Flight to Freedom

About the Book

The focus of this book is a rarely mentioned track of the Underground Railroad in New York State reported in a 1939 letter by the son of two of its station masters: Moses Pierce and Esther Carpenter Pierce of Pleasantville, New York. Fortunately, there is published documentation of this track, which started with Esther Pierce’s parents in New Rochelle, continued to Pleasantville, then to the Jay family in Bedford, from there to David Irish on Quaker Hill in Pawling, and possibly on to a recently confi rmed station in Albany, New York. From there fugitives could have gone on to other New York homes before crossing the Niagara River to freedom in Canada. The book containing many images gives details about the individuals on this track, but also new facts about persons on both sides of the Atlantic whose dedicated human rights activism and research shed new light on Africa, its people and culture, which helped end slavery in Britain and the United States.

About the Author

Dorothee von Huene Greenberg, Ph. D., is Professor Emerita of English at Pace University. Born in Germany, she fl ed from the Russians in 1945 and grew up in Maine, the least diverse state. She came to New York to teach while earning her Ph. D. at NYU. The diverse student body at Pace University inspired her to learn more about African-American history and reality. When she learned that the Underground Railroad had had a documented station in Pleasantville, New York, she decided to research it.