Hot Pursuits...
Under the auspices of the C.V. Starr Center, and with the guidance of Washington College faculty, students set forth on thrilling adventures in American history. This page features some of the original, groundbreaking research that these students are undertaking… from tracing the lost pathways of the Underground Railroad to discovering the truth behind the famous legend of the “Chestertown Tea Party.”
Follow each link to learn more about the featured student and his or her work ... and stay tuned for future updates on these and other “Hot Pursuits.”
On the Track of the Underground Railroad
Albin Kowalewski ’07
Local lore and oral history have long maintained that the escape routes of many fugitive slaves passed through the region around Chestertown. Yet the precise routes themselves were a secret that 19th-century abolitionists took to their graves.
Until very recently, that is – when Washington College student Albin Kowalewski ’07 began tracing these pathways to freedom on the antebellum Eastern Shore, through archives, old maps, and the back roads of Kent County.
Among the mysteries that Kowalewski is pursuing: did the renowned Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman lead a group of local slaves to freedom in the spring of 1856? An ambiguous reference in an abolitionist’s journal sent him delving into old newspapers, wills, and court records to uncover the dramatic story of how a secret network of activists – both white and black – risked their lives for the cause of liberty. Tubman’s own involvement in the Kent County branch of the Railroad is still unclear, although she is known to have been active not far away, on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland. But Kowalewski has discovered evidence of literally dozens of other successful fugitives. His work is designed to help the National Park Service map out its National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a nationwide effort to identify specific stops on the Railroad.
“There are probably only a handful of places in the country where this kind of research would be possible,” Kowalewski says. “I literally get chills walking in the footsteps of the fugitive slaves, seeing the buildings they lived in and the routes they took to freedom.”
The 21-year-old senior, a History and American Studies major from Bowie, Maryland, is conducting his research under the auspices of the C.V. Starr Center, thanks to a grant from the nonprofit group Eastern Shore Heritage, Inc. He was previously a recipient of the Starr Center’s Frederick Douglass Fellowship.
Tea and Fantasy?
Erin Koster ’07
Every Memorial Day Weekend for the past several decades, tens of thousands of spectators have converged on Chestertown for the annual reenactment of the Chestertown Tea Party, a 1774 event at which the Local Sons of Liberty, emulating their comrades in Boston, hurled bales of tea into the Chester River to protest King George’s hated tax.
But did the much-celebrated event actually occur? Washington College student Erin Koster ’07 uncovered some surprising results when she began researching the origins of the tale. Her research earned her the wrath of some townsfolk – but also national news coverage in The American Scholar, the Baltimore Sun, the Associated Press, and elsewhere. Click here for more.
The Revolutionary College Blogger
Jack R. Bohrer ’06
Recent alumnus Jack Bohrer has launched the Revolutionary College Blog – an innovative, idiosyncratic, often irreverent look at Washington College’s early history. Join the intrepid Jack as he delves into forgotten corners of attics and archives in search of the colorful personalities, crises, flashes of inspiration – and even a few scandals – that shaped the institution’s early years. Click here to view the blog.
