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Gerrit Smith was a white Dutch descendent landowner in upstate New York, who became a radical abolitionist in close friendship with Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, and John Brown. Smith’s father Peter was of Dutch descent in Rockland County, NY, and spoke ‘Jersey Dutch’ and Oneidan. Smith’s estate in Peterboro, NY was used as a safe place during the Underground Railroad. In 2008 the National Park Service listed the house.