Dear all-

It is wonderful to see so many friends in this posting...while I can't address the Ohio issues without personal knowledge, I do (as usual) have a few comments.

During the years I lived in Western Massachusetts, by dint of many hours spent inhaling the dust of mouldering records and letters as I followed my ever questing nose in the biography of a very prominent and eccentric Congregational minister-I came across many references to the activities of his sons and inlaws in the Anti-Slavery movement. This in turn led me deeper into the lives of those individuals and their involvement in the UR. Siebert not withstanding, there was little info on the UR in New England-especially in the countryside of Western Ma., Vt. NH and parts of NY.

My nosy nature led me to a number of documentable UR safe house sites, and a fascination with the subject-and in the numbers of "non-existent" black families I found. As I researched those families, I found more connections with certain families and members of the Anti-Slavery Societies and Abolitionist groups of New England. As my interest became known, people began to come to me to show me their suspected sites. Many were clearly not valid, others had potential. Unfortunately-the majority of people interested in trying to prove an UGR site had commercial interests in mind...Where my goal was to define routes and individuals-to flesh out another piece of history, many others were concerned with property values.

All of these things have lives of their own-had I not started down that research path, I wouldn't have gotten involved in looking at Black/Indian/White relations in New England-which led to other work on the Wampanoags/Narragansetts and other NE tribes whose heritage is strongly Black. Therefore, I would probably have never been invited by Bennie to go to Tuskegee-where I met Beverly Gray, Katarina Wittich and Izola Raspberry, and like Bennie, they have enriched my life tremendously. But it happened, and I gained a number of dear friends in Brackettville amonge the SNIS descendants.

I deplore the faulty reasoning behind Clarence Ward and Shirley Mock's twisting of facts to apply for an UGR site designation. To me it is a simple matter for them of self-glorification, and has little or nothing to do with actual fact. I haven't received answers to my letters to the NPS-and the STC-the rest of us have probably been viewed as quacks not worthy of an answer.

I guess what I'm trying to get to, in my own rambling way, is that there are so many of us-everyone who has answered this posting, for openers-who have connections, dedication and voices. Together, we are a rather imposing group of authors, historians, geneologists and others. Perhaps a letter from ALL of us (replete with credentials OF COURSE) would have more impact than individual efforts. We can share it by email, as an attachment to add what we need to. The same goes for the NPS vs Ohio.

PS-Bennie-as I recall, a few years ago, when the NPS position was posted, and I applied for it you mentioned Diane's name...I don't seem to remember that it was in a particularly flattering light...