Franklinton Historical Society
Promoting interest in Franklinton history…nurturing a sense of pride in the Franklinton area
Abram’s Freedom Moment
A Reader’s Theater
Presented by Geoffrey Dean, Michael Hamilton, Cathy Nelson,
Keith Shannon, and Leslie Blankenship
Wednesday,September 19 at 6:30 pm
Members of the Friends of Freedom Society, Inc. and docents of the Kelton House Museum and Garden will present a Readers’ Theater. They will tell the account of Abraham Depp, Joseph Sullivant, and the roots of the Lucy Depp Settlement in Concord Township, Delaware County, Ohio.
This is the story of a family’s desperate plan to find freedom and their hazardous journey to Ohio. You will learn about the two Franklinton brothers, Joseph Sullivant and Arthur Boke, Jr., who made it happen.
On Labor Day, 2016, the Friends of Freedom Society, Inc. debuted an original Readers’
Theater program at the Lucy Depp Settlement community picnic. It was part of the
dedication ceremony for their Underground Railroad site marker.
There are many ways to commemorate events from the past: a textbook, lecture, wampum belt, poem, historical marker, play, ballad, oral saga, or a Broadway musical. This Readers’ Theater traces the path to freedom taken by an exceptional slave child born in 1791 on a tobacco plantation in Powhatan County, Virginia. The program draws from the following primary documents:
- Slave lists from the Depp plantation records
- Genealogical records of two Depp families—one white and one black
- 1829 Will of John Depp
- Petition and Bill from the 1831-1832 General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia concerning the status of emancipated slave Abraham Depp
- Memories of frontier Franklinton from Joseph Sullivant published in the Genealogy and Family Memorial of the Starling, Sullivant, and Related Families, (1874)
About The Freedom Society, Inc.
Founded in 1996, the Society dedicates itself to researching and telling the stories of Ohio’s Underground Railroad. The Society does this through its historical markers and other programs.
Program Location
Mount Carmel Community Health Resources Center
777 West State Street, Medical Office Building 2
Free parking in P1 Garage―enter off W. Town at Davis, turn right into garage.
Take elevator to 1st floor, exit lobby, turn left, and building is on the left. Enter at 2nd door.
Map and Directions
For more information contact the Franklinton Historical Society on their Facebook Page