Fall Lecture Series at the Daniel Boone Homestead

“Six Penny Creek and Landscapes of Freedom: How Small Rural Black CommunitiesUsed Landscapes to Free People” Sunday, September 7, 2025 • 2:00pm

Join the Daniel Boone Homestead Associates for their annual fall lecture series at the Daniel Boone Homestead. Historians and scholars will share their knowledge on various topics with the local community and its visitors. Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn more about life in the past.On September 7, Muhlenberg anthropology professor Benjamin Carter will share his presentation “Six Penny Creek and Landscapes of Freedom: How Small Rural Black Communities Used Landscapes to Free People.” In this presentation, Dr. Carter will demonstrate the ways that small, rural Black communities in
southeastern Pennsylvania used landscapes to aid in their own survival and to support those fleeing enslavement in the American South. Utilizing both cutting-edge, high-tech methods, such as remote sensing and machine learning, and tried and true methods, like field survey and the analysis of historic documents, our research focuses on a single community called Six Penny Creek, located about 5 miles due south of the Daniel Boone
Homestead. This work shows that the community was able to leverage local forests, which were used to fuel local iron furnaces, to extract resources for their own communities and as clandestine routes with hidden temporary housing for freedom seekers.
Dr. Benjamin Carter is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Muhlenberg College where he has taught for over 15 years. A Registered Professional Archaeologist, Dr. Carter’s current concentration is historical archaeology focusing on the charcoal production in the nineteenth century and its relationship to the Underground Railroad. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2008 from Washington University in St. Louis.
Admission for the lectures is a $2/person suggested donation. Please, no pets and no smoking. The Fall Lecture Series will take place in the DeTurk Education Center. This program is presented and funded by The Daniel Boone Homestead Associates.
The Daniel Boone Homestead is the birthplace of the famed frontiersman, born in 1734. The Boone House, constructed in three stages throughout the eighteenth century, is a 10-room stone structure fully furnished to the period and situated on 579 acres of rolling countryside. The Daniel Boone Homestead is located halfway between Reading and Pottstown, one mile north of Rt. 422 near Baumstown. The Homestead is owned by the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and daily historic operations are run by the Daniel Boone Homestead Associates, a local, nonprofit organization. If you would like more information or would like to make a donation, please contact the Daniel Boone Homestead at 610-582-4900.