AUBURN - U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said the more she learns about Harriet Tubman, the more she appreciates that keeping her memory alive is a noble endeavor.

Clinton stopped at the Harriet Tubman Home Thursday afternoon before an appearance at the Auburn City Council meeting. The purpose of the visit to the South Street landmark was to note the $11,750 that Clinton secured in 2003 - money the Underground Railroad matriarch was shorted in a widow's pension.

The money has been used to make improvements to the site where Tubman lived and ran a home for the aged in her later years.

Clinton's visit lasted about 40 minutes. She first sat down with the center's executive director, Karen Hill, and members of the

ite's board of directors and other dignitaries in a closed-door meeting. After that, Clinton briefly addressed about 75 members of the public, as well as Tubman's descendants.

Hill introduced Clinton, calling her a "contemporary mirror of Harriet Tubman because she is a staunch advocate of things she believes in."

Clinton said in future years, the Tubman Home as well as the Women's National Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, will become even greater tourist attractions than they already are.

"This part of New York that we are in is not only among the most historic of places in our country, but the world, for the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements," Clinton said. "There is great opportunity for economic development, as interest in historic and cultural tourism of this area grows. This is a major tourist attraction and it, and the Women's Hall of Fame, will only grow in significance."

Clinton secured the money for the home in November in the Senate's appropriations bill.

The pension was for Tubman's husband, Nelson Davis, a Civil War veteran. She should have received the full amount from January 1899 to March 1913, when she died.

Tubman's own enlistment in her early 40s when she served as a nurse, scout, spy and cook earned her the right to be buried with military honors in Fort Hill Cemetery. But Tubman, who was stationed at Hilton Head, S.C. and the Freedman's hospital in Fortress Monroe, Va., never received the pension she was due as a veteran. From the end of the war to her death, she would have received $25 per month for her service, which would have come to about $14,200.

Nina Blackwell, a spokeswoman for Clinton, said Tubman had asked for the pension herself, but she was denied.

Staff writer Louise Hoffman Broach can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or louise.hoffman@lee.net