Historical Marker Society of America

There's little visible sign that the stately Fuller House in the village of Skaneateles was part of the Underground Railroad.

Unless you count the ghost.

"We do have a ghost," said Regina Hannan, the current owner with her husband, John. "I saw a slave ghost when we first moved here. And our niece and a friend saw a moving ghost last summer." The Hannans bought the Fuller House, 98 W. Genesee St., in 1998 for $320,000.

Regina Hannan said she was aware of the home's history as a hiding place for slaves when she bought the house, but that was not a reason for the purchase.

"Not at all," she said. Living just down the street, "I just fell in love with the house." Documents on file with Preservation Association of Central New York suggest the Fuller House had a blind room in the basement to hide slaves, but neither the Hannans nor previous modern-day owners of the house found the room. The Hannans also have not found any sign of a passageway that supposedly existed in the basement to connect to the graveyard across the street.

"We do have some place to hide under two of our closets," Regina Hannan said.

A document on the Historic American Buildings Survey lists the house as being built in 1815 for Nicholas Thorne by builder Peter Thompson.

The home, an example of grand Federal-style architecture, recently was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

James Canning Fuller, according to PACNY, came from Liverpool, England, and bought the Thorne Estate in 1834. The asking price for the 156-acre farm was $10,000; Fuller bought it for $9,500.

Fuller, a Quaker, had been an abolitionist in England. In 1838, he became secretary of the Skaneateles Anti-Slavery Society.

Local historian Franklin Chase reported that, by 1839, the Fullers had acquired a reputation for anti-slavery activism. In fact, they were suspected of hiding Harriet Powell, a Mississippi slave who escaped her owners while visiting Syracuse.

The house became known as an Underground Railroad station, as slaves made their way from Syracuse to Marcellus to Skaneateles and finally to Auburn.

James C. Fuller died in 1847, but his wife, Lydia, continued the Underground Railroad activity as did their son, Dr. James Fuller.

After helping in the famed rescue of William "Jerry" Henry in 1851, Syracuse minister Jermain Loguen ¯ a former slave himself - stayed at the Fuller House as he fled to Canada.