Following the drinking gourd

By CARL E. FEATHER - Lifestyle Editor - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

June 04, 2008 06:40 pm

— By the middle of this month, Dave Turnbull, a resident of New Zealand, will probably know more about America’s Underground Railroad than any other citizen of that country.
Turnbull, a retired teacher, is cycling the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route with an Adventure Cycling Association tour group. He and the other five men in the group stopped at Ashtabula Harbor’s Hubbard House Tuesday morning for a tour of the museum, once a terminus on the railroad.
The cyclists are riding from Mobile, Ala., to Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, as they cover the 2,100-mile route that escaped slaves traveled to freedom. They left Mobile April 27.
They camped in Ashtabula Monday night after cycling through Ashtabula County on the Western Reserve Greenway Trail.
“The Western Reserve Greenway Trail is nice,” said Dave Cox, the tour’s leader. “We’ve been on several rail trails while in Ohio.”
Cox has led nearly a dozen cycling trips with the Association. He said leaders can select from a list of 25 to 30 proposed routes and express their preferences. Cox says this tour’s route through the Deep South made it of interest to him because it’s an area he’s not explored.
George Martin, a retired federal worker from Oxon Hill, Maryland, said the route appealed to him because of his interest in history.
“I like U.S. Civil War history and this was the best option I had for doing a long-distance trip,” he said. “This has been very enlightening.”
The route grew out of a partnership between Adventure Cycling Association and the Center for Minority Health at the University of Pittsburgh. The groups share a common goal of promoting lifelong health through a form of physical activity available to people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Adventure Cycling worked with historians, preservationists and researchers to map out a route freedom seekers would have used as they were guided by the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” The song referred to following waterways and the North Star from Alabama and Mississippi to the Ohio River.
Actual routes used by the escaped slaves are impossible to ascertain as the railroad was not so much a physical route as it was a movement of people who assisted the slaves in their quest for freedom. As such, the route is a series of communities and landmarks connected by great cycling roads and paths.
The route traverses eight states and one Canadian province. It was named one of the world’s top 10 bicycle routes in National Geographic’s “Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the world’s Greatest Trips.”
It is entered in a global competition, “Geotourism Challenge, Celebrating Places, Changing Lives,” sponsored by National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations and Changemakers.
While most Ohio residents have a fundamental knowledge of the Underground Railroad, it is not as familiar to other U.S. citizens or those in other nations.
“I’ve certainly learned a lot about it,” Cox said. “I grew up in the Northwest, and history there is more about John Colter, trappers and fur-trading endeavors.”
Turnbull said only learned New Zealanders know of the railroad, although most residents have heard of the American Civil War and slavery issues.
The cyclists have, at times on the trip, suffered from knowledge overload. Larry Moormeier of Seattle said the National Underground Railroad Museum was overwhelming in its depth and breadth.
Interest in the route and the story it tells appears to be strong. Moormeier said they ran into 40 to 50 other cyclists on the route who were doing it on their own or with other groups. A cyclist from Australia joined up with their group on part of the route and stayed in an Austinburg bed and breakfast Monday.
After touring the Hubbard House Tuesday morning, the men were heading to Erie, Pa., where Underground Railroad character actors were to welcome them at Front and Walnut streets, the former site of a free black community called New Jerusalem. As with the Hubbard House and Ashtabula County, the community was known to have harbored freedom seekers on their way to Canada.
From Erie, they’ll follow the Lake Erie shore to Niagara Falls, cross into Ontario and end their journey on the shore of Lake Huron June 12. The cyclists plan to ship their bicycles back home from there.
Moormeier said they average 55 miles per day but have done up to 80 miles. They covered 78 miles Monday.
“Our most memorable experience was sitting in a tornado shelter in Mississippi with the tornado sirens blowing,” Cox said.

Online: adventurecycling.org

Women cyclists coming
through area June 10

Thirty women over the age of 50 are on a 2,000-mile bicycle journey that follows the route many slaves took on their road to freedom in Canada.
At least four of the cyclists are in their 70s; the average age is 61. Several are cancer survivors while others are living with heart disease and multiple sclerosis. Some are using the ride as a fund-raiser for their favorite causes.
The group will stop in Austinburg June 10 as they ride from Alabama to Canada.
The tour is supported by WomanTours, Inc., the only all-woman bicycling touring company in the United States.

Online: womantours.com

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