 This is Dennis McPhee and welcome to Positively Vermont. Today, my guest is Dr. Lindsay Warner, director of the Roka B Museum, located in Ferrisboro, Vermont, which is a nationally significant underground railroad story tucked into a quintessential Vermont experience. And that's quite a mouthful and it's gonna be a very interesting talk we are going to have about the underground railroad and about all the Roka B Museum has to offer. Welcome, Lindsay. First of all, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, so as you said, I'm Lindsay Warner. I'm the director at Roka B Museum and I am a historian and a public historian. And full disclosure, I'm not a historian of the Civil War of the Underground Railroad, but I am a Quaker historian and the Robinson family who lived on this site for four generations were Quakers, especially the first two generations and a lot of their beliefs and their worldview was really surrounded in this understanding of their religious beliefs as Quakers. And a lot of the work that they did, particularly the second generation as abolitionists, really started and came out of many of the conversations that were happening amongst Quakers. So that's where my area of expertise really lies. And I was lucky enough to start my role at Roka B at the end of 2020. So in the middle of a pandemic, I applied for the job here, was interviewed and moved to Vermont to take over as director here at Roka B. And it's been such a wonderful experience. The museum just does fantastic work looking at the long history of abolition and advocacy and how that really impacts people today in particular regarding things like the social justice and racial justice movement that's taking place. Tell us about the property itself and the people who owned it. Yeah, so Roka B museum is on 90 acres. And the museum consists of the historic home along with a number of other historic outbuildings that related to the agricultural history of the farm that the Robinson started in the 1790s when they moved to the property. So we have a historic farmhouse that we used to tell the story of the Robinson family through all four generations because all four generations did live in that house. And along with that, we have the other house which is kind of another type of house on the property. There's smoke house, slaughterhouse, tool shed. All of this helps us to tell the multifaceted history of the Robinson family. Along with that, we also have a modern education center that was built in 2013. And this houses our exhibit Free and Safe the Underground Railroad in Vermont, which tells the story of two freedom seekers that we know came to Roka B and were helped by the Robinsons on their path to freedom. And we also have rotating exhibits within this space as well, which gives us the opportunity to tell many stories of the Robinson family. And this year we have an exhibit called Descent which looks at print advocacy during the abolitionist and anti-slavery period. How did it get the name Roka B? Yeah, that's very interesting. The initial museum was called the Ralland Evans Robinson Memorial Association which is a bit of a mouthful. The museum was officially handed over by the last Robinson in 1961 but the Memorial Association was already in existence. So the museum itself was started to honor third generation Robinson, Ralland Evans Robinson, who was a very well-known author and illustrator in the 19th century. And over time, the museum started to look more at the many aspects of history that the family experienced and lived through. And one of the things that they noticed during research was at some point during the third generation, the family started to call the property Roka B. And what we think we're not entirely certain why this was, but Roka B is a very well-known poem by Sir Walter Scott. It is a manor house in England, in County Durham in Northeast England. And it is a place that we find across the US, people were naming their houses Roka B in honor of this poem. And one of the kind of myths that we think the reason they started calling it Roka B was almost as a joke. The idea of having this Vermont farmhouse named after a big mansion in England was a bit of a joke, I think, for the family. Especially since at the time that that house in England was built, it was owned by a Robinson. No relation to our Robinson, but it was something that the family just started. And you find in the newspapers that they're even calling it Roka B in the papers when they're referring to going to the Robinson's home. So the museum association decided that they were going to rename Roka B Museum because the last generation called it that. That's amazing. And we're probably going to have some viewers who could add to that, people who follow all of that kind of history. Tell us a little bit about the role of Vermont in the Civil War and the Underground Railroad. What the Underground Railroad was and how it functioned in connection with the property there. Yeah, so the Underground Railroad was not necessarily a set route, but the idea was that freedom seekers in the South could travel northwards, often getting with the goal of getting to Canada, but not always, but to find freedom from enslavement. And they would use places along the way who were anti-slavery advocates, abolitionists to stay overnight or for several days. And Vermont was one of the routes on the Underground Railroad because of its closeness to the Canadian border. One thing that we found over the years through research is that this kind of idea of hiding enslaved people wasn't necessarily something that we were seeing in Vermont. There weren't slave catchers necessarily this far north. So we have stories of freedom seekers that were coming to Roka B that Ralland and Rachel Robinson were helping and they were not hiding. Some, including Jesse whose story we tell in our exhibits stayed and worked here for some time and saved up money. It's not the same as when you think about Pennsylvania and the Underground Railroad and being close to the Mason-Dixon line where hiding is essential. And you're close enough where you do have bounty hunters out trying to capture people and take them back to the South for a reward. And which is in some places actually being a bounty hunter to catch freedom seekers is an occupation for people. We don't really see that in Vermont. So what we know through some of the letters in our collection is that people were coming from places like Pennsylvania and one person who we explore in the exhibit here is Simon and through the letters in the Robinson collection we can trace Simon's journey from gender township Pennsylvania which is just outside of Pittsburgh very, very close miles from the Mason-Dixon line. To what we think is the trip to Philadelphia, New York and then eventually Vermont. We're not entirely sure the route that he took. But the reason our exhibit is free and safe is the idea that once you made it to Vermont you were essentially free and safe. Whether you felt welcomed in Vermont is a whole other question and whether people decided to stay in Vermont. That's a whole other conversation but by following the Underground Railroad here they were free and safe and could start to build a life elsewhere. And so our exhibit and our museum really explores that connection. The letters within our collection are show some of the best documented resources for the Underground Railroad. So that's where our national landmark status actually comes from or this collection of letters that we have making us one of the best documented Underground Railroad sites in the country. Tell us a little bit about that landmark status. What does that signify and how did the road could be get it? Yeah, so the National Park Service does the National Register designation and then the National Landmark designations. We are a National Register site. We were a National Register site before we were a National Landmark. The National Register is administered by the states and we were initially put onto the National Register for Roland Evans Robinson and his work as a writer and the long history of the family that lived on this site. When the museum started to reach search more of the abolitionist history here and it had always been known through the family that this was a stop on the Underground Railroad. I found this fantastic book, Tourism Book for Vermont from 1940 in our collection and it's advertising Rokeby as a destination that you could stay overnight and they had like a mini B&B working here. And they say stay in the home of Beloved Aunt Evans Robinson and also in the home of an Underground Railroad stop. And so the family had always known that this was the history. It's just not the story that was always told. And as they dug into the collection and realized just the extent of the documentation that we had as this being a abolitionist and an Underground Railroad stop, that's when the museum applied for the National Landmark status. And that's a very selective number of places from across the country that are designated as important to the American story. So these are sites of national significance and the museum is deemed one of those sites of national significance. That's great. I wanna go through the four A's that are associated with Rokeby. Art, Agriculture, Abolition and Advocacy. So tell us a little about art. Let's start us off. Yeah, so the Robinson's for an incredibly talented family through all of the generations. The third generation, Rallon Evans Robinson and his wife Anna, they were very talented artists. Rallon started as an illustrator and he illustrated for major magazines and publications of the 19th century, the Royal New Yorker, Forest and Stream, which today is Field and Stream. He did these fantastical cartoons was always sketching on things. Over time he started to lose his eyesight and when he lost his eyesight, he turned to writing. And with the help of his wife, he would write out on a board his words and she would type them up and send them off to the publishers. She was also a very talented artist. She did a lot of naturalist drawings, animals and plants, particularly things that you would find around Rokeby. So we get a really good feel for the types of flowers that were growing around Rokeby and the animals that were wandering the forest and the fields here. They passed that love of art onto their children as well. And their daughter, Rachel Robinson Elmer became a very well-known commercial artist in the early 20th century. She went to the Art Students League in New York, became well-known as an illustrator, worked for the American Book Company and Harper Brothers, doing book covers, illustrations for children's books, she does just these fantastic illustrations. She also became very well-known for her postcard series, the Art Lovers New York Postcard Series. And these are deemed national treasures. They're actually that that collection of postcards are held by the Library of Congress as some of the best examples of early American postcards. And so she was just this absolutely brilliant artist who unfortunately her life was cut short in 1919 during the flu pandemic and died in New York City. And her sister Mary was also an artist who took after her mother and did a lot of nature drawings, particularly of flowers. And she started working on plant identification books, was one of the last projects before her death, working for the federal government doing different identification books. So the family really has this incredible collection of art that we hold here at the museum. And I think one of the most spectacular things that we have because the Robinsons didn't throw anything away is that we have this very rare collection. A lot of places that our art museums have the final product. They have the final painting or whatever it is, but we have every piece of the process leading up to that final product. So for Rachel, last year, we did an exhibit of her commercial artwork and one of the most amazing things is I could go through her sketchbooks and see the many versions of a drawing that she would do before she would come up with the final drawing that would end up published in one of the books. And we can trace the step from her playing with the clothing to the movement of the arm to the way a child is posed or sitting. All of that is pieced together and then we have the final product as well. So we can really get into the mind of her as an artist just based on what we have here in the collection. Tell us about how agriculture, abolition, and advocacy work into the Rookby Museum work. Yeah, so agriculture is central to a lot of the work that was taking place here at Rookby through all four generations. Thomas Robinson was the first Robinson to live here at Rookby. He was one of the first farmers to import Merino sheep into Vermont. And that really set the family up for the first few generations is being incredibly wealthy. We find the house gets expanded upon when he brings in the Merino sheep. And that his son, Rylan Robinson, and his wife, Rachel, really are able to pursue their abolitionist work because of the wealth coming out of the farm during that period from like 1810 to 1840. So the family is doing very well in the early 19th century. The farm is prospering. And Rylan Robinson, his wife, Rachel, and their good friend, Ann King, who was staying at Rookby from time to time are really advocating and working towards the emancipation of slaves in the United States. So Rookby becomes the center of the anti-slavery movements in the Champlain Valley, in Farrisburg, in Vermont. Rylan is well-known in the American Anti-Slavery Society. So he's a national figure in the abolitionist movements. He's writing directly to William Lloyd Garrison. He shows up in the Liberator, writing articles. So he's really using the fact that he's a gentleman farmer almost. And this gives him the privilege to really pursue a lot of his abolitionist and anti-slavery work. So that legacy of advocacy is something that we really look at here at Rookby. And the one thing that we recognize is when the Civil War ends and slaves are emancipated, that's not the end of the advocacy work that a lot of abolitionists were working towards. There's still a long ways to go and there's a long history of abolition and advocacy and equal rights and justice. And that is work that is continuing on today. So we use this history that we have at the museum to talk about how history really impacts what we see happening in our world today. And we use this, we help to promote and to talk about some of the work that is happening in our communities. Well, we're recording this on the third day of October and the museum is going to close at the end of this month. But there's a continuing series of projects and events that are going on and will continue throughout the year. So tell us a little bit about what's going on and what will be going on through the winter and the rest of the fall. Yeah, so we are a seasonal museum. We're open May to October, but we are open throughout the year. We do virtual programming in the winter. So things like January through April, we run a winter book discussion group. We do virtual lectures throughout the year. This year at the very end of October, right after we've closed, we do a program called Spirits of Rokeby, which ties into the spiritualist history that took place here at Rokeby and the seances that we know the family took part in. So it's a participatory performance where you get to participate in a recreation of a Robinson seance. So we're doing the programming all the time. We also keep the museum's education center open throughout the winter for school groups and private tours that want to come in. So if you call, we are open by appointment. Just depending on the weather, you may or may not be able to get into anything else on the property because the snow can pile up at a lot of the historic buildings. But we work really hard to try and keep our education center open for school groups and other groups that want to come in and explore. I want to ask you about this distance drawing course. Tell us about that. That sounds very interesting. Yeah, so this was something that came out of the pandemic. We had intended in 2020 to have an artist in residence to do a series of programs here at Rokeby. And when the pandemic happened, Courtney, who was running this program, who was our artist in residence was in Montreal. She wasn't going to be able to come to Vermont and to undertake this program. So she adapted what she had hoped to do on site into a virtual drawing course. It was completely free. It used the inspiration from the art here in the collection in particular, the early art education of Rachel Robinson Elmer. Through the letters, we can trace the correspondence art course that she took. And she used that correspondence to create this distance drawing course for a modern audience. And we kept it completely free. It is still on our website. You can go through and take all courses that she had put together. And she weaves into it the history of Rokeby and Rachel's education as an artist. So it's a fantastic course. I highly recommend going to our website, rokeby.org and having a look at it. Courtney Clinton put a lot of work into this as part of her residency. That's great. Well, tell us what Rokeby needs. How can people get involved? How can they volunteer? How can they contribute and describe what your needs would be in that area? Yeah, so Rokeby is a nonprofit. So we do seek donations during an annual fund and throughout the year to help with our operating budget. We are always looking for volunteers. Our tours that run throughout the year for the public during May to October's opening season are completely run by volunteers. So we're always looking for tour guides or dozens to help guide visitors who are coming to the area. A lot of our visitors to Rokeby are from out of state. So they don't know the history and they're eager to learn more about the Underground Railroad and the Robinson family and Vermont's role in history. So our guides play a very important role in helping to share that. So if you're interested in volunteering whether it's tour guiding, working in our collections or just helping around the site. Like I said, we have 90 acres. We've got trails on the site. So we're always looking for grounds maintenance people. You can visit our website. There is a support page where you can directly donate. And then there's also a tab that says work with us. And if you take on that, there's a section for volunteers and you can send something straight to me to sign up to volunteer with us. That's great. Well, we certainly look forward to hearing more about you as Rokeby goes into its hibernation for the winter and then opens up next year. I mean, we're gonna have you back at some point to describe some of the exhibits. Do you have any long-term plans now for next year or anything you're working on getting at the museum? Yeah, so we have a couple of long-term plans. We've been very lucky that the past couple of years PC construction has been our preservation sponsor. And they're gonna be building us a new collection storage space right next to the Education Center. So we're gonna have a lot of collections work happening over the next couple of years, moving things into this secure space. So we're gonna need a lot of volunteers to help with that. And that is a multi-year project, getting things cleaned and stored into this building. We are also looking at future preservation work on all of the properties. So that's a long-term project we're gonna be looking at. And the big thing within our exhibits is our free and safe exhibit is coming up to 10 years old next year. And it's due a revamp. A lot of history has changed. We've learned a lot more language has changed since that exhibit was initially put in. And I'm hoping that we'll be updating that exhibit in the next couple of years. And that's gonna be a major project going on here at the museum. That's great. Well, thanks very much, Lindsay. My guest today on Positively Vermont has been Dr. Lindsay Warner, director of the Rokabee Rokabee Museum, located in Ferrisburg, Vermont. This is Dennis McMahon. And thank you for watching Positively Vermont.