BREWER – The newest addition to Chamberlain Freedom Park – a larger-than-life bronze likeness of a runaway slave – will be dedicated during ceremonies set for Memorial Day. Organizers encourage the public to help celebrate the park’s latest milestone.

Called “North to Freedom,” the statue is a tribute to those who traveled to freedom on the Underground Railroad, to the abolitionist movement and to Maine’s role in the Underground Railroad.

Created by Houlton sculptors Glenn and Diane Hines, the statue depicts a runaway slave looking back toward the south and leaning to the north as he hoists himself out of an underground tunnel to freedom.

The statue will be set over a shaft at Chamberlain Freedom Park purportedly used by slaves en route to freedom in Canada.

Though not documented, oral tradition passed down by generations of local residents has it that the Holyoke House in Brewer, once occupied by wealthy abolitionist John Holyoke and also known as the Christmas House, was a station of the Underground Railroad.

When the Holyoke House was torn down in 1995 to make room for the rebuilt Penobscot Bridge, a “slave-style shirt” was found tucked in the eaves of an attic room. In 1996, a stone-lined shaft was discovered where the root cellar of the home’s summer kitchen once stood. The Holyoke House is believed to be one of an estimated 130 possible Underground Railroad stations in Maine.

The park, developed at the former site of the house, includes a two-thirds scale version of Little Round Top and a bronze statue of Col. Joshua Chamberlain, the Brewer native who commanded the 20th Maine Regiment at the Gettysburg, Pa., battle often credited with turning the tide of the Civil War. Chamberlain grew up next door to the Holyokes and attended the same Brewer church.

The festivities at the park, located just off the Penobscot Bridge in Brewer, will begin at 1:45 p.m. with performances by the Brewer High School Band and trumpeter Mary Hunter and the reciting of the national anthem.

After welcoming remarks by Richard Campbell, co-chairman of the park and a Republican congressional candidate, the Rev. Constance Chase Wells of the First Congregational Church in Brewer will deliver the invocation and her remarks.

Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe and Mayor Michael Celli will be among the featured speakers.

Greetings also are anticipated from U.S. Rep. John Baldacci and U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who along with Gov. Angus King are honorary chairmen of the park; Brian Higgins, park co-chairman and Brewer Historical Society president; James Varner, president of the Greater Bangor chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Jerry Hudson, former Brewer city councilor; Gerald Talbot, the first black member of the Maine House of Representatives; John Holyoke, Bangor Daily News sportswriter and descendant of the abolitionist; and John Jenkins, Lewiston’s first black mayor and Maine’s first black senator and independent candidate for governor.