Michigan Street Baptist Church: A stop on the Underground Railroad resurrected

Buffalo’s 1849 Michigan Street Baptist Church, with windows that stretch up to nearly touch the ceiling edged in a delicate stencil pattern, has reopened after a careful restoration that reflects its beginnings as a sanctuary built by people who fled enslavement in the South to start new lives here.

“When I walk into the church — at the same time that it is a very humble space — it feels to me so sacred and peaceful and grand,” said Lillie Wiley-Upshaw, president of the Buffalo Niagara Freedom Station Coalition, owner of the church.  “I am in awe of it.”

The church at 511 Michigan Ave., was built between 1845 to 1849 by a congregation, formed in 1836, of freedom seekers who escaped slavery.  The restored space makes Wiley-Upshaw think of the description from an early parishioner who called it, “the most beautiful place this side of heaven.”

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the church is on the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor and is Buffalo’s oldest standing African American church. It is one of two Buffalo listings –Freedom Park where ferries took people across the Niagara River to Canada is the other — on the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a program identifying more than 800 sites in 40 states that are connected to the Underground Railroad.

The four-year, $1.9 million renovation project, completed in 2025, shored up the church foundation, added pews copied from originals and painstakingly recreated a crimson stencil pattern that was discovered. Original details like the door handles, the steps leading to the balcony and the original church design are intact. Plans include adding a new adjoining building to allow for handicap access and to showcase finds from an ongoing archeological dig.

The church, which was not a clandestine hiding place, is considered part of the Underground Railroad for different reasons, said Wiley-Upshaw.  Current scholarship focuses places connected to freedom seekers and their actions, like the church leaders who were abolitionists and civil rights activists.

The archeological dig, underway at the grounds around the church, has uncovered artifacts that reveal some of those stories. One example:  The unearthed fireplace from the bygone home of deacon Peyton Harris. Born into slavery in Virginia in 1791, Harris fought in the war of 1812 and later ran Erie Canal boats and tailoring and clothing businesses. He also advocated against school segregation, appearing before the Buffalo Common Council in 1870.

“He seems to have been everywhere,” Wiley-Upshaw said. “I just think that he is so incredibly impressive.  We don’t do enough to talk about him … He was just a giant.”

The ongoing excavation, led by the University at Buffalo, will expand to a parking lot next to the church where the home of Mary Talbert once stood.  A graduate of Oberlin College, an educator and early civil rights and women’s suffrage advocate, she married Harris’s grandson and became the church’s most famous parishioner. She helped found the city’s first chapter of the NAACP and the Niagara Movement that was the precursor to the NAACP.

“We are working to save history, so these stories and the people who lived them will not be forgotten,” said Wiley-Upshaw. “They lived here, worshipped here, celebrated here and fought for basic human rights from this church.  They created a lasting legacy for us all.”  

Touring the church: Because of construction, visits must be arranged by appointment. Please call 716-322-1002, ext. 102, or email info@michiganstreetbuffalo.org for more information.