Milton Sernett

Within These Walls Milton Sernett

Within These Walls is a celebratory history of the Smithfield Community Center for its 200th anniversary. Located in Peterboro, New York, and built in 1820, the building began as a Presbyterian church, then became the Evans Academy, Peterboro Union School, and Peterboro Elementary School. It is now the Smithfield Community Center, municipal building for the Town of Smithfield, and the location of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. Placed on the National and State Register of History Places in 1994, the building is also on the Madison County Freedom Trail, the Madison County History Trail, and the Madison County Architectural and Preservation Trail. Abolitionists met in the building on October 22, 1835 to organize the New York State Antislavery Society after they had been mobbed out of Utica, New York. Gerrit Smith, the famed abolitionist, often spoke here as did other important abolitionists and reformers of the pre-Civil War era. The Smithfield Community Center is the only building retaining period integrity and still standing in the Hamlet of Peterboro that is associated with the reform activities of Gerrit Smith. Within These Walls tells the story of the many ways in which this 200-year old structure has served the Hamlet of Peterboro and the Town of Smithfield, Madison County, New York. While local history, the story told here, has regional and national significance.