Field Trip

Today I went on a 3rd grade field trip.  I haven’t been on a field trip for the past two years so it was nice to get to do it again.  Cole had preschool and then went home with a friend so I took advantage of it.

The trip was a visit to The Kelton Museum which is a historic house built in 1852.  It was part of the underground railroad.  I had a really good time learning more about the underground railroad and what these families went through.  The Kelton house was so interesting.  My favorite part was hearing the stories about the family.  They said that hundreds of runaways came through the house but one day Sophia Kelton was looking out her front window and saw two little girls in her bushes.  She brought them in, they had made it all way from Virginia by themselves.   The Keltons took them in and offered them shelter.  They were the about the same age as a lot of the 3rd graders.  One was very sick and couldn’t go on but the other continued on her quest to Canada.  The Kelton’s sought medical attention for the sick little girl and then raised her as one of their own.  She eventually married a carpenter that worked for Sophia Kelton’s husband.  Together they had two children and her son Arthur went on to be the first African American to graduate from the Ohio State University school of medicine.  How cool is that?  The coolest thing though was that the sister’s reunited when they were in their 90’s.
Here are a few pictures of the house

I didn’t get any good pictures of the cellar where they actually housed the runaways because the lighting was terrible.  Apparently there a about 5 houses here in Worthington, some only a few streets away that also were part of the underground railroad.  I believe they open them up around Christmas so I am hoping to get to do that tour as well.

Cool stuff.