History Harvest held at Harriet Tubman church in Auburn

Bowes, the cultural resources manager with the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park, said she believes community members likely have photographs and other items related to the history of the Thompson Memorial AME Zion Church. The Parker Street building is part of the park and hosted the 1913 funeral for Tubman, the iconic abolitionist who spent the second half of her life in Auburn.

The park hoped people would bring such items to a History Harvest it held Saturday at the church, where they could be scanned and digitized for potential use in future exhibits, then returned.

While no one brought any items to the event, the National Park Service still intends to hold similar ones in the future.

“The History Harvest will allow us to connect with that information that we know the community has in their attics and in their scrapbooks and in their photo albums, pictures of folks at the church, at services, at events,” Bowes told The Citizen. “It will allow us to then develop programming and exhibits related to the community that Tubman helped inspire in Auburn.”

Bowes said the National Park Service wants to learn more about the church during the 20th century, noting it still learned from Saturday’s event despite no one bringing in any items. The agency intends to work with the church’s congregation and their descendants and share their knowledge with visitors. Bowes added that if someone brings in an item they want digitized, the service would record the information of the donor to make sure their name stays associated with the item, and to provide credit. The park also currently doesn’t have the capacity to accept any items.

Dr. Evan Faulkenbury, a SUNY Cortland history professor, and 28 of his students were on hand to help with the event on Saturday.

The event helped his students gain hands-on public history experience, Faulkenbury told The Citizen, and he expressed interest in taking part in future History Harvests with the church.

One of Faulkenbury’s students, sophomore Emma Kardell, said she was thrilled to be involved.

“It’s cool to be part of something that’s outside of the classroom,” she told The Citizen. “It’s cool to see how the park service is done and know that we played a part in something bigger.”

Saturday’s event was also meant to give people a sneak peek at renovations made to the church following a fire caused by a lightning strike in 2019. Bowes said work has been done to make the building’s interior and exterior match how it looked during Tubman’s funeral service, with elements of how it looked later in the 20th century as well.

The community opening for the church and the parsonage next door, also part of the park, is set for June 22.

Friends Maxine Alberici and Elaine Frost didn’t bring any items to the church Saturday, but they wanted to look at the building. Frost said she had relatives who used to live on Parker Street, so she remembers the area being filled with people attending church services, dressed to the nines in their Sunday best. 

Calling the church a “landmark,” Frost said she is happy to see it restored.

“It has come back to life,” she said.

Anyone with information on the church and the parsonage, and items to digitize, can contact Bowes at (315) 237-7846 or jessica_bowes@nps.gov with the subject line, “History of Thompson church.”