Feb 27, 2015 2 min read

Elementary school teachers now have at their disposal a traveling trunk filled with lesson plans on the Underground Railroad, which included escaped slave routes through Washington County.

The books and related teaching material for a weeklong course for fourth- and fifth-graders are being provided by the Washington County Historical Society as a way for it to reach out to schools with tight budgets.

“Schools can’t afford to be this specialized on one subject,” said Clay Kilgore, the society’s executive director.

The trunk includes seven lesson plans and two sets of 30 books about life along the secret routes and safe houses that slaves used to escape the antebellum South, Kilgore said.

“So they can go in-depth,” he said.

The society worked with a professor at Washington & Jefferson College, Jennifer Harding, to develop the curriculum, said Katie West, curator at the LeMoyne House museum in Washington.

Teachers have the opportunity to pick and chose which lessons they want to fit into their plans, she said.

The trunk includes one lesson on what was happening with the abolitionist movement in Washington County. The museum was once the home of Francis J. LeMoyne, a physician who used building on East Maiden Street as a safe house.

“This happened here in Washington County. We can say, ‘Here, this happened in your backyard,'” West said.

“These kind of stories get lost in the fabric of history,” she said. “I’m glad we can bring them back to future generations.”

The trunk was funded by a $1,000 grant from the Washington County Community Foundation. It’s being provided to school districts in Washington County for free. It was already scheduled to travel to a school in Oklahoma to a teacher who recently visited the LeMoyne House.

For information, call the museum at 724-225-6740.