North: Tice’s Story” explores a slave’s escape to freedom. Leslie will speak on the Underground Railroad at the society’s headquarters at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, in the Davis-Wagg Museum on the third floor of the county building at Court and Turner streets.
Maine’s connection to the famous Underground Railroad that helped free runaway slaves in the early- to mid-1800s does not begin and end with Harriet Beecher Stowe and Hannibal Hamlin. Indeed, from Kittery to Fort Fairfield, Maine citizens conspired to break the law and put their lives and fortunes in peril by forming a network of “safe houses” operated by “conductors” and “station managers” to hide slaves from slave hunters and scurry them to Canada.
Leslie weaves the tale of the brave families who housed and fed slaves in hidden rooms, attics and elsewhere en route to the next secret “way station” on the railroad.
“Slavery was the one issue that has been able to tear America apart, and that included Mainers,” Leslie said. “Reportedly half Maine’s population thought slavery was essential to the economy, while many others reviled it as ‘the absolute power of one person over another — the vilest human behavior and institution.’ The rift was tangible and dangerous.”
Maine’s Underground Railroad itself was “a marvel of secret connections from churches to hack stands, second-hand clothing stores and people’s homes.”
A longtime journalist, Leslie wrote his first novel in 2008. “Midnight Rider for the Morning Star” is based on the life of Francis Asbury, America’s first circuit-riding preacher. A book signing will follow Leslie’s presentation.
The event is free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted. For more information, call 207-784-0586 or email info@androhist.org.
