Home of Thomas Jackson, 11 Wheat St. (111 Cleveland Ave.)

Born a slave in 1820, Thomas Jackson escaped from Virginia in 1842, and finally reached Ithaca in 1850. Soon thereafter, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and he moved to Toronto for a brief time. Upon returning to Ithaca, Jackson worked as a gardener, farm hand, saw-miller, and general laborer. By 1860 he married Mary Ann, an escaped slave from Maryland who worked as a laundress.

**This tour is from the 2003 printed "The Southside's African-American Heritage Walking Tour" brochure prepared by the Cornell-Ithaca Partnership with research by Leslyn McBean & Ingrid Bauer; modified for PocketSights by The History Center in Tompkins County in 2022. Text is unchanged from the original printing.**