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Drake House Holiday Festival set for Dec. 14 - Sentinel & Enterprise

LEOMINSTER — For those looking for a bit of history to complement their holiday events calendar, the Drake House Holiday Festival will soon be back by popular demand.

City Councilor and local historian Mark Bodanza, who is helping coordinate the event, said that following last year’s successful open house, he and the City of Leominster have decided to open the famed abolitionist house’s doors to the public once again. This year, the event is set for Dec. 14, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The festival will provide an opportunity for area residents and visitors to learn about the home — which was a stop on the Underground Railroad — as well as the women’s rights activists and abolitionists who once lived there.

“This woman’s moral courage was amazing,” Bodanza said of the house’s former resident, Frances Drake. “She took a stand when it wasn’t easy to do that.”

One of the most well-known people to stay in Frances’ care was Shadrach Minkins, Bodanza said, a then-fugitive slave among the first to be held in Boston under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. (Among other things, the law required residents in free states to help return runaway slaves to their owners.)

After Minkins was freed from a Boston courtroom, he made his way west, eventually staying for a time under the care of Drake, at her home in Leominster.

“I would submit that the most important piece of history to occur on Leominster soil was Drake’s assistance in the rescue of Minkins, who, in fact, ultimately made it to Montreal and freedom,” Bodanza said on Wednesday.

Drake, with her husband, helped many other fugitives throughout the years, Bodanza said, but the abolitionist stood out in other ways, as well. Among them was her willingness to identify as in favor of women’s rights.

“The concept of advocating for women in the 1840s and 1850s was more radical than freeing slaves, which seems hard to believe in today, but that’s the truth,” Bodanza said. “So she was in many ways, especially in the early years, Antebellum years, a pariah in her own community because of her beliefs.”

The home was bought several years ago as part of an agreement between the Historical Society and City of Leominster, Bodanza said. It currently sits on the National Register of Historic Places and is undergoing interior renovations.

The event on Dec. 14 will include miniature lectures about the home and the Drakes, led by Bodanza, as well as chestnuts roasted by Mayor Dean Mazzarella. Free hot chocolate, coffee and cookies will be available, and holiday greenery will be on sale to benefit the Mayor’s Energy Fund. There is no admission to the festival, and it is suitable for all ages.

“It’s history that belongs to the community,” Bodanza said.

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Drake House Holiday Festival set for Dec. 14 - Sentinel & Enterprise
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