It just screams “man cave” or "lady cave, or if you like “non gender cave”.
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I hope you know this already, but just to pile on the love: I love your history posts! I had never heard of Mary Ellen Pleasant and just had a wonderful session reading about an amazing woman that I likely would never have learned about otherwise.
Thank you for enriching the conversation.
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I just saw this trailer this weekend. Looks dramatically powerful. But I don’t know how accurate it is to the historical record or what the response is to the movie.
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19th century mysterious brick tunnel
This OSASCOMP violation is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if bingbong editors are using some kind of weird SEO cult manual to write headlines
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I’m calling a cooling cellar. There are a few in similarly aged homes.
I know a family who lived in an old home near the Ohio River on the West Virginia side. They had an actual escape tunnel that led from their basement and down under the hill the home sat on top of and under a creek only to pop back up inside a cemetery located on an adjacent hilltop. Their attic had hiding spaces also. They had some documentation via diaries and such that slaves were smuggled in and out of the property. The tunnel wasn’t ever in that great of a condition and had to be sealed up to prevent cave ins. As kids we used to play in the attic passageways. It was a big house with peacocks on the grounds.
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But the odd thing is that the “cave” or “tunnel” pre-dates the (or any) home or building atop it.
I’m leaning toward other posters’ thoughts about a community ice storage place. The shape and materials make sense for that.
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a great pity that conducting jobs weren’t similarly avaialble.
The code words often used on the Underground Railroad were: “tracks” (routes fixed by abolitionist sympathizers); “stations” or “depots” (hiding places); “conductors” (guides on the Underground Railroad); “agents” (sympathizers who helped the slaves connect to the Railroad); “station masters” (those who hid slaves in their homes); “passengers,” “cargo,” “fleece,” or “freight” (escaped slaves); “tickets” (indicated that slaves were traveling on the Railroad); “stockholders” (financial supporters who donated to the Railroad); “Freedom Trails” (the routes of the Railroad); “terminal,” “heaven,” or “Promised Land” (Canada and the northern free states); and “the drinking gourd” (the Big Dipper constellation—a star in this constellation pointed to the North Star, located on the end of the Little Dipper’s handle).
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I grew up in Alton, IL. I agree that it’s not likely this particular tunnel was part of the Underground Railroad and more likely stored ice or produce. FWIW, Alton was the beginning of an Underground Railroad route through IL up to Chicago. There were several safe houses throughout town. One of them, the Old Rock House just a blocks up the street from my high school. There is a tunnel underneath 325 Third Street, but it’s really just a cramped brick vault where people could hide. If you Google “underground railroad alton il” you can see a photo of a small tour group huddled inside it. Sitting down, they just fit. Now it’s possible the tunnel in this story served a 2nd purpose as a similar hiding place but who knows. Alton was an interesting place to grow up. In 1837, abolitionist newspaper man Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered there and his press thrown in the Mississipi. This got nationwide attention and it’s been claimed that the events that most hastened the onset of the Civil War were John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and Lovejoy’s martyrdom. Other notable characters from Alton include Miles Davis, Robert Wadlow (tallest man in recorded history), and James Earl Ray. And the Piasa Bird.
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It’s based on Colson Whitehead’s book, the Underground Railroad, which is a work of Magical Realism. He took some real events into consideration and based events in the book on those, but they are made a little fantastical in his take on them. He even does include an actual underground railroad.
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I haven’t read that one but I did enjoy Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer which does something similar by providing a new meaning to what it meant to be a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.
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Yeah, both are excellent books. I highly recommend them both.
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Thank you the context. It looks amazing but I was waiting to hear if it had more to it than just a beautiful production.
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Just watch anything with Barry Jenkins attached. He has yet to disappoint.
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I’ve seen one tunnel exactly like this, brick work and dimensions. It was a 19th carriage garage under a church in Southern Ontario.
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It’s a transitioning cave. It goes from one place to another.
Once he gets the other end dug out, he’ll know. I hope he does and that it gets reported.
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“Robin! To the Bat-Carriage-Garage!”
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Wow. That is fucked up, and so is the fact that I just learned it from you.
/flips off delaware
