About Marilyn.

Marilyn Higgins has spent her life living and working in the cities, small towns and places of extraordinary natural beauty that comprise upstate New York. Her passion for the area’s rich history and belief in its profound impact on America’s national identity motivated her to write “Dreams of Freedom.”

As the chief economic development officer for National Grid (Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation) and later Syracuse University, she was told intriguing stories, visited mysterious mansions and was shown the hidden artifacts of the Erie Canal communities. Her fascination with these places, where new religions were born and waves of immigrants, abolitionism, women’s rights and Haudenosaunee culture entwined in the 19th century continues.

A twenty-year volunteer with the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, she is currently working with the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum and her home community of Canastota, New York to promote the “Abolitionist Freedom Walk,” a public reenactment of the storied 1835 canal journey and march of 104 abolitionists up a steep nine-mile embankment to form the New York Anti-Slavery Society.

Imagining the life of a young Irish woman in search of her lost family along the Erie Canal at a time when the area was a hotbed of dissent and the critical last-leg of escape on the Underground Railroad, energized her in the writing of this novel.