The Daniel Boone Homestead will open its annual fall lecture series on Sunday, September 7, with a presentation exploring how small rural Black communities in southeastern Pennsylvania used the landscape to aid freedom seekers.
Benjamin Carter, an associate professor of anthropology at Muhlenberg College, will deliver the lecture, “Six Penny Creek and Landscapes of Freedom: How Small Rural Black Communities Used Landscapes to Free People,” at 2 p.m. in the DeTurk Education Center.
Carter’s research focuses on a historic community known as Six Penny Creek, located about five miles south of the Homestead. Using a combination of high-tech methods such as remote sensing and machine learning, alongside field surveys and historic document analysis, the study examines how the community leveraged nearby forests—used to supply fuel for local iron furnaces—to support their survival and provide covert routes and temporary shelters for those escaping enslavement.
A registered professional archaeologist, Carter has taught at Muhlenberg College for more than 15 years. His work in historical archaeology concentrates on 19th-century charcoal production and its connections to the Underground Railroad. He earned his doctorate in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008.
The lecture is open to the public with a suggested donation of $2 per person. Pets and smoking are not permitted.
The Daniel Boone Homestead, the birthplace of the famed frontiersman born in 1734, is located between Reading and Pottstown, one mile north of Route 422 near Baumstown. The 10-room stone Boone House is furnished to the 18th-century period and sits on 579 acres of countryside. The site is owned by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and operated daily by the Daniel Boone Homestead Associates, a nonprofit organization.
For more information, contact the Homestead at 610-582-4900.
