{"id":648,"slug":"starr-clark-tin-shop-new-york","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Starr Clark ran the Underground Railroad out of a tin shop on Main Street. The Mexico, New York tinsmith arrived in 1832, wrote the first antislavery petition Oswego County sent to Congress, founded the county Anti-Slavery Society, and made his shop the abolitionists' meeting place — locals came for news and gossip, and 'before they got done,' a neighbor remembered, 'Starr Clark would bring up the abolitionist movement.' He was the engineer of Mexico's railroad: he housed fugitives in his own home or placed them with other families, arranged their transport to Oswego and the boats to Kingston.","The documentation is unusually rich. Researcher Judy Wellman believes Clark wrote the 1837 newspaper piece declaring 'it is my practice whenever a colored man comes into our village to go and invite him to my house and make him free at the same table with my family, let him be bond or free.' Gerrit Smith himself published a letter in 1839 commending Clark for shepherding the fugitives Williams and Scott to Canada — 'they both had obtained places to work and were doing well.' In October 1851 the shop took part in the Jerry Henry relay, sheltering the fugitive the Syracuse crowd had just broken out of jail.","The Clark family maintained that a tunnel connected the shop to the house next door — the arrangement of stones in the tin shop's basement east wall suggests a filled-in passage. The building survived a century as tavern and boarding house; the Mexico Historical Society bought it, peeled off the aluminum siding, and opened it as the Underground Railroad Museum — the tinsmith's shop where freedom's passengers were routed to the lake.","The Starr Clark Tin Shop is the archive's conductor file — the Mexico tinsmith who wrote 'I make him free at the same table with my family,' whose shop ran the village's Underground Railroad and helped carry Jerry Henry to Canada."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Starr Clark Tin Shop is the archive's tinsmith file — the Main Street shop that was Mexico's Underground Railroad headquarters, documented by Gerrit Smith's own 1839 letter, with a basement wall that may still show the tunnel to the house next door.","A tin shop that was a depot keeps its wall — the file's suggestion being that Clark's hold is the stone arrangement in the basement: the possible tunnel mouth where the fugitives passed, in the shop where the town's gossip ended in abolition."]}],"name":"Starr Clark Tin Shop","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD","COMMERCIAL"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Starr Clark Tin Shop is a historic site in Mexico, New York, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. The archive files it under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. Access is restricted — check current rules before planning anything.","address":"3250 Main Street","city":"Mexico","county":"Oswego","state":"New York","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":43.465218,"lon":-76.232574,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"RESTRICTED","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: No. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 02NY10, source row 45. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' documents the entry. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Starr Clark Tin Shop is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"The shop’s UGRR role is documented. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access is restricted; check with the managing agency or landowner before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The Mexico tin shop—where the tinner hid the fugitives.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"public_access","existing_value":"RESTRICTED","incoming_value":"PUBLIC","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 02NY10, source row 45. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 2; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Starr Clark Tin Shop","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starr_Clark_Tin_Shop","desc":"Historic commercial building in New York, United States","extract":"Starr Clark Tin Shop is a historic commercial building located at Mexico in Oswego County, New York. It is a two-story wood-framed vernacular building built about 1827 with Federal details. The tin shop measures 24 feet 4 inches (7.42 m) wide and 32 feet (9.8 m) deep, with a 24-foot-4-inch-wide by 25-foot-8-inch-deep rear wing. Its owner, Starr Clark, was a widely recognized abolitionist and supporter of the Underground Railroad.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Starr_Clark.jpg/330px-Starr_Clark.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":43.45972222,"lon":-76.22861111},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}