Documentary on historic Peru farm in the works – Plattsburgh Press Republican

SARATOGA SPRINGS Good things come to those who wait just a little bit.

Jacqueline Madison, president of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association (NCUGRHA), made a pitch for a documentary about the historic Haff/Smith property in Peru to the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) hosted second Community Pitch Session in November 2021.

The historical documentary will span across the generations of the Union Road farm inhabitants/abolitionists, the Rev. Abraham Haff, son of an enslaver, and Stephen Keese Smith, a documented Underground Railroad station master and Quaker.

Although we dont have any documentary evidence that shows Abraham Haff used the facilities, if he was an abolitionist, my guess is that some place on that farm was used to hide slaves, Madison said.

Even if it was just temporary.

CREATIVE PITCHES

Ten community organizations and collectives vied to become the new MDOCS Co-Creation Initiative Round I Partners.

With so many excellent pitches, it was a difficult decision, Angela Beallor, Documentarian in Community Co-Creation, MDOCS, said in a press release.

The selection committee was comprised of representatives of MDOCS along with Jamel Mosely, an award-winning visual storyteller in the mediums of video and photography, and co-founder of Collectiveffort, a Troy-based creative agency and coworking space, and Krystle Nowhitney Hernandez, deputy director of LifeWorks Community Action in Saratoga Springs.

We are excited to announce the new MDOCS Co-Creation Initiative Round I partners, Beallor said.

The MDOCS Co-Creation Initiative supports collaborations that connect community groups with Skidmore faculty and staff as they pursue documentary projects.

SUPPORTED GROUPS

The four organizations that will join the first Round I partner cohort and will work closely with MDOCS and other Skidmore faculty/staff in the coming year:

Harm Reduction Works - HRW a project of HRH43, Harm Reduction Works-HRW is a fully scripted, harm reduction-based self-help/mutual aid group originally conceived as an alternative to abstinence only types of organizations like 12 step etc.

Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community the sustainable, living Onkwehon:we community grounded in Rotinonhsionni culture - its language, land, and social structure.

North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association a center that researches, preserves and interprets the history of the Underground Railroad, slavery and abolition in upstate New York.

The Peoples Voice a not-for-profit news media group addressing the concerns of marginalized groups in Saratoga Springs, NY and the greater Capital Region.

These organizations will receive $5,000 to support a year of collaborative documentary project development alongside relationship building with Skidmore faculty and staff, Beallor said.

MDOCS will also provide other in-kind support including production resources, facilitation, consultation from members of the MDOCS team, and participation in other CCI programming.

ADDOMS HISTORY

NCUGRHA will use its monetary award to publish an update of late Clinton County Historian and Beekmantown Town Historian Addie Shields 1979 book on the the Rev. John Townsend Addoms (1782-1869) homestead and the Underground Railroad in Clinton County.

We wanted to update that book because more information has come out. In doing so, because the book sort of parallels what were doing with this documentary video, Madison said.

We will take those funds and utilize them for publishing the book, so kind of a joint effort in that case. The book, though, will showcase others. It will not focus on John Haff or even Stephen Keese Smith. It will talk about the area before Europeans arrived, which will include the Indigenous people who lived here, and move into the proprietors and those who were enslavers and from there to those individuals that participated in the Abolitionist Movement and finally into people of color, free and enslaved, in the area. This will be all up until the Civil War ended, so around 1865.

This will be an expansion of what we have learned since Addie wrote the book, which really focused on John Townsend Addoms. He was an abolitionist in the Beekmantown area.

Shields mission was to get the Addoms homestead listed on the National Historic Register.

But unfortunately, the house burned down around that time, Madison said.

In addition, MDOCS will support collaborations by Sanctuary Radio | Hudson Mohawk Magazine related to the oral history of labor and radio production as well as a documentary collaboration between Saratoga Black Lives Matter and Professor Yelena Biberman-Ocakli.

OTHER PROJECTS

The Co-Creation Initiative invites community members, organizations, collectives, and interest groups of any stripe or type to form a collaborative working group or cluster collaborative with Skidmore faculty or staff partners, to brainstorm and ultimately develop projects that:

1. Have an element of nonfiction storytelling in any medium photo, video, theater etc.

2. Enrich and complicate our local, regional and global dialogues, by addressing important issues and especially those that need a deeper examination

3. Bring people into new relationships, across disparate organizations, communities and other lines of difference, cemented by making together, or co-creating.

Ultimately, we will have a documentary, Madison said.

It can be used not just for us to do presentations, but it can be utilized and available to schools and places that want to learn about the local history and maybe even beyond because like I said, this is a complete story that goes from enslaver all the way down to protector.

Email Robin Caudell:

rcaudell@pressrepublican.com

Twitter:@RobinCaudell

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Documentary on historic Peru farm in the works - Plattsburgh Press Republican