Once a beautiful neoclassical library, the Carnegie Center is now an art and history museum in downtown New Albany, Indiana. Inside this beautiful building are two art galleries, a local history museum with a creepy artifact, and one depicting New Albany’s Underground Railroad. The museum includes a small theater and a memorial to Lucy Higgs, a formerly enslaved person and Union Army nurse who called New Albany home. Admission is entirely free, and there’s an elevator for wheelchair access!
Also covered is the nearby 2nd Baptist Church, which has the “Underground Railroad Gardens” that honor Lucy Higgs and memorialize enslaved people who stayed there on their way to freedom.
Located just three blocks north of the Ohio River in New Albany, Indiana, is the Carnegie Center for Arts and History on Spring Street. It was built in 1904 with assistance from Andrew Carnegie, and that, by itself, is an exciting story. Quick history lesson: Andrew Carnegie was one of the wealthiest people who ever lived, making a considerable fortune in steel and other industries during the 19th century.
He was the 1800s version of Bill Gates. During the last 18 years, he decided to give away 90% of his money to improve society through charities, universities, and other educational initiatives. He gave away 350 million dollars, or 85 billion in today’s money. That’s a lot of cash.
Carnegie Library
And one of those educational initiatives was the Carnegie Libraries, like this one. One thousand six hundred seventy-nine libraries were built through his generous support. Indiana had more Carnegie libraries than any other state. The exterior is a work of neo-classical beauty. I love this inscription: “Books are the precious lifeblood of master spirits, embalmed and treasured up to a life beyond life.” That’s pretty deep. In layperson’s terms, books are immortal and live way beyond those who wrote them. Once holding over 11,000 books, the growing library was moved to the much larger New Albany Floyd County Library in 1969. But that was certainly not the end of this beautiful place; it became a museum in 1971.
The inside architecture is equally impressive. There are two art galleries, one to the west and one east of the front steps. A bit further North are two history galleries. The one on the west is all about New Albany. It has one extraordinarily cool and somewhat creepy artifact: this painting of New Albany by resident artist George W. Morrison, completed in 1851. The detail of 1800s New Albany is beyond amazing, and you wonder how one person could remember and capture it all with such precision.
Lucy Walker
But something creepy lurks here in the Ohio River just below the surface. It’s purposely complex to see, and if you aren’t looking for it, you will not find it. It’s the ghostly sunken remains of the 144-foot-long steamboat Lucy Walker. On Wednesday, October 3, 1844, at 5 pm, the Lucy Walker was filled with 111 passengers, including a crew of enslaved people owned by the boat’s captain. To gain speed and win a racing record, the ship’s captain ordered meat thrown into the boiler, which caused the three boilers to overheat and explode. The explosion was so massive that it threw human remains as high as 50 feet in the air on both the Indiana and Kentucky sides of the Ohio River. Fifty-six people died, including 20 crew members, many of whom were slaves. Artist George W. Morrison sought to memorialize this tragedy forever, and he has. Can you see it?
Underground Railroad
On the hall’s east side is a gallery dedicated to New Albany’s Underground Railroad, with a special tribute to Lucy Higgs, a formerly enslaved person who helped the Union Army as a nurse during the Civil War. If you walk through, you could be done in a minute or so. But if you take your time to read and immerse yourself in the history, it will take much longer, and I would add it would be time well spent.
The exhibit starts in the dark of night as enslaved people in the South escape to the North with dreams of freedom. It shows the cruel chains that bound them. In our modern day, it isn’t easy to understand how anyone could do this to another human being. While Indiana was not a slave state, it also didn’t allow former slave settlement. Enslavers could pursue enslaved people into non-slave territory and bring them back. An extensive network of caring souls organized safe places for enslaved people to hide along the way, known as the Underground Railroad. The punishments for runaway slaves could be beyond horrific, involving torture or outright execution in front of other enslaved people to provide a lesson and deterrent for future escapes. Anyone helping these runaways could also be punished, even if illegally. It was a significant risk to help, but many provided food and shelter anyway. There’s a small theater where a short film tells the story. Past the theater is a tribute to Lucy Higgs.
Lucy Higgins
Lucy Higgs, born into slavery in Hardiman County, Tennessee, on April 10, 1838, fled north with her infant daughter Mona in June of 1862. She met up with the 23rd Indiana Infantry Regiment, where she proved indispensable as a cook, seamstress, and singer.
And most notably, a nurse who cared for the many Civil War wounded. When food supplies were scarce, she went into the woods and gathered edible plants. Soldiers and officers alike revered her for her kindness and cheerfulness. As far as they were concerned, she was family. Even more remarkable was that when she settled at New Albany and contracted measles five whole years after the war, some of those soldiers came to care for her until she recovered. They did the same thing years later when she had a stroke. They truly cared about her. She was an honored guest at the general’s daughter’s wedding and after the 1898 reunion. In 1895, 55 former soldiers of the 23rd Indiana Infantry petitioned Congress for her to get a pension. She received a pension for the rest of her life by a particular act of Congress. She was indeed a remarkable woman and loved by all.
Underground Railroad Gardens
Lucy Higgs’ legacy doesn’t stop at the Carnegie Center steps; it continues one block away at Main and Third Street, at the Second Baptist Church. A historical marker in front acknowledges the flight of enslaved people here. Behind the church is a memorial missed by many who pass this road daily, known as the Underground Railroad Gardens. It features a memorial to Lucy Higgs and the enslaved people who took refuge at the church. As a station along the Underground Railroad, it’s a serene place with a sense of history, just a block from the Ohio River. In the corner is a statue of Lucy and her daughter Mona, who sadly died while they were still with the Union Army and never tasted freedom. On the other corner is an abstract sculpture, the winged man symbolizing the flight to freedom many dreamed of but could not see. And in between both is a small door many took on their way north under the shadow of night. It took the bravery of many in the distance of time to make freedom possible for all—a powerful lesson that extends well beyond slavery to the struggles everyone encounters on their way to the promised land.
