• September 27th - Tour of Peterboro Cemetery
• September 28th - Elizabeth Smith Miller Birthday Party Tea and
  Catch The Suffragists’ Spirit Scrapbooks

     Gravestones in the Peterboro Cemetery stand side by side demonstrating a diversity that also lived in the Hamlet of Peterboro over which the cemetery looks. The stories of the silent stones were brought to life at 2 p.m. Saturday, September 27, 2008, when Donna Dorrance Burdick conducted a guided tour of the cemetery, sharing her research on people at the gravesites and their compelling stories. Burdick is the historian for the Town of Smithfield, the research chair of the Madison County Freedom Trail Commission, and was a guide for the 2006 Bicentennial Freedom Trail tour.
     The cemetery tour included the family plot of Gerrit and Ann Smith, stones of people who were born to slavery and died free, and gravesites that demonstrate the great variety of religious beliefs. The program had an emphasis on women who chose new careers. Besides women in the Smith-Miller family, Burdick described other interesting women of the community and their significant contributions. People familiar with Burdick’s work know her strict attentiveness to primary resources for information as well as her interesting and humorous manner of presentation. The afternoon was both informative and entertaining.
     The Tour of the Peterboro Cemetery was last program of the summer for the Peterboro Area Historical Society. The guided tour began at promptly at 2 p.m., in spite of the off and on rain. For more information: dburdick@stny.rr.com or 315-684-9022.

The study of seven suffragist scrapbooks held in special collections at the Library of Congress will be the subject of the keynote address for the annual Elizabeth Smith Miller Bloomer Birthday Party on Sunday, September 28, 2008 at the Smithfield Community Center, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY. The books were given to the nation’s library in 1938 and became part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The large scrapbooks were compiled by Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller from 1897 to 1911 Although the scrapbooks concentrate on the Geneva Political Equality Club, which was founded by the mother and daughter in 1897, the books hold news clippings, photos, political buttons, ribbons, etc. from state, national, and international suffrage activities. Letters are part of the collection, including correspondence from Anne in response to President Theodore Roosevelt’s remark in 1909 that he was not an enthusiastic advocate of woman’s suffrage, because he did not regard it as a very important matter.

Rosemary Plakas, American History Specialist and Curator of Rare Americana at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., will share her research on the suffrage scrapbooks following a 12:30 tea catered by The Copper Turret of Morrisville NY. The menu for the tea reflects recipes from Miller’s cookbook In the Kitchen. Highlights of Libby and her bloomers will be presented during the tea. A birthday cake for Libby will conclude the tea. The annual event celebrates the September 22, 1822, birthday of Elizabeth, daughter of abolitionists Anne and Gerrit Smith of Peterboro, recognizes Libby’s design of a pant outfit that became one symbol of women’s suffrage, and provides a program on the women’s rights movement.

A tour of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark in Peterboro has been arranged for 10:00 a.m. prior to the tea. The tour is free. Reservations are not required for the tour.

Reservations are required for the tea with the program. ($30 by August 30, and $35 dollars by September 19.) Send reservations for Libby’s Tea to Smithfield Community Association, PO Box 42, Peterboro NY 13134 or ask for hard copy invitation at jody@tailorofPeterboro.com or 315-546-5583.

Admittance to Catch the Suffragists’ Spirit at 2 p.m. is five dollars with no reservations required. The program is supported in part by the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information contact 315-546-5583, 315-684-3262, or mail@sca-peterboro.org