LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 22 slaved by a plantation owner named Ezekiel Mer- rick. "I wore the fetters of slavery for twenty nine years," his letter noted. When Merrick sold his wife and children away to the south, Thomas was devastated. He de- cided then to liberate himself. He fled north by way of the secretive Underground Railroad net- work to Troy, NY, where he settled for a time and started a family with his new wife Mary. In 1846, Thomas was given a Smith property near Pluma- dore Pond in Franklin County. Unfortunately, the undeveloped lot was too rugged and remote to be useful. "Owing to the inconvenience of school and church privileges," he later explained, "I sold that lot and bought fifty acres near the village." Soon, the Thomas family had established a prosperous farm among their White and Black neighbors on Muzzy Road in Vermontville. They grew potatoes and other crops, raised cattle and sheep, and tripled the size of their farm. They had found sanctuary in the Adirondacks and were living the dream. But one day their dream almost became a nightmare. Back in Maryland, Ezekiel Merrick learned of John Thomas' whereabouts and sent bounty hunters to capture him and return him to bond- age. The men came within several miles of Ver- montville, but when local residents heard of this they confronted the intruders and drove them off. Thomas was a valued member of the com- munity by then, and his friends and neighbors rallied around him as a fellow Adirondacker. John Thomas embodied the Adirondack ideal of empowerment through land ownership in a multi-racial community. Looking back on his life in 1872, he let Gerrit Smith know from his letter that… "I have breasted the storm of prejudice and op- position..." His next line, however, made it clear that the success story was not without problems. "...until I begin to be regarded as an American citizen." That note of irony speaks volumes. For some of his neighbors, Thomas' skin color still marked him as an outsider. Wardner's memoir contained crude racist jokes about him, and the name of the nearby brook also served as a reminder that even civil war and constitutional amendments had still not brought full equality and justice to the Adirondacks. Even today, distorted versions of the story add further insult to injury. These farmers were not failures but hard-working, successful Adiron- dackers, and they were not mere transients. The Thomases had found sanctuary in Vermontville and spent the rest of their lives there. They were Top: The historic roadside marker along John Thomas Brook was unveiled in September of 2023. Photo credit: Eric Adsit Bottom: Tanya Jones, left, and Lauren Jones, right, are two de- scendants of Wesley and Phebe Murr y, who owned property near the brook during the mid-1800s. Photo credit: Curt Stager Opposite: John Thomas Brook weaves through the northern Adirondacks. Photo credit: Curt Stager

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