LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 27 God." It's an auspicious name and it just may be that his parents were hopeful for their son's future. Mintus Northup was, like so many others in his family, born into slavery in Rhode Island. According to his son, he held affection for the family that owned him, yet the institution itself, and what it had done to him and to so many others, filled him with sorrow. Yet Mintus achieved his freedom when his owner died and emancipated him in his will. Once he became a free man he started his own life and family. In 1929, he married Binore, who was part African, part European. Binore was born a free woman of color, and the laws of the time meant that any children she would have would be born free. However, the reality of life for the Northups would not prove to be so simple. The family — which took its name not from Mintus' ancestors, but after the family that had long enslaved them — lived in a very new settlement in the Adiron- dacks: Minerva. At the time of Solomon's birth, Minerva technically wasn't a town of its own. Part of the Town of Schroon, the area that became Minerva was only settled a few years previously, around 1800. Early on, lumbering was the primary industry, but as land was cleared, residents soon developed farms, in- cluding Mintus Northup. Solomon regarded his father as a gentle man, who passed his life "in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture" and was respected by many. For young Solomon Northup, the Adirondacks was home. It was there he learned from his father how to farm and where his parents nurtured his love of reading. It was where he learned to play the violin, something that would later provide an income, bring comfort in terrible times, and which Northup referred to as "the ruling passion of my youth." In a way, it was the violin that led to the great ca- tastrophe of Solomon's life. As a boy the Northup family moved a few times, ending up closer to the capital region, first to Gran- ville, and then to what we know now as Hudson Falls but was then called Sandy Hill. Solomon grew up and married a woman named Anne, who was a remarkable cook, and the two found their musicianship and good cooking well received and admired by friends and neighbors. Solomon and Anne encountered slaves in Saratoga Springs, where wealthy whites enjoyed vaca- tion. Solomon was even asked, quietly, about how to escape by fearful slaves wanting to be free. In 1841, two men approached Solomon with a tem- porary job offer: playing the violin. He accepted and was then kidnapped and sold, against his will, into slavery. Solomon's freedom, that freedom he had been born with, was ignored, and he was sold to a slave trader for the sum of $650. The two men who kidnapped him claimed he was a fugitive slave. Over the next twelve years, Solomon Northup was sold over and over again. While Solomon was treated cruelly, tortured, and nearly even lynched, surviving through "dark and dismal shadows," his wife continued to raise their children and kept hope. In 1848, Solomon's mother died. After elev- en years, Solomon was able to get word to friends and family in the North, through a new, trusted friend, to whom he said, "If justice had been done, I never would have been here." In January of 1853, Solomon Northup returned to New York, to be reunited with his family at their home in Glens Falls. His story became well-known after he wrote a book about his life and experiences, entitled Twelve Years a Slave, which was released as a fim in 2013. He was a grandfather who traveled and gave lectures on his enslavement. He was an abolitionist and, some say, worked on the Underground Railroad in New York. His later years have disappeared to us, and no one seems to know when he died or where he was buried. However, that doesn't mean the Adirondacks have forgotten him.. Saratoga Springs, a city in which Solomon lived, cel- ebrates Solomon Northup Day every year with a blend of art, activism, and remembrance. Similar events are held periodically in Schroon Lake and in Keeseville, home of the North Country Underground Railroad Museum. In Minerva, now that quiet spot where the wilder- ness surrounds you and all is beauty, Solomon Northup is remembered, too. In 2021, the Minerva Historical Society installed a historical marker in the town, dedicated to North- up, to remind all who pass it of his story. Minerva is fortunate to have a passionate Town Historian, Teresa Brannon Strohmeyer, who wishes to develop an annual event and continue to highlight the life of Solmon Northup. The actor and photographer Clifford Mealy, based in Saratoga, performs a poignant one-man show portray- ing Northup and has brought that show to Minerva. Mealy once shared that "The past is too much of our present. My goal is to make people comfortable to talk about race." So long as Solomon Northup is remembered, and his story shared, perhaps we can get more comfortable.

• Cover