Peterboro, located about twenty-five miles southeast of Syracuse, New York, is a historic hamlet situated in the Town of Smithfield, Madison County, New York.

In 1795, Peter Smith, Sr., a partner of John Jacob Astor's who built his fortune in the fur trade, founded Peterboro, naming the town after himself. Smith moved his family to Peterboro in 1804 and built the family home there. In the 1820's, his son, Gerrit Smith, took over his father's business interests, managing his family's vast property holdings in the town and the surrounding area.

Gerrit Smith's commitment to both the abolition and temperance movements led to the Smith estate in Peterboro becoming a stop on the underground railroad and to Smith building one of the first temperance hotels in the country in Peterboro. The Smith estate also served as an important meeting place for abolitionists from both New York and other parts of the country, including John Brown and Frederick Douglass. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a founder of the women's rights movement and cousin of Gerrit Smith's on his mother's side, met her husband, Henry B. Stanton, there in 1839.

In 2001 The Gerrit Smith Estate was designated a National Historic Landmark.

External links

• The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark
• New York Stops on the Underground Railroad
• Historic Petersboroon the NYHistory.com website