Draft:William and Sarah Storum

• Comment: Two other things that I forgot. With respect to WP's notability standard, what makes them most notable is that they provided a stop on the Underground Railroad. Yet the two times you mention this, you don't provide any citation for it. You should add at least one citation where you note "Their farm became a refuge for African Americans who had escaped slavery" and perhaps explicitly mention the Underground Railroad there. Also, you might want to add a red link to the Storums on the List of Underground Railroad sites page. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:34, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: I spent a bit of time poking around in references. Keep in mind that you can use a reference more than once. For example, the Bailey reference can also be used to confirm that the Storum farm was a stop on the Underground Railroad, as can this local history and this book. You can add a sentence in the section on the abduction of Harrison Williams first noting that Williams had been enslaved in VA, ran away, and stayed with the Storums for several months, working on their farm. There are multiple sources that confirm that. And the Straight and Shephard paper has several relevant sources; for example, the Price paper is a source confirming that Williams stayed at the Storums' farm, and the Jamestown Morning Post/Shankland article can be used to note that several of the Storums tried to prevent Williams from being kidnapped and at the same time helped another formerly enslaved man to escape. Ask at the Teahouse about the correct way to cite a source that's quoted in another source. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: It's not at all clear what actually makes them notable? Theroadislong (talk) 18:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Find A Grave is not a reliable source. Theroadislong (talk) 15:42, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Some of the sources are not reliable (blogs, social media or others that have no editorial oversight) and others are primary which cannot be used to establish notability. This also skews into WP:NOTGENEALOGY. What I suggest is focusing on one member of the family who can meet WP:NBIO, start an article about them and work from there. S0091 (talk) 19:46, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

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William Storum (1788 Hartford, Connecticut - 5 September 1874 Busti, New York) and Sarah Gomer (1790 Massachusetts – 30 July 1856 Busti, New York) were a married African American couple in western New York engaged in the abolitionist movement and active in the Underground railroad. Their children and descendants were involved in later women's and civil rights movements in the United States.

The Storum family

Location of Storum farm in Busti, Chautauqua County in 1854 map

William Storum married Sarah Gomer in January 1814 in in New Hartford, Oneida County, New York, New York. She was the widow of Martin Wills and mother of two young children. Their first child was born in Oneida County in October 1814.

In 1816, the family moved west, purchased land from the Holland Land Company and became pioneers in Chautauqua County, New York. They established a prosperous farm in the Town of Busti and added six more children. Their farm became a refuge for African Americans who had escaped slavery.

The abduction of Harrison Williams

The Storum farm was invaded in September 1851 by bounty hunters who detained William Storum and took Harrison Williams captive. The bounty hunters were successful in returning Williams to Virginia through a court in Buffalo, New York under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and received newspaper attention nationally. The episode likely resulted in the relocation of Lewis Clarke to the safety of Canada and the sale of his adjacent farm to William Storum. 

Organizers of the Sugar Grove Convention and host of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was the guest of the Storum family for the June 17-18 1854 abolitionist convention held in nearby Sugar Grove, Pennsylvania. Douglass noted in his article about the event published in his paper that:

The responsibility for getting up this meeting rested on the Storum family at Busti – an enterprising family of farmers, well to do in the world and when I tell you that these industrious and well-to-do farmers are of the color of you and me, you will derive from it the right lesson, and draw from it the right hopes for our whole people.

The anti-slavery convention of abolitionists was held in Sugar Grove at the farm of James Younie on the western edge of the village. Frederick Douglass, Lewis Clarke, and Jermain Loguen gave speeches during the weekend event. Local abolitionist Cynthia Catlin Miller hosted Douglass for tea.

Family

Their children included

1. William H. Storum (1814-1888) who was a delegate to the National Liberty Party Convention in Buffalo in September 1851
2. Caroline Storum (1820-1867) who married AME minister J.W. Loguen and publicly worked for anti-slavery efforts in Syracuse, New York
3. Juliette Storum (1821-1885)
4. Sarah Marinda Storum (1825-1904) who moved to Syracuse, New York in the 1850s and is said to have been a confidant of the abolitionist John Brown
5. Catherine Storum (1829-1850) who married abolitionist speaker Lewis Clarke in 1849 but died ten months later
6. Edward Lloyd Garrison Storum (1835-1838) died young
7. Richard Storum (1838-1857) died young

Their grandchildren included Helen Amelia Loguen (1843-1936) who married Lewis Douglass, the son of Frederick Douglass, in 1869; and Sara Marinda Loguen (1850-1933) who was one of the first female African-American medical doctors in the United States, and later became the first female doctor in the Dominican Republic.

Archival material

Storum family research, photographs and records are included in the Gregoria Fraser Goins Papers, The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.