On Friday, May 17 a statue of William Seward, Class of 1820 and Harriet Tubman will be unveiled in front of the Schenectady Public Library.

“There’s many statues of Seward that said he was secretary of state and bought Alaska, you got a bargain. There’s many statues of Tubman that basically talk about her life and feats, but there’s an element of this thing here that’s not known: Harriet Tubman and William Seward were friends, which is improbable. The dichotomy was that Seward was a very prominent individual and Tubman was an escaped slave, but while she was helping other escaped slaves Seward’s home was a sanctuary on the Underground Railroad,” Emeritus Professor Frank Wicks who is largely responsible for arranging and funding the creation of the statue said in an interview in February.

One of the ways that Seward supported Tubman was by selling her a home on property, which was illegal at the time. She stayed there when she was not helping slaves escape bondage from the South in the underground railroad.

The unveiling of the statue was delayed by the a fire that broke out in the sculpture’s, Benedict Dexter’s, studio in November of 2017. This fire destroyed Dexter’s workspace and the initial clay versions of the statue.

The ceremony will start at 11:00 a.m. and the unveiling will take place at noon.