Retired Navy Commander Owen Corpin will once again prepare the watch fire and provide the program for the Watch Night commemoration Dec. 31 in Peterboro.
(Peterboro, NY – Dec. 2014) On the eve of the Sesquicentennial of the Thirteenth Amendment Owen Corpin will prepare the watch fire and provide the program for the Watch Night commemoration at 4 p.m. Wednesday Dec. 31. The program will begin at the Smithfield Community Center, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro and will move to the watch fire site on the Peterboro Green.
Corpin is a retired Navy commander, a member of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum and a descendant of 19th Century freedom seekers who came to Peterboro. He organized the Watch Night commemoration on the 150th anniversary of the first Watch Night in 1862.
Through the night of Dec. 31, 1862, people of the North and South waited through the night to see if President Abraham Lincoln would issue the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the states of rebellion. Lincoln had shared his first draft with his Cabinet as early as Sept. 22, 1862. A facsimile of that Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation gifted to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum by the New York State Museum will be on display at the Smithfield Community Center. The First Steps to Freedom: Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation brochures from Albany explaining the document and Gerrit Smith’s role in preserving the treasure will be distributed.
Watch Night on New Year’s Eve 2014 ushers in the Sesquicentennial Year of the end of the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States, and the assassination of President Lincoln.
2015 heritage events in Peterboro will include a processional honoring veterans of the Civil War, programs about Appomattox, and Lincoln’s death at the 23rd Annual Civil War Weekend June 13 and 14.
In October 2015 the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will be hosting Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle. The film and discussion series is supported by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and addresses the continuation of the struggle for freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment.
The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum is planning a special public weekend Oct. 23 and 24 to feature Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator.
.The public is encouraged to join in this free Sesquicentennial observance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Dress warmly. Bring a flashlight.
For more information, call Owen Corpin at 750-6561 or email nahofm1835@gmail.com.