Serving on a Great Lakes ore freighter as a cook enticed Roy McCurdy, dressed in a bow tie, and Evelyn McCurdy to move from Amhertsburg, Ontario to the port city of Conneaut, Ohio around 1909.

The McCurdy story in the United States is one of fortitude and strength and captures the spirit of other so called 'fugitive slaves' following the same trail to freedom in the 1800s. Roy was the great grandson of Nasa McCurdy, who was released from slavery by Rachel Kennedy in Greene County, Pennsylvania in the 1790s.

Note: The early history of the McCurdy family and how they helped the freedom seekers create schools and establish African Methodist Episcopal churches throughout Western Ontario is well documented in the McCurdy collection found within the Archives of Ontario.

Sources

Franklin County Recorder. (1795, June 17). Franklin County PA Deed Book 3: Manumission of Nasa McCurdy by Rachel Kennedy. Chambersburg, PA: Franklin County

Frost, K. S., & Tucker, V. S. (Eds.). (2016). A Fluid Frontier : Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Greene County Recorder. (1797, March 23). Greene County PA Deed Book 1: Manumission of Nasa McCurdy by Rachel Kennedy. Waynsburg, PA: Greene County