Primary Bedroom
There are arguably two bedrooms that could be considered "primary" in this home. This bedroom, the larger of the two, was updated in 2017-2021 by Robin Bardo, with painstaking removal of the wallpaper and freshened up with a soft grey paint. The drop ceiling offers one of the clues to the hidden space above this room where reports state that 12-16 slaves could be hidden. There is a possibility that a fireplace exists behind the wall next to the closets. Something our family will be investigating and trying to confirm!
Amanda + Ernest Bradt described the room in a document estimated to be from the 1991 Muncy Home Tour: Notice a window above doorway indicating the original outside wall [in the hallway outside of the primary bedroom]. Steps to look out - to left is a door that leads to a room with a very slanted roof - many of the original hand-hewn shingles are still visible. All rafters are hand pegged. As you enter this room (stooped over) to the left was a well concealed trap door which opens into another room above. Probably ten or twelve people could have been provided a resting place, food, and water during the daylight hours, then at night fall they traveled to the next underground,
Bruce Saunders; owner of HOMS from 2000 to 2017 describes the room in his historical accounting dated 2016: Second Floor Bedroom and Hidden (Secret) Room: Ascending the stairs is a window in the wall through which one can see the ceiling of the third floor; this would have been the exterior of the earliest house. (The BB hole in the window pane is courtesy of Pete Brant.) Also to the left are "stairs to nowhere" ending at the dormer window. On the left side of the stairs is a small door leading to attic space, and - partly hidden by a wall - is an entry to the "secret room" now filled with insulation.
According to tradition, the HOMS was a stop on the Underground Railroad, the route for smuggling escaped slaves to Canada via old trails paralleling the Susquehanna River. This is as would be expected in a Quaker village, for the Friends' strongly supported abolition, Tradition has it that runaways were hidden in this room. Comparison of the ceiling heights show that there is a large space over the second floor bedroom; it is difficult to notice, because of the confusing arrangement of floors and stairs in the house.