A previously unknown, fully-intact Underground Railroad site has been discovered in Manhattan, inside landmark 1832 Merchant’s House Museum (see link below).
A narrow passageway, about 2 feet square and hidden behind a built-in chest of drawers on the second floor, goes down 15 feet to the ground floor, providing an escape route.
The house, which was occupied by one family for nearly a century by one family and has been a museum since they left, was built in 1832 by a builder who was an active Abolitionist, and may have equipped several houses this way, although no others have been found. It is, by about ten years, the oldest documented Underground Railroad site in Manhattan. Slavery in New York had only been abolished in 1827.
However, the new discovery, and the house itself, are in danger. Although it’s been a city landmark since 1966 and is on the national register as well, it has lived for several years under threat of damage or destruction from a plan to build an 8-story building on the next-door plot, which has been vacant for many years. The museum and others have warned that the structure is too fragile to withstand heavy construction next door.
