First National Bank Museum, 2nd & Locust Streets, Columbia, PA

The National Park Service lists the First National Bank Museum at its Network to Freedom Website database of Network to Freedom sites.

“Other Federal, State, local, and privately owned properties pertaining to the Underground Railroad that have a verifiable connection to the Underground Railroad and that are included on, or determined by the Secretary to be eligible for inclusion on, the National Register of Historic Places.

“Other governmental and non-governmental facilities and programs of an educational, research, or interpretive nature that are directly related to the Underground Railroad.

“The last category, ‘governmental and non-governmental facilities and programs” is much more flexible and invites the inclusion of a variety of different categories of listings. Facilities and programs in the Network can have an educational, research, or interpretive scope, as long as they are directly related to, and verifiably associated with, the Underground Railroad. Facilities can include, but not be limited to, archives and libraries, research centers, museums and museum collections, and cultural or commemorative centers. Programs can be even more diverse in nature. They can include, but not be limited to, tours, interpretive talks, travelling exhibits, theater productions, living history presentations, and educational programs.

“Finally, there are a multitude of Underground Railroad-related sites around the United States that have suffered the impacts of prolonged negligence or developments inconsistent with the historical character of the site. For whatever reasons, these past activities may have left the site ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Nonetheless, these sites are often integral parts of the Underground Railroad story. Their significance should not be lost, so the Network to Freedom is designed to include these impacted sites, with the provision that they must be associated with some type of documentation and interpretation.”

According to the NPS Website: “The First National Bank Museum is one of the few banks in the United States still preserved within its original setting, and among its original records are books of accounts from the antebellum period providing a rare view of the degree of wealth of two prominent African American businessmen who also acted as Underground Railroad conductors. During the Bank’s years of operation in the early and middle nineteenth century, Stephen Smith and William Whipper used their own financial resources and the actual railroad cars in which they shipped lumber to Philadelphia to secretly forwarded freedom seekers onto the next station in their hazardous journey. Whipper is recorded in William Still’s seminal book on the Underground Railroad to have given at least $1000 a year to freedom seekers in the years leading up to the Civil War. They were the wealthiest members of an African American community in the place where most historians recount, albeit anecdotally, that the Underground Railroad received its name.

Visitor Information: Currently open to public.

Location: Second and Locust Streets, Columbia, 17512

National Park Unit: No

Ownership: Nora and Michael Stark

Location Type: Facility

UGRR Operatives: Stephen Smith,William Whipper