Into the Whirlwind: 1825-1865

Into the Whirlwind, the third volume of the seriesMain Street: The History of Buffalo, tells the story of the years leading up to the American Civil War through the point of view of the growing city of Buffalo. Only a mile from Canada across the Niagara River, Buffalo became a destination for fugitive enslaved people trying for freedom. The book tells the story of the small African-American community in Buffalo that helped on the road to Canada. Early White abolitionist George Washington Jonson left a vast diary describing his efforts on behalf of African Americans--efforts often unpopular in White Buffalo of the time. Rev. John C. Lord of the Central Presbyterian Church preached to his parishioners that God had authorized slavery in the South. Meanwhile, the boom following the opening of the Erie Canal attracted a flood of German and Irish immigrants to Buffalo. The presence of these struggling immigrants fostered the popularity among the native-born community of the Catholic-hating "Know-Nothing Party." The 1850s were a dramatic era in Buffalo dominated by conflicts over abolition and nativism. Then came the war years, when so many sons of Buffalo lost their lives on the battlefield. The stories of the Siday and Wilkeson families bring tragedy alive.Read more