Harriet Tubman National Historical Park

This will be more of a commentary on National Park sites than an in-depth review of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park.

My biggest criticism is that this is not really a National Park property. I’ve encountered a few other “official units” like this in my prior trips: Poverty Point National Monument (a Louisiana State Park) and Great Egg Harbor National Scenic and Recreational River (multiple local and county park districts).

I’m not in any way criticizing or diminishing the importance of any of these sites. Rather, I don’t think they need to be included in the 424 “official” NPS sites. I have no problem with them being “Affiliated Sites”, or one of the other designations that the Park Service uses for parks outside the official list.

In the case of Harriet Tubman NHP, the site features her house during the time she lived in Auburn, New York. The visitor center is in a separate building and the site is completely managed by a local and private foundation. I had just started going through the displays when the lone staff person announced that the next tour was starting and he would be closing the visitor center. I had not signed up for the tour, so I simply had to leave.

Passport stamps are not available on the site, but rather at the Equal Rights Museum in downtown Auburn. They also had an NPS pamphlet on the site, however it was not in the standard unigrid format and I did not find any unigrid pamphlets elsewhere. There is a church that Tubman attended nearby that is actually owned by the Park Service but was closed at the time.

This site is certainly historically important and should be preserved. The local foundation is doing that but I suspect struggles for funds. I would support the National Park Service stepping in to offer sufficient funding to the property owners, with an agreement that the visitor center is open all day, an NPS ranger is on duty, and NPS signs coexist with the current signs.

There is another NPS site dedicated to Harriet Tubman in Maryland. I look forward to visiting that site and perhaps gaining more information that I could not get at this site.

Steve