1

Script for Belmont Mansion Exhibit Phase One Tours – Second Draft

[MEET VISITORS IN THE ORIENTATION ROOM NEXT TO THE GIFT SHOP] Welcome to the Underground Railroad Museum at Belmont Mansion. Belmont Mansion is the Crown Jewel of Fairmount Park. My name is ______. I am a student guide (in training) from ’s High School of the Future.

Twenty years ago Belmont Mansion was at risk of being demolished. The American Women’s Heritage Society saved it and sponsored the historical research and building restoration that you see in this museum. In that time we have discovered that Belmont was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Your tour begins with an introductory video. Then I will take you on a thirty-minute tour of the Mansion. If you need to use the restroom, please go now or wait until the end of the tour. The restrooms are in this direction, up the stairs, and on the left at the far end of the room.

[While you are waiting for visitors to pay admission fees and use the restroom, invite other visitors in your group to introduce themselves, asking them: Where are you from? What brings you to visit Belmont Mansion? How did you hear about Belmont Mansion? Then show the video and allow visitors time to view exhibit panels in the orientation room.]

As you see in this exhibit, many Africans came to Philadelphia where a law against slavery was passed in 1780. They came through a network of escape routes called the Underground Railroad. Belmont Mansion was one of the places in Philadelphia where they hid on their way to freedom. Now please follow me to the main building of the mansion.

[ESCORT VISITORS TO BELMONT MANSION FIRST FLOOR MAIN HALL]

Belmont Mansion was designed and built by William Peters in 1742. William Penn granted these 400 acres to John Boelsen. The land was later sold to William Peters. Belmont was his Palladian style country estate. You see this style in the symmetrical placement of the doors and windows. Look up at the molded plaster ceiling, the earliest one in America, to see the Peters family seal. The furnishings throughout the Mansion show the changing styles used during its long history.

Before the American War of Independence, William Peters returned to England and left Belmont Mansion to his son, Richard Peters. As this exhibit shows, Richard Peters was against slavery. [LET VISITORS VIEW EXHIBIT PANELS & EXHIBITS IN THE SIDE ROOMS]

2

Around 1847 Belmont Mansion became a stop on the Underground Railroad. An Underground Railroad agent hid runaways in train boxcars coming from Columbia, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River. Here, right next to Belmont Mansion, the train had to stop to be lowered on an inclined plane down the hill to the river. Another Underground Railroad agent met the runaways and helped them escape. They were hidden in Belmont Mansion’s attic and basement, at the Boelsen Cottage, and on Peter’s Island in the Schuylkill River. New exhibits opening within the next year will tell this story.

Throughout the Mansion you will see quilts that enslaved Africans used to tell runaways about escape routes because they were forbidden to read or write. Continue your visit by going upstairs. Please watch the step.

[DIRECT VISITORS TO BELMONT MANSION SECOND FLOOR LEFT ROOM]

In this room life-size mannequins represent the original owners of Belmont Mansion, William and Mary Peters and their son Richard. William was an English lawyer who came to Philadelphia in 1739. Mary was born in Philadelphia. Belmont Mansion was their country estate. William returned to England before the American War of Independence in 1767. Their son Richard became an American Army officer and later Secretary of the Board of War. He lived at Belmont Mansion until 1828. Here he entertained many of America’s Founding Fathers: , Marquis De Lafayette, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and .

The other room presents an African-American family moving to Philadelphia around 1920. They were among the 1 million African Americans who were part of the Great Migration. After emancipation from slavery, they fled racism in the south and looked for jobs in the north.

[ALLOW VISITORS TIME TO VIEW the TV screen leading to the third floor. Here you will see on the screen pictures identifying the attic rooms above the third floor and the basement rooms where slaves were being held. Due to the renovations and construction we cannot enter these areas. & THEN DIRECT THEM DOWNSTAIRS, OUT OF THE MANSION, AND BACK TO THE BANQUET HALL]

In this exhibit on loan from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, formerly enslaved Africans shares their memories. The bravery and resourcefulness of the Africans who endured slavery and those who helped them in the Underground Railroad and the Abolitionist Movement are models for opposing social injustice today. There will be new exhibits telling the story of the Underground Railroad opening within the next year, so please visit again and bring your friends. Thank you for coming.