Footsteps to Freedom 1999: Day Two

Update posted on Thu, Aug 19, 1999, at 12:47:09 PM Pacific Daylight Time.

Col. Charles Young House
Wilberforce, OH

Next was the Colonel Charles Young House, once a station on the Underground Railroad, and future site of the National Museum of African American Military History, and a joint project of the National Afro-American History Museum & Cultural Center, and the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Colonel Charles Young, the third Black graduate of West Point, the first African American military attaché, and the highest ranking Black officer at the outset of World War I, was assigned the same duties in Wilberforce.

Col. Young purchased the house because of its history as a waystation on the Underground Railroad and its proximity to Wilberforce University.

Several Xenia citizens recount stories of tunnels leading from the north wall of the cellar to the front porch and also from a rear location in the cellar to a barn which was then on the property.

We were given a tour and talk by Dr. Floyd R. Thomas, Jr., Curator/Chief of Curatorial/Exhibitions Division, of the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center. He told us as well about Martin Robinson Delany whose grave we would view at our next stop, Massies Creek Cemetery.

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