Indiana Landmarks awarded the $8,000 grant secured to Town Clock Church to fund research into creating exhibits that commemorate the church’s historic past.
Built in 1852, the Town Clock Church in New Albany became a congregation of white and Black abolitionists, and eventually was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
There is little historical documentation of the church’s involvement in the Underground Railroad, so much of it instead comes from stories passed down for generations by the New Albany community, according to Indiana Landmarks Southern Regional Director Greg Sekula.
By the end of the Civil War, the underground chambers in the church — also known as undercrofts — were a part of the historic, secret network for enslaved people on a path to freedom from southern states like Kentucky, Sekula explained.
“A lot of the activity that likely happened was something that was not meant to be advertised, or documented. So it’s part of the oral tradition of the site,” Sekula said.