Bowne House is featured this month in a special edition of the New York Archives Jr! magazine published for young readers by the New York State Archives Trust. The article, written by Charlotte Jackson, Archival Consultant to the Bowne House and Kathleen A. Sciortino, Bowne House Trustee and Educational Administrator, explains in student-friendly language how the Underground Railroad operated using "conductors" and "passengers" to help enslaved people reach freedom.
Using an important document from the Bowne House Historical Society’s extensive archival collection, the article shows how the Bowne/Parsons family participated in this dangerous venture. In the letter, dated September 28, 1850, Reverend Simeon Smith Jocelyn wrote confidentially to William Parsons (a descendant of John Bowne), who lived in the Flushing Bowne House, asking him to hide the man carrying the letter. Researchers do not know who this “passenger” was, but the letter was the first documentary evidence to confirm the long-rumored status of Bowne House as a stop on the Underground Railroad.