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Niagara-on-the-Lake School Niagara Church Lewiston Church Barker Park Pekin Home Lockport YWCA Castellani Art Museum

Stations of the Underground Railroad In creating the Stations sculptures, the artistic team sought to recognize the gifts of love and shelter offered to African-American escapees by the communities of Western new York. Each sculpture is a symbolic rendering of a "place to hide, to submerge, to rest within its protective metal walls." Each sculpture contains an attic, engraved with maps, symbols, and messages. Each sculpture also contains a cellar, engraved with the cryptic correspondence used by Underground Railroad conductors as they sent their passengers on from hiding place to hiding place. Attics and cellars were often utilized as the best places to conceal the fugitives as they continued on their northward journey to Canada. The recessed mirrors in the sculptures are a symbol of the intersection between history and individual lives. They also resemble a watching eye, or "light in the window," symbolizing both a beacon of safety and the awareness of possible danger. The maps engraved on the attic of each station contain references to the Niagara River as a passage to freedom. Words such as "Chase" and "Wing" are combined with arrows and x-marks to emphasize the perilous journey taking place. Code words such as "irrepressible conflict," "please forward and oblige," and "no back charges" are used in the engravings on the cellar doors of the Stations. These engravings are transcriptions of actual notes passed between station masters and conductors of the Underground Railroad. The notes were written in code and often referred to deliveries of produce and other materials in order to safeguard the passage of the fugitives.