From 1864 Mexico Independent
The Starr Clark Tin Shop is an exceptionally well-documented, nationally-recognized Underground Railroad site.
- TheStarr Clark Tin Shopis listed on the National Register of Historical Places. The National Register of Historic Places lists well- documented Underground Railroad sites because they are resources important to the history of this country.
- The Tin Shop is listed with the Underground Railroad Heritage Trail. Heritage New York is part of the Governor’s Heritage New York program. Other trails are for Theodore Roosevelt and the Revolutionary War.
- It is listed with the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program as an Underground Railroad site, and the Mexico Historical Society is listed as an Underground Railroad facility. In 1998, Congress directed the National Park Service to create the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program, which links Underground Railroad sites, programs, and facilities all across the nation.
- The Tin Shop is linked into a larger regional Underground Railroad Trail. Locally, the Oswego County Freedom Trail Commissionand the Heritage Foundation of Oswego have worked to link the Tin Shop into a heritage trail through a driving tour brochure, a script for step-on guides for bus tours, and interpretive programs for school children and tourists through the Oswego County Historical Society.
- The Starr Clark Tin Shop and other Mexico Underground Railroad sites are “pinned” on the Abolitionist Map of America. The map is an online project of the “American Experience” series of historical programs produced by PBS.
- The building has been recognized by the Heritage Foundation of Oswego County as a winner of its Volunteer of the Year Award. Given for the exemplary effort devoted to acquiring and preserving The Tin Shop.
- The Haunted History Trail of New Yorklists the Starr Clark Tin Shop as a member. We are featured in a You-tube Video that they have posted.
- The Historical Society is now a member of The Underground Railroad Consortium of New York State. A group of sites bound together to research, display and promote tourism at major Underground Railroad sites in Upstate New York.
Starr Clark Tin Shop
and
Underground Rail Road Museum
Restoration begins in 2005
Starr Clark and his wife, Harriet, sheltered runaway slaves in the two-story shop as early as 1837 - 24 years before the Civil War began.