Lombard exhibit revives Underground Railroad

A miniature covered wagon rests in the middle of the room with reproduction slave shackles on one wall.

A painted map showing the Chicago area in the 1840s decorates another wall and the tones of slave spirituals fill the Sheldon Peck Homestead in Lombard, where an exhibit about the Underground Railroad’s historic presence in the village is on display.

Learning by doing is impossible in the case of topics like the Underground Railroad. But the exhibit allows school kids on field trips and other visitors to read, hear and see information that proves former slaves seeking freedom came through Lombard — specifically through the home of Peck, the folk painter.

“Peck himself was a radical, meaning he was for racial equality,” said Jeanne Schultz Angel, executive director of the Lombard Historical Society, which is putting on the exhibit. “He was not only anti-slavery, he believed in equal rights for people of color.”

That belief made him different from many other historical figures commonly assumed to be anti-slavery, such as Abraham Lincoln, Schultz Angel said.

“There were lots of different types of anti-slavery people, and that’s what we focus on here,” she said.

The diary of Peck’s youngest son, Frank Peck, offers some proof that former slaves — up to seven at a time — stayed temporarily in his family’s home, possibly in the barn or a cellar under the home, Schultz Angel said.

“In the days of the Underground Railroad, our home was a depot and very many were the slaves sheltered here while on their way to freedom,” Frank Peck wrote in an excerpt from his diary on display.

With the diary and other elements of proof, the historical society and Lombard Historical Commission are applying to have the Peck homestead included on a National Park Service list of sites associated with the Underground Railroad called the Network to Freedom, said commission President Rita Schneider.

About 10 years of research went into the exhibit and the application, she said.

The compilation of that research allows the exhibit to dispel myths about the Underground Railroad, Schultz Angel said.

It wasn’t underground. It didn’t necessarily involve railroad tracks (although a rail line now lies just north of the Peck homestead museum). Slaves seeking freedom didn’t follow the same route every time. Harriet Tubman wasn’t the only “conductor.”

Instead, freedom seekers went from home to home, learning which paths to use, where bounty hunters roamed and how to find the next safe spot. The painted map shows Peck’s network of Underground Railroad stops in the suburbs, spreading to Aurora, Chicago, Downers Grove and Warrenville.

For many abolitionists living in those towns, the Underground Railroad wasn’t all about freedom. It also was about forgoing alcohol and living with morals.

“It was a whole reform movement,” Schultz Angel said. “They wanted to make society better.”

What: Underground Railroad exhibit

When: 1 to 4 p.m. every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday

Where: Sheldon Peck Homestead, 355 E. Parkside Ave., Lombard

Cost: $2 suggested donation

Info: lombardhistory.org; (630) 629-1885