A New York Minute In History

This episode delves into New York State’s role in the War of 1812, which is often considered America’s “second war of Independence.” With a particular focus on the State Historic site at Sackets Harbor, we learn the particularly important role that New York, and New Yorkers, played in the war.

Interviewees: Constance Barrone, Site Manage, Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site and Dr. Harvey J. Strum, Professor of History and Political Science at Russell Sage College.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Video: History Happened Here, William G. Pomeroy Foundation https://youtu.be/3Izr1CpHreU

Harvey J. Strum, “New York City and the War of 1812,” New York History Review, 2024.

Harvey J. Strum, “New York Militia and Opposition to the War of 1812,” New York History, 2020.

“Special Issue on the War of 1812,” New York History, 2013.

Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels and Indian Allies, 2011.

Richard V. Barbuto, New York’s War of 1812: Politics, Society and Combat, 2021.

The War of 1812, PBS Learning Media.

Battles of the War of 1812 Lesson Plans, American Battlefield Trust.

Devin Lander: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren Roberts: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. On this episode, we're talking about a marker located in Jefferson County on the eastern shores of Lake Ontario. The address is 448 Ontario Street in the village of Sackets Harbor, and the text reads: War of 1812. At daybreak on Saturday May 29, 1813, British forces waded ashore from Horse Island and engaged American forces defending the harbor. William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2013.

So of course, here we're talking about the War of 1812 and I'm guessing that many of our listeners might have some remembrances about the War of 1812. I know there's a few things that stick out in my head, such as, that's the war that gave us the Star Spangled Banner, and also the role that Dolly Madison played in saving the portrait of George Washington from the White House as the British burn the White House and the Capitol in Washington, DC. But I'm going to guess that most people probably can't remember any of the battles or the premise. So Devin, why don't you give us a quick summary so that we can refresh our memories on the War of 1812?

Devin: So the first thing we have to remember about the War of 1812 is that at that point, the United States was less than 30 years old. So it was really a matchup between a very young nation with a very small Navy and a small armory, versus one of the world's superpowers, Great Britain. Great Britain was embroiled in a world war, essentially, with France at the time, the Napoleonic Wars. 

Lauren: You mean another one? 

Devin: Another one, exactly. They can't help themselves during the 18th and 19th century, seemingly. But the War of 1812 was kind of an offshoot of this larger conflict, and the British Royal Navy, which was controlling - or attempting to control - the world's oceans at the time, began to encroach upon the United States maritime rights by impressing sailors to become part of the Royal Navy, and they justified this - feloniously - by suggesting that they were impressing only citizens of Great Britain, when in fact, most of the people that they were impressing the sailors on merchant vessels were actually American citizens, and some of the estimates for how many sailors are between 6,000 and 9,000. The British also took up to - and perhaps more - than four hundred American merchant ships in an effort to stop trade between the United States and France. And that's really the impetus behind the declaration of war from the United States and the President, James Madison and Congress, against Great Britain on June 18, 1812.

New York played a major role in the War of 1812 mostly because it shared a border with Canada. And one of the strategies early on for the American side was not to challenge Great Britain at sea. At the beginning of the War of 1812 the United States Navy had 16 warships. Great Britain had over 500, so that would have been a bloodbath. So instead of that, they went after Canada, which at the time was controlled by the British. So, much of the offenses that the United States made in the War of 1812, at least, initially, were launched from New York and were launched across the Canadian border and as an attempt to - not necessarily take Canada over, although some historians have argued that - but more of an attempt to force Great Britain to acknowledge the demands of the United States. 

There were several major battles that took place in New York state during the War of 1812 and we're going to talk more about the Battle of Sackets Harbor and its importance, but one of the most important battles of the entire war was the Battle of Plattsburgh, which is also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, which happened in September of 1814, and really was a victory for the small American Navy who turned back the British warships and their invasion of Lake Champlain at the Battle of Plattsburgh, and really forced the British out of New York and away from that part of North America for the rest of the war. Now, the war was taking place in other parts, for example, the British had taken over Washington, DC and burned it. There was a major battle in Baltimore that gave us the Star Spangled Banner from Fort McHenry, and, of course, the Battle of New Orleans, which was led by at the time, General Andrew Jackson, who would go on to become president, based on the fame that he encountered as the victorious general the Battle of New Orleans. So there was a lot going on. It wasn't just happening in New York. But again, New York played a strategic role because of its border with Canada and also the fact that it remained the largest port in the United States, New York City. So New York City was a target.  As a result of this, New York is really a center of the story of the War of 1812. 

So not only was the Battle of Plattsburgh one of the most important battles of the war, but New York actually plays host to the first battle of the War of 1812 and that's also known as the first battle of Sackets Harbor, which took place on July 19, 1812 - just over a month after the two countries declared war on each other. 

Lauren: For more information about Sackets Harbor, we spoke with Constance Barone, the site manager, Sackets Harbor, Battlefield State Historic Site. A note about the audio quality here. We apologize for the distortion, and we did everything we could to fix it. As a reminder, there is a transcript on the website.

Constance: So my name is Connie Barrone, and I'm the site manager at the Sackets Harbor battlefield State Historic Site. Sackets harbor is my hometown. My parents, my grandparents, on both sides of the family, lived here. And our state historic site is only one of about, well 30 or so in New York State, in state parks. Our site focuses on education and preservation, and I think we're probably most well known for our War of 1812 history, although our story continues through today, of course.

Constance: So, the Sackets Harbor was settled around 1801, 1802, by two gentlemen, Augustine Sackett and Elijah Camp, and they looked at this as a most perfect harbor. So it was pretty obvious to the US military, when the War of 1812 began that here in the northern frontier, that Sackets was going to be the center for the army, of the Navy and the Marines, because we're also about 30 miles across Lake Ontario, from Kingston and with the military base there, then the creation of the military base here at Sackets Harbor, both of these communities were competing with control of Lake Ontario and the access to the St Lawrence River, and both communities became very heavily involved with shipbuilding.

Devin: So the first battle of Sackets Harbor was a brief battle; the British firing upon the United States ship, the Oneida, and then an attempt by British forces to essentially storm Sackets harbor and capture the shipbuilding facility there, and they were repelled by the garrison that was there, but the small garrison had a 32 pound cannon, which they were successful in using to repel the British invaders as they attempted to take over the shipbuilding facility, and as a result, they knew that they were a target. So they built up the garrison. They continued the shipbuilding, and they attempted to expedite how quickly they could build these ships again to compete with the British. And they enforced the area with a larger garrison in preparation for what would essentially be the second battle of Sackets Harbor.

Lauren: So the Second Battle of Sackets Harbor took place at the end of May in 1813. At that point in the war, there was kind of a stalemate, and the British decided to attack Sackets Harbor to try to eliminate all of the shipbuilding and take away the military supplies that had been accumulating there. And they knew at the time many of the soldiers were away attacking York, so they saw a weakness and decided to take advantage of it.

Constance: Our troops had left Sackets Harbor to go to the other end of the lake. They were attacking York, which is today Toronto, and so everybody was there. And then the Crown forces in Kingston said, “There's nobody over at Sackets. Let's go attack Sackets,” which they did. So a little defense. The battle was in the early morning, May 29 1813, it was about three hours. The Crown forces, opposing forces, were trying to recapture their supplies that had been captured at York and brought to Sackets. They were also trying to destroy the shipbuilding. So the battle went back and forth, back and forth. It was pretty much a draw, although we like to say that this was our victory, because we did not become - we were not captured and taken off by the Crown forces. But when we thought we were losing the battle, we set fire to all those supplies, so we pretty much destroyed all the supplies ourselves. 

So because of that second battle, the National Park Service recognizes Sackets Harbor as one of the top two or three sites of the War of 1812 in the country, based on the outcome of the battle, but also the continual threat to battlegrounds, the preservation of battlegrounds, and that, of course, is an ongoing legacy, and we're doing actually rather well in the preservation of battleground.

Lauren Roberts : That battle really helped to cement the fact that Sackets Harbor was a stronghold of the Americans, and that they were going to be able to hold on to their harbor, and it would remain a significant military establishment for many years, not even just through the War of 1812 but up until World War II. 

In talking about the War of 1812 it's important to remember there were essentially two theaters that were being fought in North America. The first one is in New York with Sackets Harbor. But the fact that the Canadian border was there and access to the Great Lakes was what made New York such an important front. The other front was in the south, where the British were supplying indigenous people with weapons and supplies to fight back against the United States citizens that were trying to push for westward expansion and continued to take over indigenous lands.

Devin: One of the things we should realize when we're talking about the War of 1812 is - very similar to the American Revolution - there was an indigenous presence within these conflicts. There were still indigenous people allied with the British. There were indigenous people allied with the Americans, and they were very much involved in several of these battles throughout New York and elsewhere. Indigenous people, as noted, were involved in the Southern Campaign. They were very much players in the War of 1812 as they were in the American Revolution. And a similar result happened for indigenous peoples, where they were ultimately forced from their lands, something that had begun very early in colonial times in New England and elsewhere, continued through the American Revolution, certainly in New York, and also continued after the War of 1812, and more. And more and more non-Indigenous people moved into traditional indigenous territory, something that would play out through the rest of the 19th century. 

One of the main issues of the War of 1812 was that there was a major anti-war movement that was actually led by the Federalist party. And part of the reason that there was this anti-war movement was the restriction on trade in New York City, which caused economic hardship for many New Yorkers, and the fact that, essentially, the United States was not really well prepared for the war. So the militia in New York and elsewhere, and even the regular army weren't well supplied. So as a result of that, there were mass desertions in Militia outfits. But there was also a movement to remedy this situation, led by regular, average citizens and civic organizations to kind of step into that role of supplying the military and the militia. So Lauren, you as Saratoga County Historian, have discovered a letter that directly speaks to this issue and also shows that even in places where there wasn't necessarily a battle happening, there was still an engaged citizenry who was very much behind the war effort.

Lauren: Yes, I found in the collection of the county Historian's Office a transcription of a letter written by a gentleman named Howell Gardner, and he was a resident of the town of Greenfield in Saratoga County. And this letter is written to a Mr. Silas Adams on October 22 of 1812 so this is going into the first winter season during the war. And this is the letter: 

Dear Sir, You have probably heard that Colonel Prior has sent down to the people that some of his men are much in want of winter clothing. Elder Finch, their chaplain, is now down on the same business and has engaged wagons to take on such articles of clothing as people may furnish. Messengers are sent to the different towns of this county to make collections. I shall attend myself and some others in this town and neighborhood, and I wish that you and any other that will do it would go about Milton for the same purpose. They want woolen shirts, stockings, trousers, mittens, shoes and any kind of winter dress to make them comfortable, old garments past worn or anything that will keep a soldier warm. One month, I would receive, and if any person wishes to send to any particular person, roll them up and sew on a billet of their name. Judge child is going directly to Sackets Harbor. Starts on Tuesday next, the articles must be to his house by Monday night, and he will see them safe there. -Howell Gardner

This is a direct appeal to the people of Saratoga County for their local militia that had been sent to Sackets Harbor that were looking for warm clothing at the end of October, as it's getting colder and they know that they're in need of supplies, so they had put out a call to the residents of the county to collect these type of supplies and send them up to Sackets Harbor.

Devin: So as we noted, there were shortages for militia soldiers as well as regular military which led to an anti-war sentiment. There was also a political anti-war sentiment based on the fact that the two major parties in the United States were in conflict with each other, and this would be the Democratic Republican Party, which was co-founded by President James Madison, who was president at the time, and the Federalist Party, which opposed Madison and opposed the democratic Republicans and wanted power on its own, and therefore was often the anti-war party. So beyond even the conflict between the two parties at the national level, there was another layer of complexity in New York State. To learn more about the political side of the War of 1812 and how that played out in New York, we spoke with Harvey Strum, Professor of History at Russell Sage College.

Harvey Strum: My name is Harvey Strom, I am a faculty member for the last 38 years at Russell Sage College, I teach history, political science and film history. I have been working on the issues related to the War of 1812 for the last 50 years.

New York entered the War of 1812 bitterly divided. First of all, in the April elections, the state elections that occurred before the war was declared in June, the Federalists picked up 20 seats in the New York State Assembly. Won three New York Senate seats, even future President Martin Van Buren had a hard time just barely winning his seat in the New York State Senate because of opposition to the idea of going to war and because Congress, at the request of President Madison, imposed a 90 day embargo. And that issue of an embargo directly affected a lot of people in New York who switched parties temporarily and voted for the Federalists. 

The other issue was the Republicans. There were several different factions of Republicans in 1812; two factions had real reservations about the war, the Clintonians, led by DeWitt Clinton. But also there had been the Robert Livingston Morgan Lewis faction, and the people in that faction thought the war was a mistake. It was stupid. We were unprepared for it, and it would help the Federalists. The people who supported were Governor Daniel Tompkins. 

And also, there was a faction in New York City called the Martling Men, because they met at the tavern of Abraham Martling. Later on, they built their own place that opened up in 1812 called Tammany Hall. They'll later be called Tammany Hall. And so they became an anti Clinton, pro- Madison faction in New York City. And then, of course, in 1812 just as the war is about to begin, DeWitt Clinton has ambitions to run for president. And so that's a further division that splits everything up in New York politics. And so that's the chaos in New York politics at the start of the war.

Devin: So what happens? Does any of this settle down during the war? Does the war plan in any kind of unifying role, or is it, as you noted, when we come out of the war, there's still great divisions?

Harvey Strum: There'll be a brief period in 1814 of some degree of unification, but a brief period, the war is the issue. New York State, in December of 1812 will end up sending the largest anti-war delegation to Congress of any state. And so this was the peak of anti-war sentiment in New York. What will change opinion briefly is in December of 1813 and January of 1814 the British burn Buffalo, burn Lewiston, basically the whole Niagara Frontier, 12,000 New Yorkers are refugees. This will lead to, throughout the state, people raising money for the refugees. In Albany, the state legislature will pass some money for the refugees in New York City, there will be voluntary efforts, in fact, there will be a special meeting at the only synagogue in New York State in early 1813 trying to raise money for the victims of the attacks by the British. And so there's a brief period of essentially support. And what happens is, in April of 1814, in the Assembly elections, it's the landslide for the pro-war Republicans. So it looks like there's a movement towards support for the war, but it won't play out along the militia, and that support will only less for a time period, the support will reappear in August of 1814 because of the British attack on Washington and in Baltimore, the assumption is the British are coming in New York. 

And so Federalists and Republicans in New York City joined together to create a defense committee and literally 100 Columbia College students are picking up picks and shovels to build fortifications around New York, lawyers, merchants and every ethnic group. You've got 500 Englishmen. You have 1000 Irishmen, 1000 African Americans. And even part of Tammany Hall, where one of the Tammany Hall leaders provides free liquor for 1000 Tammany Hall Braves to work on the fortifications around New York City. So there's a brief period again, in the summer of 1814 because of fear: the British are coming.

 In the end, the British decided to negotiate an end to the war. The Treaty of Ghent - and actually the most famous battle was fought two, two weeks after the war had ended, the battle at New Orleans, which gave us a presidential candidate, Andy Jackson, although the peace treaty of the War of 1812, Main issues: impressment was never mentioned. The British attacks on American shipping: not mentioned. The British gave back whatever territory they controlled, and we gave back the small amount of territory we controlled on the other side of the Niagara River, opposite Buffalo. And so essentially, the wars ended the way it started. No territorial changes, the conditions that produced the war. The reason for Madison's asking for a declaration of war: forgotten about. 

One of the consequences of the war is widespread smuggling, and one of the consequences is that trade, which had tended to be all directed in New York City, now became split and northern New York, they began to essentially do their trade down the St Lawrence to Montreal. So Montreal benefits from - internationally - from the War of 1812.

Another consequence is in New York City: widespread poverty, and actually supporting people in that winter is the largest item on the municipal budget. And this problem of the impact, both on the people and on the trade, New York City does not recover from the impact of the War of 1812 until 1825. Now, impact nationally? It kills the Federalists, and because of that victory in Jackson, Americans can portray the War of 1812 as an American victory, which it wasn't. It was a stalemate. There's a brief period of increased American nationalism across the country that will only last for five years, because by 1820 the sectionalism over slavery reappears. 

Internationally, the British found that they failed twice against the Americans. One time they lose American Revolution the second time, the stalemate, and it will lead, actually, to an improvement, ironically, of America's relations with Great Britain after the War of 1812 ironically,

Lauren Roberts: The War of 1812 was a risk for America because they were such a young country. They didn't have a large standing army. They weren't prepared for a large military fight, but you know, in diplomatic matters, they needed to show that they were strong enough to stand on their own. And so even though this war is thought of as the Forgotten War, as scholars look back and do more research and bring new perspectives to it. We learn more about it and how important it actually was, especially in New York State, in establishing ourselves as a sovereign nation that was able to defend itself and become players in diplomatic strategy.

Harvey Strum: It was the second American Revolution. That's how the Republicans saw it from the very beginning. But objectively, it was - the rhetoric of the war paralleled some of the rhetoric from the revolution. And they kept talking about the revolution, that this is, in effect, a second American Revolution against the British

This episode focuses on culinary history and the Pomeroy Foundation’s Hungry for History program. We discover that the history of what we eat, and how we eat it, can tell us much about ourselves and our shared pasts.

Interviewees: Elizabeth Jakubowski, Senior Librarian, New York State Library.

You can follow the State Library and learn more about their Tasting History project at: Facebook, Instagram – @nyslibrary and X (formerly Twitter) – @NYSLibrary

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Featured Image: Salt Potatoes Hungry for History Marker near Onandaga Lake.

Jennifer Jensen Wallach, How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food, 2013.

Michelle Moon, Interpreting Food at Museums and Historic Sites, 2016.

Libby O’Connell, The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites, 2015.

Annie Hauck-Lawson, Gastropolis: Food and New York City, 2009.

Amelia Simmons, American cookery: or, The art of dressing viands, fish, poultry and vegetables, and the best modes of making puff-pastes, pies, tarts, puddings, custards and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plumb to plain cake. Adapted to this country, and all grades of life,1796.

John Rosinbum, “Teaching with Food History: Digital Collections, Activities and Resources,” American Historical Association.

Future Farmers of America Teacher Resources.

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Today, instead of focusing on just a single marker, we're going to focus on a program, one of the many, offered by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. And this program is called Hungry for History. This is a rolling grant program, so applications are accepted all the time, and the focus of this is to celebrate America's food history by telling the stories of local and regional food specialties across the United States. The program is designed to commemorate significant food dishes created prior to 1970 in the role they play in defining American culture and forging community identity. Hungry for History is intended to help communities nationwide put the spotlight on their renowned, locally and regionally created food dishes with historic roadside markers. 

All right, in order to get started, Devin, I'm going to give you a pop quiz. 

Devin: Okay!

Lauren: There are six of these signs, and I want to know if you have had any of these six types of food. Are you ready? 

Devin: I'm ready. 

Lauren: Okay, salt potatoes,

Devin:  Absolutely. I grew up in Western New York,

Lauren: Michigan hot dog.

Devin: That's a beloved favorite. I did my undergraduate studies at Plattsburgh, and the marker for that is located in Plattsburgh. So yes, I have had my share of Michigans. 

Lauren: Chocolate jumbles. 

Devin: So that's one that I have no idea what it is, and I had to actually look that one up and see pictures of it. I may have had one, but I have no memory of that name.

Lauren: Okay. How about Spiedies?  

Devin: Yes, and I make my own Spiedies using speedy sauce that I buy at Hannaford.

Lauren: I'm impressed. All right, number five, barbecue chicken - and barbecued chicken in the sense of this sign denotes the gentleman who was able to innovate the way that large quantities of barbecued chicken could be cooked over time without charring. So for festivals and fundraisers and things like that,

Devin: I have definitely had that at festivals and fundraisers around New York. And I've also had Brooks House of Barbecue in Oneonta, which is wonderful, and also cooks in that style,

Lauren: Okay, and last, but not least, all the way out to Buffalo: beef on weck.

Devin: That's another one from my childhood, growing up in western New York that we would have frequently. In fact, one of my cousins at his wedding, that was the main dish for his reception was beef on weck, and it was delightful. 

Lauren: Wow,so you did really well, five out of six. I'm impressed. I'm only at about 50% here I've never had,

Devin: Let's ask you, then which ones have you had? 

Lauren: Okay, So I have had barbecue chicken, of course, chocolate jumbles and salt potatoes, but I have never had Spiedies, beef on weck or a Michigan Hot Dog. I know! 

Devin: We'll have to do something about that.

Lauren: So in talking about these types of food, most of us, even if we haven't tried them, have heard of these. And interestingly, they are peppered around the state; beef on weck is from the Buffalo area, the barbecue chicken sign is out in the Finger Lakes area near Cayuga Lake. Spiedies are from Binghamton, Chocolate jumbles from Schoharie County. Salt potatoes, of course, from the Syracuse area. And as Devin mentioned, the Michigan from Plattsburgh. These are all great examples of communities that are erecting signs because they're proud of their culinary history and thinking about food ways and culinary history in a larger context. Why is it important that we're recognizing where these regional foods are coming from, and why is it so important to our historical memory?

Devin: Well, those are great questions, and I think what we've seen in the last few decades here has been an increase in awareness of regional cuisines and thinking about things like family history and cultural and social history. You know, cuisine and cooking really can shed a light on a variety of topics related to that, from immigration, regional identity is a big part of this cultural identity as different communities immigrated to the United States and then moved around within what is now the United States, and the interaction between cultures, going back to the very earliest immigration of Europeans and contact between Europeans and indigenous people in this country, it's just a variety of things that can be drilled down into through the field of culinary or foodways history,

Lauren: One of the other pieces of the puzzle is family history. I think a lot of us have memories, either growing up or in our own families, of spending time in the kitchen with our relatives or friends, and there were certain recipes that were always a part of family gatherings. I'm pretty sure we can all think back to some sort of family gathering, whether it's a picnic or a block party or maybe a religious gathering. And there's a certain recipe that you think of that was always there. Maybe it's on Thanksgiving, and there's always somebody's pie that you had. And so the thought of that specific kind of pie brings you back to memories of holidays, family gatherings, being in a certain place. But I think food is so connected to memory, because we all have to eat, and we all have traditions, things that we like, things that we don't like, and things that we are brought up with, raised with, that become part of our family history.

Devin: So one of the things that's been very exciting over the last few decades, with the increased interest in culinary and food history has been an explosion, really, of interpretation happening at historic sites, museums, libraries, archives that really investigate the methods of cooking In the past but also interpret how things were prioritized, what ingredients were used, and what does that tell us about different cultures, cultural assimilation, how cultures interact with each other and have interacted and shared resources over time. And one of those cultural organizations that is doing this work is the New York State Library, and we sat down with Elizabeth Jakubowski, who is a senior librarian at the State Library and is leading an initiative there and a program called Tasting History. 

Devin: How's it going? 

Elizabeth: Morning!

Lauren:  Morning. So it just so happened we had a tornado a couple weeks ago, and my neighbor is having all the tree work done right now. So it's very loud here. They're taking down all of the half broken trees so… but thank you very much for doing this. 

Elizabeth Jakubowski: Thanks you for having me. I appreciate it. 

So hi, I'm Elizabeth Jakubowski. I'm a senior librarian in the New York State Library's Manuscripts and Special Collections unit. Primarily, I help process and describe collections. I also answer reference questions and assist researchers who want to use our materials. I've been at the State Library for about five and a half years now. Before that, I worked in public libraries, both in the capital region and out in Rochester, New York. I just want to point out that I am not a chef or a food historian. I'm a librarian who loves history and historical recipes, and I'm really lucky to work with other people who share those same interests. 

So it was back in 2021 I was in our Rare Books room to retrieve some materials, and I spotted these two books which looked interesting. They were Mary Elizabeth's Wartime Recipes and Amelia Dodger’s Liberty Recipes. I was flipping through them, and both books featured sugarless recipes and other sort of substitution recipes based on their titles. I thought they were from World War Two, because I think of that war when I think of wartime cooking. But then I noticed that both of these were published in 1918 so I dove into the history of the books. I really wanted to know more about who these women were and where these books had come from. And as I did that, I started to share my enthusiasm with my colleagues, Matt, who is a fellow librarian in manuscripts, and Jamie, who's an archivist in the state state archives, were both interested in the cookbooks too. So we decided that each of us would choose a recipe, make it at home, and then bring it in so we could all try it together. We wanted to taste the recipes instead of just reading about them. 

I brought in the first recipe. It was called a stuffed peach salad. Basically it was half of a peeled and pitted peach stuffed with a cottage cheese and salted pecan mixture that you sprinkle with some paprika and top with a little vinaigrette dressing. It was good. It was a little mushy. We had a really good time trying it. There were lots of leftovers, because I always make too much food. I'm really glad it worked out that way, though, because two more colleagues joined in, based on our excitement and offers of slightly strange snacks. I'm on the library social media team, and with everybody agreeing, I decided that we could share the cookbooks we used the recipes and our end results with a wider audience. We thought it would just be fun to share using our collections in a different way. 

We've covered four different time periods in total, so I've already talked about World War One, which was our first era. Those cookbooks came from the State Library's rare book collection, which is in my unit: manuscripts. We definitely saw the need for substituting in different foods. The stuffed peach salad I mentioned; the recipe specifically said, “Don't use cream cheese for this. It's needed for the soldiers.” And when they said sugarless recipes, they meant white sugar, so brown sugar, honey and other kinds of sugar substitutes were being pushed. I don't think a lot of us realized that was going on in World War One. So that was very interesting to learn for the next era we did the 1930s those recipes came from the New York State Archives collections. It was a series called the Federal Writers, project directors, publication working files. Doesn't sound like we'd have that much in it, but it included a bunch of projects that were undertaken at the state and local levels. Research material was collected in preparation for publishing Travel and Tourism guides to New York State and local communities. So there are records relating to the state Almanac and the state encyclopedia for the 1930s. It was interesting because it wasn't a cookbook. It was average folks being asked what recipes they're using. So they sort of ranged in a gamut. Most of what we learned in that series was that there was a lot going on throughout New York State in terms of food culture. There really wasn't an overarching theme. Mostly it was the techniques in the recipes, the language being used. Obviously, ovens back then didn't have the thermometers and other regulators that we have now, so there was a bit of guesswork as to what a “hot oven” meant, or a “fast oven.” We learned a lot. 

The third era we did was the 1950s. I chose four books from the State Library's Main Collection for that, all four books were published in the 50s, and all four focused on various food trends in that era, so things like convenience food, help for the hostess and early celebrity chefs were all sort of represented by those choices. What we learned about in the 1950s was: Jello. Jello was a very prevalent ingredient. I think we had three or four recipes that involved jello in some way. It was interesting, though. One of the recipes that was made was called a cucumber salad mold, which I didn't think was going to taste very good, and it ended up being very summery and light and not too bad. It started with lime jello, and you added vinegar, horseradish, onions and cucumbers, and the person who made it, the colleague who made it, insisted that we were all going to love it, and he was right. It really wasn't bad.

Devin: That's interesting. I think I knew I'd seen some of the ads and recipes from that era that highlighted the prevalent use of jello, which, you know, is good for us, with jello being a New York State invention, and having the jello Museum in New York State, that's that makes sense for us, I guess. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, I'veactually been to the jello museum when I was living in Rochester. It was fabulous. 

So our most challenging era was the 18th century. We used American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. American Cookery was the first cookbook published in America by an American for an American audience, manuscripts and special collections. Has a second edition, which was published in Albany in 1796 that was very challenging, because recipes of that time assumed knowledge. They assumed you knew certain things, techniques. They were very, very short. In fact, one of the recipes, a cranberry tart, said to “season until grateful.” Still not sure what that means. 

Devin: Interesting. 

Elizabeth: It was very interesting. It was also interesting to see some early American recipes represented there. You could do a whole traditional Thanksgiving meal based on recipes in that book. There was a turkey to roast stuffing. There was even - she calls it a pompkin pudding, but it was truly a pumpkin pie. It was just sweetened with molasses instead of sugar, but everything else was basically the same. So it was very cool to sort of dive into that. 

At the State Library, we really do have a wide range of cookbooks, recipe books, but we also have other sources that have recipes, including magazines. We have ladies magazines that usually feature recipes and newspapers, so we have plenty of source material. When I was in public libraries, we had those local recipe books, like you said, church groups or civic societies coming together and producing those cookbooks. And I love the local recipes like you said. It does reflect the area and the time period in which they were created. So it's pretty awesome. So my favorite recipe book, in terms of usefulness, the 1950s started to have more instructions than the earlier eras, so those were very useful. Just in terms of personal interest, I would say that Amelia Simmons American cookery was my favorite. I loved learning more about early American foods. The fact that it's the first cookbook that uses the word cookie. It's sort of fun. She uses the Dutch word, or it comes from the Dutch word, which is, pardon, all of your Dutch listeners, “koekje” - I believe it's how it's pronounced. So she uses the word “koekje,” and she, like I said, reflects what we think of as traditional American foods, turkey stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, it's all in there. I love that sort of reflection of, you know, the 18th century. We had a cookbook I was looking at when I was looking at books for the 50s, and it was a cookbook for bachelors. And they were very simple recipes, very straightforward, meat and potatoes. I think that also reflects the time period in which it was created, what gentlemen might be expected to be able to handle in a kitchen. Devin I sure you've come a long way.

Devin: Maybe not.

Elizabeth: Oh no! But, I love those sort of quirky, niche sort of cookbooks.

We had a bit of a clunker of a jello salad in the 1950s. It was called an applesauce salad, which doesn't sound nearly as offensive as a tuna salad, but it really didn't work. It was lime jello with applesauce. The recipe just said nuts and olives. So the person who made it put in pecans and sliced black olives. It didn't work, those nuts got really moist and mushy overnight, as it chilled and the texture was lumpy because of the applesauce, the olives were sort of rubbery. It was this neon green color. It just, it really wasn't good. I felt really bad. He walked by my desk before we had our tasting and just sort of hung his head. But, you know, we all tried it. That's the one of the rules of tasting history is you - as best you can - try as many of the recipes as you can with an open mind. So we did all have a bite.

Lauren: I was just gonna say it seems like a lot of the jello - I took a class on the 1950s when in my undergrad American Studies major - and I remember, like, the popularity of using a fish shaped mold for jello. I'm not really sure why, but it seems like everybody wanted to mold their jello into the shape of a fish. So I'm wondering if maybe the tuna had something to do with that. Maybe one suggestion is my grandmother, I have recipe books from my grandparents, and she had one that was for wild game, because, you know, my my grandfather, they, you know, they lived through the Depression, and they were big on hunting, and they ate lots of different game. So I can remember seeing the recipe. She was a home act teacher, so she had tons of recipe books, and she was a great cook. But one was for crow pie, oh, and, and they talked about the ways to actually dress the the bird. How, like, how do you pull its feathers off, and how long do you cook it? And how, you know, all these different things that you could do with different parts of the of the animal as well. You know, squirrel there were a lot of squirrel recipes. I mean, it was a whole recipe book just for wild game. So you know that also, I think, reflects the times that of the food that might have been available in a place, in a rural place in New York during the Depression. 

Lauren: Devin, when we were talking to Elizabeth, you and I were somewhat reminiscing about interesting recipes from our past, and it prompted me to bring out a cookbook that belonged to my grandmother called the American woman's cookbook that was published. This edition was published in 1939 so just prior to World War Two, although there was also a special edition published during the war that focused on ways to stretch your rations. How can you make your the food you did have access to last longer for a family? But this cookbook in particular is well loved and well worn. I think the mark of a great cookbook means that there are lots of stains on the pages, lots of earmarks, increased corners for our favorites that we turn back to.

Elizabeth: the last round of Tasting History, the one that I'm still editing, is going to be family history recipes. So for this series, I asked participants to choose a family recipe, something they grew up eating, or something they share with their families, or they could, like, dig into their family history and try a recipe from their genealogical past. The range of recipes that people brought in was huge, and the stories that everybody shared went from silly to sentimental. I chose this theme to highlight the genealogical materials held by the State Library. That one was a lot of fun. People very much got creative. There was something called divorced dads’ dessert.

Devin: Okay? 

Elizabeth: It was ice cream with canned fruit. I brought in my mom's macaroni salad. We'll be sharing those recipes on the New York State Library's website, as well as when we post them on social media. So we're very excited to start sharing those. The next one might be a surprise, but I do have a couple ideas lined up for some future eras to explore. It's funny, you mentioned the Gilded Age. That's one of my future “I-definitely-want-to-cover” eras. We have a lot of ladies magazines from that time period, and I would really like to use those as a resource and sort of dig into Gilded Age recipes. Jamie, who I mentioned earlier, who's in the State Archives, she located some state supplied World War Two era recipes, so like suggested recipes for folks that were put out in handbooks or brochures. So that sounds like a lot of fun. I know I mentioned newspapers as a source, I would definitely like to dig into that; the State Library has one of the largest collections of newspapers, so I definitely want to use that. I was also interested in possibly exploring the Civil War. My brother was a Civil War reenactor, and I accompanied him on any number of reenactment trips, including Gettysburg, which was amazing. And he always ate some Dinty Moore beef stew, because my mother didn't think he could handle much more of that than cooking that. So I would really like to see what was going on with Civil War recipes, anything beyond hardtack I don't know if I want to be making. So yeah, there's lots of different eras to explore. Someone even jokingly threw out the idea of having a gelatin salad-off. So using the 1950s cookbooks again, identifying other interesting jello salads, sweet or savory, and then having all of our participants taste them and maybe vote on them and see which one comes out on top.

Lauren: The Association of Public Historians of New York State has their annual meeting coming up in September. We move around the state. This year we're meeting in Long Island. The theme is, how to tell a good historical narrative. What makes a good narrative that is engaging to the public? And actually, one of our presentations this year is from a person at a historic site who does a food program. So we are definitely jumping on the bandwagon with talking about ways that food can be interpreted at historic sites,  

Devin: That's great. So a way to summarize the importance of culinary and food history and how it can be used in interpretation by cultural organizations is given by the historian Michelle moon, who wrote a book called Interpreting Food at Museums and Historic Sites. She writes, “Food experiences can help us imagine away the barriers of time, getting a little bit closer to inhabiting the thoughts and experiences of people in the past, the intimate, daily and very personal world of food, what people ate and thought they should eat, the sensory pleasures and public identities food afforded them can create a kind of communion with the past, an understanding of how people thought and felt about the times in which they lived.”

Elizabeth: I think it's because memories are made around food. Food is so closely tied with our senses. You can hear sounds from the kitchen, people cooking and chatting. You can smell the food cooking. You can see a beautiful meal laid out on the table. You get to touch food as you prepare it and you eat it. Like you said, cultural history is passed down in families through recipes and cooking techniques. A lot of our holidays involve food, so it's something we can all sort of relate to. So I think when people are presented with historical recipes, they get to draw on their own experiences to engage with them. They don't have to have an existing framework of knowledge about the era the food comes from in order to appreciate it or to have an opinion about it. So I think when we share historical recipes, it's a way to welcome people in and have them want to learn more about the history surrounding the food.

As New York State prepares to host the oldest state fair in the nation, this episode tells the history of the summertime tradition of agricultural fairs and how they developed from gatherings of learned societies into the popular attractions that we all know today.

Interviewees: Richard Ball, Commissioner of the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets, Joshua Hauck-Whealton, Archivist at the New York State Archives and Sarah Welch, Historian for the Saratoga County Agricultural Society.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Featured Image: "A Close Finish", Saratoga County Fair, Ballston Spa, NY. Image courtesy of SCHC at Brookside Museum

Joshua Hauck-Whealton, “Farm to Fair,” New York Archives Magazine, Summer 2024.

Judith LaManna Rivette, State Fair Stories: The Days and the People of the New York State Fair, 2005.

Julie A. Avery, Agricultural Fairs in America: Tradition, Education, Celebration, 2000.

New York State Agricultural and Industrial Expo, New York State Fair and Agricultural and Industrial Exposition: 1841-1912, 1912.

New York State Fair, State Fair History.

American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture Learning Resources.

National Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher Center.

Devin Lander: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren Roberts: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. And today we are focusing on a marker located in the Town of Milton in Saratoga County, which is just outside of the village of Ballston Spa. The title is “County Fairgrounds” and the text reads; Saratoga County Agricultural Society created 1841. Held annual fairs at various locations. Fair held on this site, beginning 1882. William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2022. 

And of course, we are right now in the midst of County Fair season. As we're recording, the Saratoga County Fair is going on for the rest of this week, and as the county historian for Saratoga County, I have been there every day and will be until the end of the fair. So first hand, enjoying what the county fairs have to offer. But before we talk about the county fairs of today, we're going to go back and look at the origins of these county fairs - and of course, the New York State Fair, which happens to be the oldest state fair in the nation. And we're going to talk a little bit about how that got started.

Devin: I think that it's important for us to realize that the origins of what we know today as county fairs and our State Fair, which is one of the largest in the nation - and as you noted, the oldest - really originated in learned societies in the 19th century. So going back to the early 19th century in New York, there were various collections of gentleman farmers, meaning they they owned large estates that were farmed, often by tenant farmers, but they were very interested in the farming technology, in agriculture as a science, and really their interest in agriculture and farming was to figure out ways to make it more scientific, to make it more efficient and to be able to compete with farming that is happening in Europe at the time. Again, this is some of the old story of early America, comparing itself to Europe and finding itself somewhat lacking. 

To learn more about the origins of agricultural fairs, we spoke with Joshua Hauck-Whealton, an archivist at the New York State Archives and author of the article “Farm to Fair: The Beginning of New York's County Fairs,” which is featured in the summer issue of the New York Archives Magazine.

Joshua Hauck-Whealton: My name is Joshua Hauck-Whealton. I am a reference archivist here at the New York State Archives. Have been for a couple, few years now. I am a reference archivist. That means that I am likely the other person at the end of the email exchange or the telephone, answering your reference questions, explaining the finding aids, helping retrieve the materials you're asking for that sort of thing. I've been sort of in this field for 15 years, call it now, and during my dues-paying years, I bounced around from interning at Claremont State Historic Site, which is, of course, the home of Robert R Livingston, Chancellor Livingston and working at the Albany Institute of History and Art, which is the ultimate descendant of Robert Livingston's little gentleman's agricultural society. 

Chancellor Robert Livingston was one of the largest landowners in the Hudson Valley. He had about a million acres, I think, by the time he became chancellor, and he financed himself by leasing out chunks of that land to farmers. That made him very interested in agriculture and very interested in improvements to agricultural techniques, improvement to land, convincing his farmers who rented land from him to, you know, be more productive and thus pay their rent and produce more resources for him. 

Also at this time, basically every state had an agricultural society about like this by the beginning of the 19th century; it was an acceptable means for gentlemen of leisure to get together and discuss scientific topics. It was a way to gain status. It was a way to get together with like-minded people of the same class. In the late 18th century, Robert Livingston and a number of other large landowners produced this society to discuss and do research on ways to improve agriculture, sometimes called Scientific agriculture at the time.

Robert Livingston managed to export a number of Merino sheep back to his estate here in the Hudson Valley. The merino sheep had a reputation of producing very fine wool, very large amounts of very fine wool. They also had a reputation for grazing rough, which meant that they could eat more than just grass. They could eat weeds, shrubs, things like that. You head west, you into the Catskills, which is just famously rocky, and that's where most of Livingston's land was so a sheep that could turn the weeds on the side of a hill and turn it into wool, was just exactly what he wanted. So he sent some sheep home and began - when he came back in 1803 - began breeding and cultivating and generally trying to popularize the breed. 

Lauren : I think it's important that you make the distinction between gentlemen farmers and tenant farmers, or, you know, the average farmer, because these gentlemen farmers are the ones that have the leisure time and the money to sit around and talk about how to make these things better, whereas tenant farmer, they're out there working long days.

Joshua Hauck-Whealton: Livingston started in his goal of selling sheep and popularizing sheep, having sheep shearing fairs, sheep shearing demonstrations, sheep shearing competitions. He had managed to get the state government involved in supporting his little venture, and so they were giving out bounties for high quality wool at these competitions. So he started a sort of proto-fair that was almost entirely based on sheep. But the society did not do a very good job of communicating with the bulk of farmers in the Hudson Valley. Their primary means of outreach was The Transactions [of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture], their sort of yearly publication, and in it, you can see them trying to be Isaac Newton as much as they're trying to be a farmer. They're trying to show off their erudition. They're trying to theorize. It did not do a very good job of reaching to the common farmer. And Chancellor Livingston and many of his colleagues were quite pretentious and very obviously considered themselves aristocracy, so they weren't really going out and shaking hands with the common plowman. 

That started in the we call it, about 1819 the mainly the 1820s and it seems to be - the exact connection’s a little hard to pin down - the result of the actions of Elkanah Watson, who had been a New York businessman for a number of years, had settled in Albany for a while, bought himself some of Livingston's merino sheep, and then turned around and did exactly what Livingston was doing, and sort of a mid-level marketing kind of scheme. He went over to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and started trying to sell his sheep, and he started holding fairs in order to sell those sheep. But the major thing about Elkanah is he's one of those, one of those people in the early part of American history, a real institution builder, a real booster, a real active, vibrant person who is constantly writing and traveling and trying to drum up support and enthusiasm for his causes. And his causes were many and varied, but agriculture was one of the main ones, and so he started writing letters just explaining what he was doing in Pittsfield, and you know, it's corresponding with people all around the state, and he was injecting a great deal of pageantry and sort of expanding the role of the of the fair that Livingston had started with just sheep. Part of that was because Pittsfield was cattle country, so we sort of had to get them to bring in cattle, to get them involved. But once he started with that, why stop? So he started having parades and talent demonstrations and all sorts of contests and generally spreading the word through his fairs and through his correspondence. This - to borrow an agricultural metaphor - cast the seeds pretty widely. So you started seeing people getting involved, and a gradual grassroots, to borrow from Ariel Ron, Grassroots Leviathan of agriculturalists who were starting to communicate back with Elkanah and other people and then with each other. And then began creating publications, and gradually through the, you know, the first one was The Ploughman - Solomon Southwick in 1819, and this had the effect of sort of mobilizing the the people that Livingston and his society could not reach, and getting them to talk with each other, and getting them to sort of see themselves as a group that could act together and lobby the government together and so forth.

Devin: It's really interesting that it took an act of the legislature, actually, in 1832 to transition agricultural fairs from really the domain of the elite gentleman farmer into every county, and this really began with the formation of the New York State Agricultural Society, which again was was created in 1832 by the New York State Legislature, and it was granted $25,000 to promote agriculture in the state of New York. 

Lauren:  And that's followed in 1841 by more legislation from the state of New York that actually funded individual county agricultural societies, and that especially in Saratoga County, that's what prompted the creation of the Saratoga County agricultural society in June of 1841 just a month after that legislation is passed, and most people don't realize that the agricultural societies for each county, they're the ones that run the county fairs. They are usually 501c3, nonprofits and separate from any arms of county government, and that legislation gave them money to be able to award premiums to the farmers. Those premiums are important because it encourages the farmers to leave their farms for a day or two or three and be a part of these festivals celebrating agriculture, but also promoting advancing agricultural practices in both crops and livestock and farming implements, because, of course, we have a lot of new implements being invented and improved around this time that are meant to improve production on farms across the state. For more information about the history of the Saratoga County Agricultural Society, we spoke with Sarah Welch, who is the historian for that organization.

Sarah Welch: My name is Sarah Welch. I'm on the board of directors of the Saratoga agricultural society that produces the fair each year. I've been with them for… since 1992 I started with them. I have been treasurer of the fair. I've been on the board, and my son, Tim, now is president of the Fair Board. So we're keeping it all in the family.

Lauren: So back in 1819, when the fair first started, what was the impetus behind starting County Fairs?

Sarah: Well, they wanted to show how important the farm was to existing. You know, the food, the meat, the wood, whatever, came from the farm. And that was what they were trying to show, is it is important that we do have this, that we do have the agriculture. And the first meeting was held in the courthouse in 1841 we didn't even have a grounds at that point. The first president was Howell Gardner, and he was from Greenfield.

Devin : So 1832 and 1841 are really the watershed years for the creation of county fairs, but also the creation of the New York State Fair. So New York State Fair was established in 1841 as part of this new legislation that directed money to the counties for county fairs. It also set aside money for the creation of a State Fair, which took place for the first time that year in 1841 and was based in Syracuse, which is where it still is today. But because it was in Syracuse the first year doesn't mean it was in Syracuse the next year. It was actually in Albany the next year. And over the next 40 years or so, it really moved around the state; it was in places like Poughkeepsie, it was in Saratoga Springs, it was in Rochester, it was in Buffalo, and it was also, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it was in New York City. So the State Fair really was a traveling fair for about 40 years. In 1889 the Syracuse Land Company donated about 100 acres of land near Syracuse in the village of Geddes in Onondaga County to the state agricultural society to create a permanent home for the State Fair, and really that was the establishment of, again, land, but also permanent buildings that would be used every year. And so the State Fair began its permanent home in Syracuse in the 1890s.

Lauren: I think that a lot of the county fairs took a similar track to the New York State Fair. I know that's true in Saratoga County, that the early years, from the 1840s up to about 1880 the fair is constantly moving. It starts in Ballston Spa and it's also on public lands in Ballston Spa. It's on the grounds of the courthouse. It moves to places like Mechanicville in Saratoga Springs before the early 1880s when the Saratoga County Fairgrounds, it finds its permanent home just outside the village of Ballston Spa, and they built a big track because racing was also a big part of county fairs, not only horses, but as we move into the early 1900s we see car racing there and at that point, I think the success of county fairs and the State Fair are proven enough that they can support permanent structures and they can they can afford to either purchase the land or purchase material to build structures on the land, and kind of cements these county and state fairs in the heritage of the communities that they're in. 

Devin: Yeah, and I think it's important to note that over time, these fairs grew in size, but actually they were very popular right from the beginning, the New York State Fair, for example, in 1841 the very first one, saw between 10,000 and 15,000 people, which was a lot of people at the time. Considering, you know, the modes of transportation were essentially via train, via horseback, via carriage. So, you know, this was a large gathering, and as it expanded in size, and as it expanded in the amount of days that the fair took place, there was more and more opportunity for more things that would be entertaining to visitors. So we mentioned racing, but also other types of entertainment: music. There was also - vendors started to appear, not only selling kind of agricultural wares, but also selling food and goods and beverages and materials like that. And over time, as these grew and and as they became more and more a center of a person's, really summer planning, right? And people built their calendars around when the county fair was taking place or when the State Fair was taking place. And as this developed over time, they became the larger multi day, multi entertainment events that we can think about today.

To get a sense of modern state and county fairs in New York State, we spoke with the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, Richard Ball, to get a sense of what the current administration is prioritizing at the fair and how fairs are being conceptualized in the modern era. 

Devin: Hello!

Richard Ball: Hi. This is Richard.

Devin: Hi, Richard. This is Devin Lander, New York State historian at the State Museum.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the Saratoga County Historian. I met you briefly a couple weeks ago, when you were at the Saratoga County Fairgrounds, 

Richard: I think you had rabbits, if I remember.

Lauren: Yes! Yep, those are my daughter's rabbits.

Richard:  That was a great day up there. 

Back in the day, it was - fairs served a lot of purposes. One of them was, you know, some - there were some financial rewards for farmers showing off their produce, their animals, but it was also a time to come together and network and learn some things. Over the years, you know, the fairs, everyone thinks of them as a midway place and a place to have fun fried food. But we've been looking at the fairs, particularly over the last 10 years, trying to build up the infrastructure there, and trying to relook at the relevance of our fairs, and it's something that's been a priority for the governor and for us at the department, because they're a great place to connect the dots between our agricultural community and consumers in the state. The population has changed, the demographics have changed, and we've got many families that are three, four generations removed from agriculture. So here's an opportunity to connect in a better way. 

So, State Fair, we've invested a lot of money in improving the infrastructure, but also making a conscious effort to make sure agriculture remains the centerpiece of our state fair, and one of the things that the Governor and I spend a lot of time talking about is, how do we look at the whole network of county fairs and state fairs, and together, lift the profile of agriculture and also be a connecting point for careers, for young people, for their opportunities to think about. We'll have an Ag Career Day at the State Fair where kids actually have some one on one with 4H kids, FFA kids, but also for mom and dad to connect with, hey, there's careers in the food system that are not just jobs, but are careers. In our budget this year, talking with the governor at her encouragement, we put together some funding for the county fairs to market themselves. Use some ad campaigns you're going to see, “Never Far From Fun” rolling out. And I was happy to go to the Boonville fair and get my very first stamp on my passport. We've created a passport document that looks just like a passport with places where, as you go to each county fair, you can get a stamp just like you would at a foreign country to encourage people to visit our county fairs, we've got about 50 of them in state, and obviously we want to encourage that behavior and connect dots in a better way and lead people down to the state fair to be a thrilling conclusion of all of that.

Lauren: Yeah, I just wanted to also mention I'd like you know, your emphasis on kids in agriculture, and I have a child in 4H so I'm biased, but these kids that are in 4H and Future Farmers of America that work really hard all year round, and don't get the same recognition that kids on maybe sports teams or in the performing arts get the county fair is really their week, and they are there 12 hours a day, taking care of those animals, showing them off, being judged, and getting that experience of, you know, what a breed standard is, or how they've grown a specific vegetable. So, you know, the fairs for these kids are so important, and the recognition they get for their work all year round, it's, really important to be able to promote the fair and bring in outside people who don't realize that these groups are still so vibrant and so important to to all of their communities and the agricultural heritage that we see in so many parts of the state.

Richard: Oh my gosh, yeah, you know, totally well said, when you think about the discipline, responsibility, passion that's required of these young people to produce their crop or take care of their animals. It's a it's a lesson in what the United States taught the world, you know, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, and we want to encourage that kind of behavior, and add to that, that you know, when the family goes to the fair, leave your worries behind, just come to the fair. Have a great time and observe that America's still alive and well at our county fairs.

Devin: So Lauren, as you mentioned earlier, you are in the midst, as we are recording this, of being involved with the Saratoga County Fair on a daily basis.

Lauren:  I certainly am immersed in fair life right now. As the County Historian, we have - actually the county has - a whole tent where a lot of our departments within the county see this as an opportunity to reach out to some constituents that they wouldn't otherwise see on a daily basis, and there are representatives there from, let's say, the DMV or the County Clerk informing people how do you get a passport, or the Office of Aging and Youth is there helping senior citizens learn more about the services that are offered to them. 

So as the historian. In we are actually talking about the upcoming 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and, of course, the battles of Saratoga. We have a display of older objects from the 18th century, a time around the Revolution, that people have to guess what they were used for. And really, people love guessing these things. We have a boot jack there, which is a piece of wood that is that farmers in particular, but anyone that wore boots used to help them extract their foot from boots. And we also are offering opportunities to kids. We let them write with a quill pen, talk about what communication was like in the Revolution, because it's so different. Now, just to give them a sense of the amount of time and effort it took, but the other things that I really love about the fair are, you do get kind of a different segment of the population that wouldn't normally, let's say, come to a history lecture. And so you see, we have a huge amount of kids that are in summer recreation camps that are bused in during the day, and they are interested in hands-on activities. You see them in all of the different animal barns. My favorite animal barn are the draft horses. And of course, I also like the small animal barn where my own daughter is exhibiting rabbits as part of the domestic rabbit club for 4H and I would say a highlight for that is the bunny agility show. So that is really entertaining as well. Yeah, I think it's a mix of entertainment, of learning about agriculture and also, of course, the food. So I would have to say, over the last couple of days, my favorite fair food; I love the maple milkshakes that are made from local maple syrup with Stewart's milk, and they're delicious.

Devin: I would say, although it's hard to pick one thing, that I like the best, I'm always a fried dough fan and - 

Lauren: A classic! 

Devin: A classic, but I also am a connoisseur of Italian sausages with peppers and onions, so I try to get one every time I go to any fair, and then I compare it to everyone else's… 

Lauren: And who has the best? 

Devin: It's hard to beat the folks at the Rensselaer County Fair who have a booth. Every year I go to that fair. It's where I live now, in Rensselaer County, and I get their sausage, which is massive, and it usually makes it so I can't finish my fried dough afterwards.

Lauren: When you think about the fair coming up in the summers, and you get excited for it. What is it that that has, you know, that seems like the Fair has this certain mystique. And you mentioned, you know, the fair is like a family, but when you think about going on opening day, what is it that is so interesting and inspiring about the fair?

Sarah:  I think there is so much to see, and every year it's new displays. I mean, people are always trying to improve the fair. They want to be part of what's going on. They all have stories about it. And I think that to me, what I enjoy is I usually sit in our building and talk to the people and hear the stuff that they remember doing when they came to the fair when they were little children, how their moms and dads would bring them. Those are nice memories.

This episode tells the story of Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline “Harriet” Acland, aristocratic wife of Major John Dyke Acland, who commanded the British 20th Regiment of Foot during the Burgoyne campaign of 1777. When Major Acland was wounded and taken prisoner, Lady Harriet risked her own life and freedom to nurse him back to health. She would go on to publish her diary of her time travelling and living with the British Army during the American Revolution.

Interviewees: Sean Kelleher, Town of Saratoga Historian and Anne Clothier, Assistant Saratoga County Historian

Lady Harriet Acland, The Acland Journal: Lady Harriet Acland and the American War, 1993.

Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution, 1999.

Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War, 1999.

PBS Learning Media: Women in the American Revolution Interactive Lesson

Museum of the American Revolution: A Woman’s War

National Park Service: The Battles of Saratoga: Student Reading Activity

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian. 

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Today we're focusing on a marker located along Route 4 in the town of Saratoga, which is in Saratoga County. It sits at the entrance to a public boat launch and park that's along the Hudson River, and the text reads, Lady Acland. On October 9 1777, Traveled down Hudson River to Stillwater to nurse her wounded husband, British Major Acland, held prisoner by American forces. William G Pomeroy Foundation 2021.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most of our listeners are not familiar with the name Lady Acland or her more formal name, Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways, Acland, who went by the name of Harriet. Harriet was born on January 3, 1749, in England. Her father was an Earl, so she lived a very privileged life, and she married John Dyke Acland. During the American Revolution, major Acland was sent to the colonies to fight, and in 1777 Lady Acland accompanied him to Canada. 

So for those of us who might not remember fourth grade American Revolution history, just a brief overview of that campaign led by General John Burgoyne. The British army of between 9000, 10000 were coming down from Canada, and their main objective was to fight their way through and reach Albany. And while Burgoyne was successful early on in his campaign - he took Fort Ticonderoga without a fight - and continued to move his army south until he made it to Saratoga. So the first battle of Saratoga happened on September 19, 1777, it was essentially a stalemate. The Americans were successful in stopping the British advance towards Albany, but at the end of the day, the British Army held the field of battle, so they calculate that as a victory. And on October 7, the second Battle of Saratoga occurred. By that point, the British were outnumbered, low on supplies, and they were losing men. So on October 7, the American army was victorious and forced the British into a retreat. General Benedict Arnold was instrumental in that battle, he rallied his men, and he was valiant. He was also shot just above the ankle in the left leg, which is why we have the famous boot monument. But it does force the British into a retreat. They begin to retreat north, about eight or nine miles north of Saratoga Battlefield, and they eventually are surrounded by the American forces. There's no way for them to head back north, and so they negotiate terms of convention, and on October 17, General John Burgoyne surrenders to General Gates at Saratoga, or what we now call Schuylerville. And it's the first time in world history that a British Field Army surrenders, and that army then becomes known as the convention army. They're essentially prisoners of war for several years after that, but it's known as the turning point of the American Revolution. It helps to convince France to finally become our ally and to send troops and what we desperately needed, a navy.

In June of 1777, Major Acland served in the 20th Regiment of Foot in Burgoyne's army, and he was part of the expedition from Canada that General Burgoyne was leading to come down and conquer Albany to learn more about Lady Acland and her story. We spoke with town of Saratoga historian Sean Kelleher.

Sean Kelleher: So I'm Sean Kelleher. I'm the historian for the town of Saratoga, and I've been a historian in the town for 20 years now. I've kind of come to becoming a historian through an interesting way. I've always enjoyed putting on historical events. I grew up during the American bicentennial in the Boston area. After college, became a TV producer doing primarily educational type programs for a PBS station. And the skills that I learned as a TV producer worked very, very well as a historian too, because it's basically: go out, find out information and share it with others. It's the same basic skill sets.

So Lady Acland is one of those interesting stories from the Saratoga campaign of 1777. She is this aristocratic lady, and in 1777 she marries this John Dyke Acland. So she accompanies him on campaign with a valet, a ladies maid and a dog, and she creates this narrative of the American landscape that later gets published, and there's paintings done, and it just shows people of Europe what America looks like. 

They started up in Canada, and as they were leaving Canada, her husband got quite ill, so she spent some time in June nursing him back to health, and then he joins the British Army for the attack on Fort Ticonderoga. And during the subsequential Battle of Harperton, he receives a dangerous wound, and she rushes to him to nurse him back to care. And in that process, they have a second tragedy, that their tent gets caught on fire. She goes out one side, and he goes out the other, and he can't see her, so he goes back into the tent to save her, and she's not there, but he gets burnt in the process. So he's having a tough time in 1777. But again, he gets  nursed back into health. So when we get to the second battle of Saratoga in October 1777, he's there on the front lines, leading his regiment the 20th of Foot. And he gets wounded again, so he gets brought to the British hospital. She's with the British Army. The British Army retreats north to the village of Saratoga. What we know as Schuylerville today, but they abandoned their hospital, so he becomes a prisoner of the Americans. 

On October 9, she goes with another woman, the Baroness von Riedesel, to General Burgoyne, and they ask for permission for Lady Acland to go down and to nurse her husband. So it's during a driving rainstorm Burgoyne writes a note to Gates asking for his assistance in getting her to her husband, and she goes down the Hudson River in an open boat. It's 11 o'clock at night during a driving rainstorm in October. It's her, her maid, her servant, and a minister. And of course, the lap dog. You can't leave the lap dog behind. They make it down to what we would call the Colville area, and they get stopped by an American sentry. And this is where the stories start to change a little bit. But the American telling of the story is, they halted her. They waited so that Major Dearborn, he was in charge of the light infantry from New Hampshire. He comes up. He obtains what's going on. He receives the note from Burgoyne, and he decides that it's no longer safe for them to be in in the Hudson River, brings them to shore, and then moves her to this cabin that he had set up for his bedding, and he gave gives up his bed, gives it to her, they start a fire, they give her a cup of tea, and in the process, they realize her delicate state, she's pregnant. So the Americans, according to Dearborn's telling of the story, took care of her. The next morning, at sunrise, some aides for Gates come up and they bring her down to her husband, who is at the American hospital at this point around the Neilson House, a site that many people know within the battlefield. Ultimately, they end up going as a couple down to Schuyler’s house in Albany, where they're better able to nurse him, and he regains strength. And they're prisoners until 1778.

Lauren: We also know about Lady Acland's story through the writings of Lady Frederica Riedesel, who is also known as the Baroness. She was the wife of the commander of German troops at Saratoga, and she describes Lady Acland's story as well, in more detail than Lady Acland's own diary. So she mentions that she actually convinces Lady Harriet Acland to go to Burgoyne and ask for permission to be able to cross lines and go to her husband. And of course, the Baroness is writing her memoirs after the end of the campaign, and we know that Burgoyne had to surrender, and it's not successful. But she mentions that Burgoyne is busy drinking champagne and partying with the wife of one of his officers, rather than being concerned about his soldiers that were out in the cold and the rain, because the night that Lady Acland went down the river, there was a driving rainstorm, and it was cold, and all of the troops were out in this weather, suffering through this while Burgoyne was in A nice, warm house with champagne and a lady friend. So the Baroness is very critical of this, but she also describes the story of Acland. So we have several sources that talk about what was happening on that night.

Devin: So you've outlined a pretty exciting and violent and arduous campaign from Canada down through the Champlain Valley and into what is now Saratoga County. So why would a lady born into nobility and extreme privilege in England; What was she doing following this army?

Lauren: It's a good question, and I think there's probably several different reasons, but women were constantly present with both armies. But definitely there were more with the British Army, and there's different roles that women played in following the army. So in Lady Acland's case, we know that she was privileged, she was wealthy. So she would have been able to choose if she wanted to stay home and live in luxury in England with servants and probably a beautiful estate, or she could choose to follow her husband, probably out of a sense of duty to him, or love for him, and maybe adventure. This could have been an opportunity for her to see another part of the world that she might not have gotten in any other case, and she wasn't roughing it. I mean, she had maids with her. She had supplies, all of the things that she needed. But that doesn't mean that it would have been the same type of life that she was accustomed to in England. 

Devin: And she was obviously highly educated, because she kept a transcript of her adventures and became one of the chroniclers of Burgoyne's campaign as a person who was actually experiencing it, so a very important primary source document that she created.

Lauren: In order to learn more about women camp followers, particularly with the British army. We spoke with Anne Clothier, Assistant to the Saratoga County Historian, and a living historian who focuses on programming about women in the American Revolution.

Anne Clothier: So my name is Anne Clothier, and I've been interested in the topic of the 18th century and the American Revolution since I was a little kid, and I actually got involved in living history when I was about 13, and I joined a Girl Scout Troop at the Saratoga National Historical Park. This group did volunteering there and helping out with special events. And then I started volunteering there independently, and I also joined a reenacting regiment around that time as well, and I really never could step away from history. And I went and I got my bachelor's in history, and then my master's in museum studies. And I now am working at the Saratoga County Historian's Office as assistant to the historian, but I also continue to do living history programs and presentations as well, with a special focus, certainly on the American Revolution, but also women in the American Revolution and their roles as nurses, but also the experiences of loyalists and British women who were following the Burgoyne campaign. 

So women's reasons for traveling with the Army certainly varied, and a lot of it depended on their own social background, their social class. So for someone like Lady Acland, a lot of it seemed to really have to do with her personal feelings of responsibility toward her husband. In her writings, and those who were writing about her, she seemed to really have a lot of really strong loyalty to her husband and also concern about his well being, and so that was a major reason for her certainly. It did seem like initially the plan was that she was going to stay in Garrison at a fort while her husband continued southward on the campaign, but after he was initially injured, she rushed to his side up by the shores of Lake Champlain. A lot of women did stay in Garrison, but there were certainly also many women again, that would continue on with the campaign. Sometimes the commanders were bemoaning this additional responsibility and drain on resources. However, it's also worth noting that these women were fulfilling very important roles on the campaign and doing things that really needed to happen to keep that army going. 

Lauren: So those types of roles, though, that wouldn't have been something that Lady Harriet Acland did? 

Anne: Certainly not. So she would be someone who, again, her primary responsibility was her husband, and whether that was his physical and emotional welfare, having someone to converse with and discuss. Again, her focus was him, but various other women who were following with the army would have roles that were actually assigned by the regiments that they were associated with. 

[There were]certainly more women in the British camp generally, for the most part, they had come over because they were following their husbands out of a sense of conjugal duty and responsibility, but also reality, because a woman who might have been left behind across the ocean in England, she would have had to rely on any family she might have had there, be it her father or brothers in law or things like that, if she didn't have those resources or just that wasn't a viable option. Following her husband was the way to maintain herself, maintain her children and keep the family together. So it was something that many women ended up doing. The regiments tried to keep a limit, a cap on that number, but it was still something that many women chose to do. 

So these women who were your average followers, who were traveling on campaign with their husbands, who may have been private soldiers or corporals or sergeants, things like that, they would have been assigned to roles such as nurses, and we think of nurses being necessary in the immediate aftermath of a battle. However, a lot of soldiers also suffered with sickness, so these nurses were needed to care for soldiers who were dealing with typical campaign illnesses. So it was a fairly constant need. Certainly that need drastically increased around the time of battles, but women were needed in those hospitals. Their roles as nurses were not necessarily what we think of as your typical registered nurse role today, but they were maintaining the soldiers, making sure that they had food, that they were hydrated, and also maintaining cleanliness in the hospitals as well. And it was more of the surgeons, hospital stewards, surgeons maids, that were dealing with the actual medical procedures that we think of, especially in the aftermath of the battles. But again, those women were keeping those hospitals running cleanly and smoothly.

But in addition to nursing, there were also roles to maintain the uniforms of the soldiers, to be seamstresses, to sew things that were needed by the soldiers. And also repair. These are soldiers on campaign, so certainly, things are getting ripped. So repair was a part of that. But also, again, back to that idea of cleanliness. We spoke of it in the hospitals. But cleanliness in the form of laundry, it was very important for the soldiers to have clean clothing, especially their shirts, and so women were employed washing the shirts to, again, make sure that there was sanitation to try and keep down the issues of body lice and things like that, because there was awareness that sanitation could improve the general overall health of the soldiers, and that could only make an army stronger.

Lauren: I think it's easy to see that they were absolutely necessary for the army to function. For both armies, you had to have them in the British army, and much to Washington's chagrin, you had to have them in the American army because they performed the roles that soldiers did not want to or could not. So whether they took up resources or they distracted, they certainly were essential, and they were more than just prostitutes. And I think a lot of people, when you hear the term “camp follower,” they immediately think that they were all just prostitutes, and that's that really wasn't the case. And the more we uncover sources, the more we learn about the different roles that they played, and about their experiences too.

Devin: So that brings me to a question, what happened to Lady Acland and the other camp followers of Burgoyne's army after the surrender? 

Lauren: So all of the women that were following Burgoyne's army also became prisoners of war. They were part of the convention army. They certainly didn't have the same experience. They all didn't have the same experience after Lady Acland made it through the American lines and was able to nurse her husband, the wives of the officers, there were others too. Lady Riedesel also. They were hosted by Phillip Schuyler at his mansion in Albany after the surrender, and they stayed there for a while, and then they proceeded to Boston, eventually, where the rest of the army had to walk. 

So your average camp follower had to walk. So October 17th was surrender day, if we think about what weather is like in upstate New York in the middle and end of October, they walked from Saratoga to Boston in cold weather, their clothing became rags. They were not prepared for the elements. Many of them didn't have shoes. Many of them were carrying young children on their backs along with whatever their worldly possessions were, and they had to make this arduous trip. So the terms of surrender that gates agreed to were that, you know, once burgoyne's army surrendered, they could then march to Boston and be put on ships and go back to England. But Congress did not agree with this. They thought there's no way they're actually not going to come back and fight, or they're not just going to go to a different port or reinforce some other troops so that they could then come and fight in North America. So they didn't ratify it, so they weren't allowed to leave. They weren't allowed to go back to England, so they had to stay as prisoners of war. But we know that the American army could barely feed themselves, let alone feed another several thousand person army. So they were undersupplied. They didn't have adequate housing. And they actually remained prisoners of war for years now. Now Lady Acland, they were allowed to leave and go back to England in 1778, and of course, they weren't under the same strain that regular followers were. They still had their maids. They had a carriage they could ride in. They would rent houses so they had adequate shelter.

Sean: In the process of going back to England, they have their son. So he's born on the boat. His son, unfortunately, doesn't live that long. He lives about until the age of seven, and roughly at the same time, about seven years down the road, John Acland also dies, supposedly from a duel. It may have been complications from all of his wounds, but he ends up dying. Lady Acland ends up being a widow for many years, she's probably… What a lot of people might be aware of are noticeable. Her family's quite prominent, and it's her grandson that ends up building the family home in England, known as Highclere Castle. That's the grand house that was in the star of the Downton Abbey series on PBS. So there's even a tie to Downton Abby here. So for obvious reasons, you can see it's a it's a compelling story, and it made sense to make this into a Pomeroy marker.

Lauren: As part of the upcoming 250th commemoration. It's important that we keep talking about these stories that people aren't familiar with, notably, the stories about women in the war. One of the things that we're trying to do at Saratoga 250 is to bring some of these stories about the women that were in the Saratoga campaign to light. And the last few years, we have held a Women in War symposium. The first women in war symposium was the idea of David Bullard, who owned the Marshall House, which was the house that many of the officers’ wives took refuge in during the siege of Saratoga. Notably, the Baroness was in the cellar with her three young daughters under the age of five, and the house was being cannonaded for about a week, and she tells the stories of what that was like to be there with her children and experiencing the wounded soldiers who were there with her, the other officers’ wives, some of which lost their husbands, and there was a lot of sickness. There were infected wounds, the smell that they had to endure in the cellar. So we know a lot about the officers' wives because of these writings. And so the Women in War symposium has been a way to bring scholars together who are doing this research and give them a place to present their work. And it's not just about women on the Saratoga campaign, it's women throughout the American Revolution. This past May we had Dr Holly Mayer come and talk about Margaret Corbin, who was the first female to earn a pension from the American government. She famously took over the cannon when her husband was killed and she was wounded and became part of the Invalid’s Corp and was paid for her service to the country. And there were other scholars that spoke about women of all economic backgrounds and the different roles that they played. And I think it's important to keep talking about the roles that women played. It gives us a better understanding of the larger concept of what happens in warfare, understanding that broader impact of not only the combatants, but also the people living around the area where the battles are happening and those that are playing supportive roles; that all feeds into the larger picture and understanding of what we know about the American Revolution and how it affected the lives of everyone, not just those that were combatants. 

Sean: It's not only, obviously we're talking about Lady Acland, but she's also there with her maid, so there's another woman. Their stories are there. They just need to kind of be pulled out a little bit more. And that's something that we're always actively looking for, especially today, because we're still telling the stories of Burgoyne and Gates and so on, and we're still telling the stories of the common soldier, but we're also trying to tell the stories of the common women that were there.

This episode tells the story of Ronek Park, a non-discriminatory housing development built in 1950 in the village of North Amityville. Unlike the many housing developments created in the post-WWII U.S. that followed the practice of redlining and did not allow African American or Jewish people to buy homes, Ronek Park specifically marketed itself as allowing anyone to purchase a home regardless of race or creed.

Interviewees: Mary Cascone, Town of Babylon Historian and Eugene Burnett, Ronek Park resident and former Town of Babylon Police Department Sergeant.  

Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, 2004.

Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, 1985.

Gene Slater, Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America, 2021.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Neighborhood Redlining and Home Ownership Lesson.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Understanding Redlining.

National Geographic: Mapmaker: Redlining in the United States.

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian. 

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Today, we're heading east to the hamlet of North Amityville, which is part of the town of Babylon on Long Island. The sign is located at the intersection of Albany Avenue and Croydon road, and the text reads, Ronek Park. Honored as a non discriminatory housing development started by Thomas Romano in 1950. A part of the local housing boom after World War II. William G. Pomeroy Foundation 2015. So if you aren't from Long Island, you might be unfamiliar with the name Ronek Park, you probably have heard of a different housing development, also located on Long Island that was built around the same time called Levittown. And, of course, we're going to be discussing what made these two communities very different. Before we get into that, let's jump back for a bit and talk about why we have numerous housing developments popping up on Long Island in the late 1940s and the early 1950s.

Devin: I think really the suburban boom in the United States was the result of several different factors; more immediately was that the United States emerged from World War Two as - that though there were horrific losses of American men and women during the war, the United States was essentially unscathed compared to Europe, Japan - obviously, compared to China, the United States did suffer a direct attack at Pearl Harbor, but otherwise didn't have the catastrophic events unfold that those nations did. And we really have to think about the demographic changes that were happening shortly after the war, the biggest being the Baby Boom. Couple this with an economy that had emerged from the Great Depression. And during World War Two had become a manufacturer of the war. And so the economy was humming. They were looking for housing that could provide for a family, so, all of the new things that were coming out after World War Two as the war economy transitioned to a consumer based economy and consumer goods became ever more prevalent as the technology improved. Prices went down on things like washing machines and other devices that previously had only existed for the very wealthy. There's also the increase in the automobile, which made living outside of a city more possible. Many, if not most, of the people who moved to Levittown still worked in New York City. So how were they commuting? Well, yes, there's a train but many of them also are commuting by automobile. And of course, Long Island became kind of a natural suburb of the city. So to learn more about what Long Island was like in the postwar era, and how it became the site of so many of these housing developments, we spoke to Mary Cascone, the town historian for the town of Babylon.

Mary Cascone: Well, I am Mary Cascone and I am the historian for the town of Babylon, which is on the south shore of Long island I do a little bit of everything. I like to tell people that around this office, we never know what we're going to find until we look. And that's pretty much how we approach every day. So ask us, and we'll see if we can.

So looking at population statistics for the town of Babylon, pre World War II 1940, we have 24,000 people. But the big jump that happens, we quadruple our population from ‘50 to ‘70. We go from 45,000 people to 203,000. And I was just speaking at an anniversary program last week, and I was you know, why were we building all these libraries? Well, everything comes down to the suburban boom that the people come out, they need houses, the families bring children which need schools, they need, we need to widen the roads for all of the cars, now they need something to do so we need to expand the public parks. But then all of the commercial entities that come in. The town of Babylon, at some point was just like the fastest growing community during that time. It was definitely on Long Island. It might have even been in New York. It goes to our location. We border Nassau County, so all those people coming eastward from New York City - We already had established railroads, we had commuter stations ready to go. The Southern State Parkway had come through for us by then. So did Southern State. So our infrastructure was kind of just ready. 

Although, I will say that the people at the time didn't consider themselves ready. I am fortunate to have spoken with a lot of people probably about 15 years ago that have since passed away, including the supervisor from the late 1950s. Arthur M. Cromarty, we have a court complex and Riverhead named after him. Now if you get jury duty, you go to the Cromarty Court Complex, but he described what it was like to have all of these people. One of the reasons why he talked about expanding the parks was we had so many people and they needed things to do. There are so many stories that come out of that suburban boom, including all of the wives and mothers who had been used to living in the city where they could walk to places, and now they're in the middle of nowhere. So as much as we built these communities have lots of people, there were also those areas where people felt isolated, because now they didn't have access to transportation. The deli wasn't down the street, my own grandmother talked about this; moving to Long Island in the 1960s. So it's another piece that I remember, along with schools were so crowded, they were doing double shifts, very much like what we saw during the pandemic, where they would try to reduce the number of kids in school by doing a morning session and afternoon session. They were doing that in the 50s and 60s. And so I can find newspaper headlines that will say, Oh, “North Babylon school expects to drop second shift by fall.” So as great as it was, as quickly as it built, it was difficult. And you can still see that in some things when people will say, “why does this road and here why doesn't it connect to the other one?” And you have to look at when was it built? Was it part of an earlier development?

Lauren: There's also something else that was very helpful in this housing boom, and that was the GI Bill, the government was very conscious of not wanting to fall into a postwar depression. So as early as 1942, they were discussing, you know: how are we going to reintegrate the troops back into regular life after the war is over? And there were estimates that up to 15 million men and women might become unemployed at the end of the war. So in 1944, President Roosevelt signs the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, which is the actual name for the GI Bill, and it really helped in three areas: it tried to mediate unemployment, it gave money to service members for education and training, and the third thing it did was provide money for housing. According to the World War Two Museum, “the guarantee that was provided by the GI Bill made veterans safer investments for banks, since the government would pay back either 50% of the loan or $2,000, if the recipient failed to pay for the loan.” The Veterans Administration guaranteed over 2 million home loans by 1950. So that's the scale of veterans that were taking advantage of the GI bill by 1950. 

We have to remember that in World War Two, the army was a segregated army. So blacks fought in different regimens than whites at the time. We did not have a fully integrated society, so they were coming back from a segregated army into a Homefront that still was grappling with racial divides, and that didn't end with housing developments, though the GI Bill was meant to help all service members coming back, there were some endemic problems with getting loans for everyone that was a service member.

Devin: So as we're thinking about these developments happening in Long Island and elsewhere around the United States, brings us to thinking about how race played a role. And specifically, the term “Redlining.” Redlining actually goes back to the Great Depression, and the Homeowners Loan Corporation Act, which was signed into law in 1933, which was designed to provide an overview and a ranking of communities based on how much of a risk they were to give out mortgages in and it was really through that initial act that the term redlining came into parlance, and that's because there were four categories of “quality” of a neighborhood and they had corresponding colors, green being the highest level, then followed by blue, then yellow, and then red. And according to historian Kenneth T. Jackson and his groundbreaking work Crabgrass Frontier, the Suburbanization of the United States, the first grade also known as a and green areas were described as new, homogenous, and quote, in demand as residential locations in good time and bad. Again, this is a quote from Kenneth Jackson, “homogenous meant American business and professional men, for example, Jewish neighborhoods,” - or even those with “an infiltration of Jews could not be considered best, or any more than they could be considered American.” So immediately, you see that Jewish people were also prejudiced against, and the lowest level, as we noted, the red color and the D grade, were almost exclusively reserved for African American neighborhoods in urban areas. And this is where we get the term redlining. And in some cases, the racism was so abrupt that even a community with very few African American people in it would immediately get a red line. That was very important because it meant that mortgages and resources going into these communities would not be seen as a good investment. Whether or not the people that lived there were well-off or not, it didn't matter. These were considered to be high risk, and therefore very hard to get mortgages, very hard to get home improvement loans, very hard to get business loans. And many historians, including Ken Jackson and others, have drawn the conclusion that redlining is something that really decimated urban communities because it discouraged any kind of investment, and it discouraged loans of money and resources. And at the same time, as the FHA and the GI Bill come online, in the postwar years, we see the government favoring the building of new single family homes, in suburban communities. 

Lauren: So as a result of these redlining policies, when new subdivisions were being built, it was important to some of the developers that their communities were not seen as risky communities for mortgage loans. So in Levittown, they actually had a policy that houses would only be sold to Caucasian people. So African Americans were completely excluded from being allowed to purchase housing in Levittown. And that's why we see places like Ronek Park come about because these African American servicemembers were coming home and they were being denied access to many of the large developments. So they needed a place to go.

Devin: So we know that the gentleman's name who was kind of the main developer behind this was named Thomas Romano, and what do we know about him and his reasoning for establishing a non discriminatory community? 

Mary: I know that he was honored by many organizations for creating a nondiscriminatory community.

From a business point of view, I think it was brilliant. Because you have people that want to buy a house, you have people that are ready with money, they're willing to sign a mortgage. And why would you you're he's saying, “I'm not going to turn anyone away.” Because remember, he's not saying, “Only black people come here.” He's saying, “Hey, everybody, I'm ready to take your money and give you a house.” So that's how I often look at it.

He buys up the land, and he starts filing those papers. He's in earlier than a lot of other developments. And people are looking for places, we see that through the sales and the deeds that were being filed. And so when I have people that will come to me, and specifically within the town of Babylon, they'll say, “Well, why did all the black people move to North Amityville and Wyandanch?” And then I sit there and I explained that people are going to not go not only where they feel comfortable, but also where people are going to let them buy a house. So really, instead of it being the effect is that instead of it just being non discriminatory, they end up being steered that way. And we had in nearby Wyandanch, we already had communities, neighborhoods that had been started by businessmen of color. Carver Park is one that had started. So Ronek Park isn't the only one. But when it came to the marker program, this was one that I knew was very unique. And also because when I put together almost 100 pages of newspaper articles and everything about it, this was not just being advertised here in New York. And while it gets reported in the local papers, they're not trying to advertise to people that already live in the North Amityville or the town of Babylon area, they're trying to appeal to the city people to get them to move eastward. And that's what we find with a lot of real estate, even going back to the late 1800s. But this was so unique, because this is getting reported across the country. Now, historically, black newspapers in New York City include the New York Amsterdam News and The New Age. But then as I was able to expand out, and that's what's great about being a historian in the 21st century is the access that we have to so many more resources. In Baltimore, there was The Afro American. And then there was the Chicago Defender. These are all reporting about, you know, this historic event of Ronek Park. So they may not have been the first, they may not have been the biggest, they may not have been the best, but they were really good at advertising. They got the word out. And that's probably why more people know about them. 

Devin: Well, I love this advertisement that you've shared from the New Amsterdam News that says “not only do these houses brand new cost $6,990 Complete, there are no un-American undemocratic restrictions as to race color or creed.” I think that is brilliant advertising, right? 

Mary: Yes, it is. 

Devin: Because they're not saying, you know, this is for people of color, or they're just saying the restrictions that exist elsewhere are unAmerican and undemocratic. 

Mary: They are appealing to people's patriotism! 

Devin: Exactly. 

Mary: …through real estate! I will also send you an advertisement. That was actually very confusing at first, because when I first saw it, it says, “We Proudly Present America: 1960.” But this was published in 1950. So to us today, we're going, “wait a minute, that's confusing. What do you mean?” but published in 1950. They're saying we're already 10 years ahead of you.

Devin: So as they were building Ronek Park in 1950, the first 147 homes actually attracted 3000 people to come and see them being built and being plotted out. There was an article Newsday from January of 1950. It says: “3000 Swarm to see Interracial Project.” So again, there was really big interest in this. There was a big market. Obviously, there's many African American people that were looking to, to build and own homes on Long Island. But there's also just an overall interest in this because it was being advertised again and written up in the newspapers, including the New York Times as an interracial or community where race would not be taken into account.

Mary: I think it was, I think that the people that moved in, the majority of them were African American, from New York City. This was also a place where mixed race couples would be welcomed. Today it continues to be predominantly black, that community and when all of North Amityville, but its Hispanic population has been growing. Now, we already had a black and Native American population that was living in North Amityville, for generations, but they're living in a very rural landscape. And then all of a sudden, across the street, you now have this whole modern community. And I have had people that that talked about how there were these social differences just because you have black people that lived there, and now Black people that are moving in, you know, they were city people versus country people. That's a whole ‘nother social aspect of the newcomers. And also, people that came from the city, we had a lot of World War II veterans, we had people with good paying jobs, and they were arriving with money. For a lot of them, they had a higher economic status than the people that were already living there. And that that can cause friction in any community, regardless of race.

Lauren: In order to get a personal perspective from one of these returning service members, we reached out to Mary who had done an oral history interview with Eugene Burnett in 2008.

Mary: In 2007, and 2008, we had a town of Babylon oral history project, and I interviewed 75 people and a couple of them from North Amityville. And that's - when people are older, now they're in their 70s and 80s,  And they're reflecting on things that, I don't know, maybe we just created a really safe space for them to talk, but they would share. And so Eugene Burnett, he was really important to our local history for sharing his stories. He talks about being rejected from Levittown about seeing an ad for Ronek Park. And coming here. He describes what it was like living in New York City.  Women, he remembered women washing clothes on washboards, and having to carry things up and down. And that he goes to Ronek Park. And now everyone's living in the same house, they have all the same amenities. They've got these brand new kitchens, there's washing machines. Okay. I think it's really actually I just got chills thinking about it, that here's this guy that he is describing how he watched the women before him struggle in doing laundry, and now that his family would have this modern appliance, but then he also shared how the houses weren't really built all that well, which is something that we get from mass production, you know, it doesn't just have to be Ronek Park, I think we can say that about a lot of these quickly built properties.

But he does talk about how there was that sense of community because all these people that came from New York City, they had, they had similar jobs, they had kids at the same time, they're filling up the schools. And one of the things that did happen, though, I think, is that those people that had the good paying jobs, and then were like, hey, this was my starter house, now I'm gonna move on to something larger, that they left to the community. And during that time, they started to lose a little bit of that sense of community that they had built up in the early years. And Mr. Burnett has since passed away.

Actually, it was just last year, which is why as difficult as it was recording all of those oral history videos, I'm so grateful that we had finally gotten them up to the town's YouTube channel. Because that's instead of me telling his story. It's him.

Eugene Burnett: The army at that time was it was a segregated army. Then determining for me that there was a problem with race. And some of the things that were done was just terrible. And they stay with me to this day. But the experience overall was good for me in that it made a man of me. 

I saw this advertisement for Levittown. And I decided that my wife and I, we were talking about getting married, and we didn't want to raise our children in New York City, because at that time, drugs had come into the community and we had lost some of our friends to heroin. And so we got in the car, we drove out there. And we looked at the house and of course, living in an apartment and seeing this. Everything was brand new and so forth and so on. So So I went up to the salesman, and I said, “I like the house and I'm interested. And do you have an application, whatever that I could fill out?” And he looked at me and he paused for a moment, and he said, “It's not me. But the owners of this development have not as yet decided to sell these homes to negros.” I was shattered by that, I never expected that. 

Also, I saw that advertisement, also, I think, perhaps in The Daily Mirror. And I, it said “regardless of race, creed, or color,” so I followed up on that and went to the same procedure, and of course, was accepted and eventually bought the house and got married and moved in there. I think it was in November of 1950. 

Very undeveloped. Dirt roads, no sidewalks, no streetlights, houses, that will build these flat tops. They had flat roofs, refrigerator, electric stove, it was an all electric kitchen, washing machine, you gotta understand, from my age, what I saw, you know, women scrubbed and washed clothes, and we had ice boxes, and we had wind-up record players. And the first advancement middle class thing that came in was “The Combo,” they called it, which had a record player, and radio. You know, that was a big deal. And all these things were already readily available when you moved into Ronek Park that we didn't have in the apartments in New York.

For $38 hours. That includes the taxes, insurance, the mortgage interest, everything $38. But I mean, that sounds like a steal. But as a police sergeant, my take home pay was $149.50 every two weeks. That… things cost different those days. I remember saying to myself, if I could just make $2 an hour, I'd be rich.

That was my goal to make $2 an hour. 

Lauren: Now, these examples of housing developments like Levittown, that practiced the policy of only accepting whites into the communities was not unique. It happened all over. And it wasn't illegal. It wasn't until the late 60s when the Fair Housing Act of 1968 actually prohibited housing discrimination by law. So, you know, from the time when Eugene Burnett moved in in 1950, it's almost two decades before this practice is deemed illegal. 

Eurgene Burnett: As I look back and reflect, it was a feeling of community. The people of - African American veterans had nowhere else to go. So what you had, what came there to buy these homes were educated people well to do people, you know, and it was a nice community.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month and in celebration this episode highlights the community history of Manhattan’s Chinatown, one of the oldest and largest Chinese and Chinese American communities in the United States. The episode tells the story of how during a time of change in the late 1970s the Chinatown community moved to preserve and archive its own history, which had long been ignored and marginalized by the dominant cultural institutions of the area.

Featured image: Chinatown, Manhattan. Image: NYC Tourism.com

Guests: Dr. John Kuo Wei (Jack) Tchen, Director, Clement A. Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University Newark and Ashley Hopkins- Benton, Senior Historian and Curator at the New York State Museum.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882 by John Kuo Wei Tchen (2001).

Back to the Basics: Who Is Researching and Interpreting for Whom? by John Kuo Wei Tchen, The Journal of American History (1994).

New York Chinatown History Project by John Kuo Wei Tchen (1987).

Museum of Chinese in America

Welcome to Chinatown

Museum of Chinese in America: Learn

New-York Historical Society Curriculum Library: Chinese American Exclusion/Inclusion

Library of Congress: Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month Resources for Teachers

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. In honor of the upcoming Asian American [and] Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we're going to be talking about a marker located at 151 Mulberry Street in New York City, which is in the borough of Manhattan, and the text reads, Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, by the United States Department of the Interior, William G. Pomeroy Foundation, 2022.

Now, this marker is not one of the traditional blue and gold markers that we usually talk about. And in this case, if you have a structure that's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, you can apply to the Pomeroy Foundation. Because when a structure is nominated for the National Register, there is no form of signage that you are given as part of being listed. So this offers a chance to have signage, which alerts the public to the fact that this is an important historic structure. In this case, the plaque itself is on the side of the building; because it's in New York City, it would be really difficult because of the congested sidewalks to have a marker on a traditional pole, like we see in a lot of other places. So in New York City, it's much more common to see plaques on the side of the building. And actually, the building that it's on is the Italian American Museum. As mentioned, it is the Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District. And we'll talk a little bit later about why those two communities are in the same location. 

The marker itself was applied for by the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council that was founded in 1955. The neighborhood is bordered by the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and the East River. And at that time period in the 50s. Tensions were high, there was gang violence, and this area was becoming one of the city's first racially integrated neighborhoods. And so the neighborhood council was created to try to resolve some of the conflicts and to serve as a channel for communication among settlement houses, churches and community leaders. And this information is according to their website. 

So let's go back and talk about Chinatown - which is going to be our focus this month - and talk a little bit about the origins of Manhattan's Chinatown.

Devin: Manhattan's Chinatown is one of the oldest in the country. It's one of nine in the city right now. It was the oldest and the largest for many years. It's located in lower Manhattan and you mentioned Little Italy, which abuts Chinatown on the northern side. 

When we think about Chinese immigration history in the United States, the first wave of immigrants really happens around the Gold Rush on the West Coast. And it was not until kind of after that point in the 1850s, it's estimated that the first Chinese immigrants began coming to New York City. And the reason that they came was the reason that New York City became such an immigrant hub: it was because of the port, right? And so because of this port culture, not only did Chinatown exist and more and more Chinese immigrants began to settle in the lower part of Manhattan; also, the Lower East Side, as I mentioned, became an ethnic neighborhood for Jewish immigrants and other immigrants from Eastern Europe. And then of course, Little Italy. All of these people were associated, at least early on, with the Port of New York City. Many of them either worked on the port or had businesses that served people who did work in the ports. When we think of Chinatown, many of the early settlers there, opened businesses such as laundries, restaurants, stores that often served the port community. 

In the 1850s and 1860s, as more Chinese began settling, there became a kind of racist backlash against the settlers, many of whom were working class. So there began to be conflict between working-class white Americans and these Chinese immigrants and other immigrants. But specifically, there was bigotry directed at Chinese immigrants, because they were seen as representing many of the concepts that were false concepts, but that Americans believed when they thought about “The Orient,” or Asia that, that these cultures were a decadent culture, that they were not Christian. They had different religions, different customs, they dressed differently. So there was a kind of an easy way to think about othering Chinese immigrants. And this led in many ways to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which specifically put quotas essentially slamming the door on Chinese labor coming to this nation at all. 

To get more context on the origins of Chinatown, and on the Chinese Exclusion Act, and its effect on immigration, as well as the community that already existed in New York City. We spoke with Dr. Jack Tchen.

Dr. Jack Tchen: Hello, my name is Jack Tchen. My full published name is John Kuo Wei Tchen. My work has really been about building capacity in communities that have especially been disenfranchised from really historical records. And as historians, we know that what's written down and what is kept in libraries and archives are what are oftentimes the stuff that history books are written from. I worked on a - well it's now a book - called New York Before Chinatown. And it's really about the role of Orientalism in the shaping of American culture, from 1776 to 1882, which is when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. Most Americans don't know the Chinese were excluded from this country. Technically, that was repealed in 1943, when the US and China became allies in the fight against Japan. It wasn't effectively repealed until 1965 and 68. Because in ‘43, the laws defaulted to the 1924 Immigration Act, which is really an act as defined by the eugenics movement. The eugenics movement is a part of the history that I've also worked on; [its] something that we don't understand, and it's ongoing legacy and the impact on not just the kind of attitude that was dominant in scientific racism against African Americans, against indigenous people and really segregating them from the culture. But of course, it got applied towards Chinese in 1882. And then that emboldened hardcore eugenicists, thinking that they would then enact an immigration law that would exclude the great majority of so-called “inferior” European immigrants as well. So the ‘24 quota for Chinese, 105 people were allowed a year. And so from, technically the repeal of the exclusion law, that got it, the immigration policy was defaulted to the eugenics laws. So those were not changed until ‘65 and ‘68. I go into detail because these historical forces have tremendous influences on not just whether Chinese or Asian Americans were acknowledged, but also the history collections themselves and the history profession themselves and what's collected, what's ignored. And if Chinese are excluded from this country, they're not thought to be worthy of citizenship or could be citizens, and therefore, women were excluded and families were really very marginalized. So it really explains why there's such a gap. It's an intellectual kind of black hole, where these were people who just didn't quite count and therefore they were not part of the collections.

Devin: Early historians of Chinatown such as Jack Tchen quickly realized that the community itself was marginalized within the historic record. And they realized that institutions had not been collecting material related to the history of Chinatown. The archives did not have a historical record of the people that lived there, in many ways because of the language barrier, but also because of the priorities of the collecting institutions. So when Jack Tchen and others began studying and looking at Chinatown as having its own history, they realized that this archival record did not exist. So they created the Chinatown History Project, which was one of the first community history projects in which public historians went into the community itself, and literally knocked on doors and went door to door asking for people to share their personal histories because they began the project by focusing on the laundries in Chinatown, which had not been looked at historically or studied, but were so numerous and important not only to that community, but to New York City as a whole. So, you know, it really was a groundbreaking project that has led to other similar type projects in other communities around the nation.

Dr. Jack Tchen: In terms of my own background of being a Chinese immigrant, really a Chinese refugee; As I began looking for those records, they were not to be found. At the New York Historical Society, really little bits and pieces. At the New York Public Library, bits and pieces. Oftentimes what would show would be advertising trade cards or racist caricatures in Frank Leslie’s or Harper's Magazine. So it really drove a curiosity and a need to begin building archives and collections personally, but then also, as we started the New York Chinatown History Project, to begin building up those archives. So I started out really, as someone doing community-based history. So, my start really was as a public historian as someone also collecting materials and I got a PhD at NYU, in American history, but also: in thinking through questions of public history and a dialogue approach towards history, which is really acknowledging those who have been left out of history and how to include their records and their voices and their experiences. 

I should say that I'm not from New York, nor near Chinatown. Originally, I'm from the Midwest. And I arrived in New York in 1975 and began volunteering at a community arts and cultural organization called Basement Workshop. And one of the first people I met was Fay Chiang, someone who hasn't received her full due in terms of the heroic roles that she played just in building the Basement Workshop and writing grants and doing the kind of unsung work that oftentimes women do. But in particular, she was also this fantastically talented poet, and visual artist. So it turns out that besides those qualities about her, she was also the daughter of a laundry family. I began really thinking deeply about: what does it mean to have been part of the thousands of laundry families that really built up New York's Chinatown? So I had the eyes of an outsider, but also working with people from the community itself. So, I began kind of digging deeper and deeper and looking at books, reading, studying, and realized that that history had not been really documented from the community's point of view. So that became the basis of our, of our work. I was able to work with some other folks who are just kind of freshly minted from college, to form the New York Chinatown History Project and to write a proposal that actually got a significant size grant for people who are willing to work for very little creating a new organization, going into dumpsters. 

And at the time, our office was on East Broadway, which was kind of a transitional neighborhood area. And it's just at Chatham Square, one of those historic squares that has largely been forgotten by people today. The Bowery goes up from there, the early history of New York is very much the Bowery where working class folks were living, but also a very intermingled community of African Americans, early Chinese. So what was happening at Chatham Square was that the leases for many of these stores were coming up and the leases had 99 year leases. So this was a material culture history that was not registering for the New York Historical Society or the Museum of the City of New York. Quite frankly, it was only the local folks who cared about these places, because they had been, of course, part of the everyday life. And even then, [       ] Pharmacy, which is the oldest pharmacy in the city, at the time, was just being tossed out; all their storefronts, all the stuff inside. So what I realized is that, well, Chinatown was never strictly Chinatown, it was always part of the port culture. And the stores that were closing down, were emblematic of that mixture of what was going on. So from the very beginning, we never represented Chinatown as an isolated, segregated community that only cared about itself. It was always intermingled with Irish, with African Americans, with - I heard lots of stories about the Jewish community coming in, having meals. We weren't intending to collect lots of stuff. But as the stores start closing down, I just could not bear the thought of these things being thrown out. Certainly [to the] uptown historical societies, this is too lowly, really, quite frankly, for them to collect. We did strike an early relationship with the [New York] State Museum, which I think at the time really was one of the few places that really valued the items that were in some of these stores. So we opened at the at the New York State Museum. And we also opened at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street before they had a gallery. We were really one of the early shows that happened in their entry lobby area. So we got some great coverage from the New York Times. And in that way, I think the New York Times coverage, ironically, also got the Chinatown community to take this group of young people that not all of whom were from the community itself, right? We started being taken more seriously. Because we were able to document the history of Chinese laundry workers, which is not the history of Chinatown, per se, but of those ten thousand or so laundry workers who were in the metro region. And it's really the laundry workers who were the early financial base for Chinatown itself.

Devin: Because there was no repository for this material, there was nowhere for them to possibly donate it, whether it be to a museum or to another institution. So the New York State Museum agreed to take material from three general goods stores, and combine them into one exhibit that would focus on the Tuck High store, which was at the time 101 years old, was closing, the family was moving away from the business, and the museum decided to interpret Tuck High as it would look in the 1930s using a collection of material from three different stores. We spoke with curator Ashley Hopkins Benton about the Tuck High exhibit.

Ashley Hopkins Benton: My name is Ashley Hopkins Benton. I'm a senior historian and curator at the New York State Museum. I focus on social history, especially women's history, immigration, LGBTQ plus history. And I'm also interested in our toys, glass and ceramics collections. 

The Tuck High store was founded in 1879 by a Chinese immigrant Feng Wen Lee. And it was kind of a general dry goods store. They had a number of different products through their history. They carried herbs and some food items and supplies like walks and cooking tools, and some ceramics. But it was also very much a community center in Chinatown. It was a place that men that also worked in Chinatown would go to socialize, to get a meal. They had a pocket that served kind of as a post office, so for men that were working in Chinatown and trying to communicate with their relatives in China, but maybe didn't have a permanent address, they would receive mail there. They also provided services where they would write letters for people that were not literate. 

And so it was located originally at 19 Mott Street and it was there for 50 years. And then in 1929 It moved to 24 Mott Street, which is the location that the museum ultimately collected. 

By 1980, Chinatown was changing. There was gentrification, the rents were going up astronomically. And the Lee family - at that point it was Wah On Lee and Coon On Lee - decided that they couldn't keep the business anymore and they were interested in selling it. And thankfully there were people that were really interested in Chinatown's history that were able to make the connection with the New York State Museum. And so the museum went down and met with the Lees and observed their business and ultimately decided to purchase large parts of the store: the fixtures and some of the merchandise, and the equipment, the cash register, the cooking equipment, and then other parts were gifted by the Lee family. And while they were in the process of making that collection, and working with them, they found out that there were two other stores that had recently closed, so they also acquired the contents of Sun Goon Shing and Quong Yee Wo. And the exhibit that you see today in the museum is a reconstruction of the front room of the Tuck High store filled with the materials from those three stores.

Devin: Maybe you know this, or maybe not, what does Tuck High mean?

Ashley: It means “high integrity.”

Devin: You know, we deal in the museum world with material culture. And so what does that tell us about both the store but also the community?

Ashley: Well, I think it tells us some of the ways that they were supporting the Chinese community, ways that they could harken back to their Chinese heritage and really retain those customs. So there is a large collection from one of the stores of calligraphy paper and calligraphy supplies and writing elements. So that's one big theme. Um, there's also a very large collection of herbs and medicines that would be used in traditional Chinese medicine. And the store also employed a druggist or - he was actually referred to as the drug man - who worked in the back and would talk to you about your ailments and help prescribe various things that would help you feel better. 

The stores that we know about, you know Tuck High closed in 1980, Quang Yee Wo, closed earlier that year. And then Sun Goon Shing actually closed around 1972. So - and was warehoused. So I think there were so many of these stories happening all at once that it was a wake-up call. There's some really great photos that the curators took, like as the shop was closing. So, because of the rising rent, there was a hard fast deadline of: this is the day the Lees need to be out. But they also were interested in operating the business up until the last day. So the curators were literally there like taking pieces of the building out while the Lee family was still selling materials propped up on boxes with a board and selling to the regulars. 

Chinatown is right now undergoing another wave of gentrification and rising rents. So there are a number of stores and restaurants that have been around for generations that have closed in the last couple of years. And that's caused a lot of change, again in Chinatown, but there are still family businesses that harken back to some of these traditions and do serve as a community stopping place. And it's a place where you can get a variety of goods. And what's really interesting as an observer who's up here in Albany rather than down in Chinatown very much is that a lot of them have an amazing social media presence and are sharing their stories and how they're serving the community and the ways that they're trying to preserve their own history as well through social media. So that's really fun. So K.K. Discount is one, which is a really kind of general store that sells supplies for a variety of things. But they've also worked to kind of keep the community together and to share about the good things that are happening in Chinatown. And then another example that I was thinking about is Wing on Wo [&Co.], which was actually located just next door to where Tuck High ultimately was located and is now the oldest continuously operating store in Chinatown. And through their W.O.W. Project, they're promoting the Chinatown community and keeping it vibrant and the businesses vibrant. 

When Tuck High came to the museum, there was really a great amount of communication between the museum staff and various people in Chinatown. So not only the Lee family, but the families associated with the other stores and people that were working on Chinatown history. And there is a great trove in our collection of all of the reports that were in Chinese language newspapers when it opened in 1981 in the museum. So that was a great excitement. And as I said, continued communication between Albany and Chinatown. There was also a lot of excitement, just in the reports that the museum was collecting the space before it was even open. There was a New York Times article and there were numerous letters from people all over the country, some of whom, as I said, visited Tuck High with their families when they were younger, and we're just writing to say “I'm so glad you're preserving this history. This is my family memories.” But one of those was actually from a gentleman in Albany who had traveled with his family regularly to visit the store. He was writing because he was excited that we were saving it. But he had also read that there was interest in including mannequins in the space, which was an exhibit technique that the museum regularly did, to people our spaces and kind of show the way that people interacted with them. Those mannequins that are in the museum are cast from real people. And he offered himself up as the model for the cast that would be made for Tuck High. So the druggist that you see is actually a man that lived in Albany, who had been to Tuck High in his younger years.

Lauren: It's fascinating to me as a public historian, and probably you as well, Devin, that the work Dr. Tchen was doing in the 1970s, and 80s, is so far ahead of his time, it seems like as we're talking about it, this is a project that could be going on currently. And when you look at the field of public history, one of the things that we'd like to focus on is helping communities tell their own stories. And it takes a lot of effort to do that, you need to gain trust, you need to build relationships with the people in those communities. And if you want any hope of being able to fill those holes that are in our archives, this work needs to be done now before these communities disappear.

 Devin: I think that's absolutely true. And I think part of the process is not only building the relationships, but sometimes it's getting the communities themselves to understand the importance of their own history. Dr. Tchen told us, it was a struggle at times for the Chinatown History Project to get some of the residents of Chinatown to, to understand the value of their own history. And, and that's often the case, as we see in communities that we work with across New York State. 

Lauren: I know that sometimes when I go into an oral history with someone I want to speak with about a particular event in the past, some people tend to think that their experiences are not important or even worthy of an oral history, you know, and so I think one of our jobs is to help people realize that their stories are worthy of being told and collected. And to make them realize everyone's story is a piece of the larger cultural fabric, and that all of those representations need to be included for us to have a larger picture of where we are today. So even when communities think that their story is just a tiny sliver of the overall pie. It's the job of the public historian to help them realize that their stories should be collected, and they do have meaning.

Dr. Tchen: As the Chinatown History Project began to develop, and we became a museum, I really began thinking about these questions in a larger way about the idea of a dialogue-driven museum as opposed to a collections driven museum or an academically-defined Museum, right? How can we begin to formulate what's important and how people understand things from their point of view, and to really privilege the community language. It's really from that kind of lived and embodied experience that these values really became important to me. You know, our first name for the New York Chinatown History project was the Center for Community Studies. And I really do believe that place matters, communities matter, and that ultimately, it's through public history more than academic history, that people get a sense of place, community meaning, community building and being able to locate themselves in these stories.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, this episode tells the story of Grace Leach Hudowalski, the first woman to summit all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks. Besides being an accomplished mountain climber, Grace was also the first president of the Adirondack 46ers Club as well as its historian for over 50 years. As historian, Grace answered thousands of letters from club members telling her of their exploits as they reached each of the 46 summits. An accomplished writer, Grace promoted the Adirondacks through her work as a tourism writer for New York State and through her many articles for the Adirondack Mountain Club Magazine.

Guests:

Laurie Rankin, President of the Adirondack 46ers club, and Jane Meader Nye and Tony Solomon, Adirondack 46ers club members and friends of Grace.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

The Adirondack High Peaks and the Forty-Sixers(1970), edited by Grace Leach Hudowalski.

The Mountains Will Wait for You, (2013), a film about Grace Leach Hudowalski by Fredrick T. Schwoebel and narrated by Johnny Cash.

Hiking the Adirondack 46 High Peaks: A Guide to the Region’s High Peaks(2024), by Johnathan Zaharek.

The Adirondacks: A History of America’s First Wilderness (1998), by Paul Schneider.

The Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake Educational Resources

The Adirondack Mountain Club School Outreach

The records of the Adirondack 46ers club, 1940-2013, New York State Library

The Wild Center School Programs

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. In honor of Women's History Month, we're looking at a marker located in the town of Ticonderoga in Essex County. The marker is located at 10 Montcalm Street, and the text reads: Grace Leach, born near this site in 1906. She became the first woman to climb the Adirondack 46 high peaks, completing her climbs in 1937. William G. Pomeroy Foundation, 2016. 

Grace Leach is also better known by her married name, Grace Hudowalski And she is a fascinating woman. Although, as a young girl Grace grew up in Ticonderoga, her parents thought it was important that she moved to Troy so that she could attend a high school. So in the early 1920s, her family moved to Troy where she attended school, however, her father operated a hotel in Minerva, so she was never too far removed from the North Country. 

In the summer of 1922, when Grace was a teenager, she joined a group of young people who were going to hike Mount Marcy, and this is her first experience climbing one of the high peaks, which we should probably say is the 46ers are considered any of the high peaks in the Adirondacks over 4000 feet. And there's a little leeway with that, too. But that is - the general idea is - that all of the high peaks over 4000 feet that they knew about at the time, are included. So Grace joins this group and she climbs Marcy, and it's a hard climb, it's not a nice day out. She mentions that, you know, a lot of the time she's on all fours, and it's really difficult. And some of them turn back but she doesn't and from the top clouds part and she looks down and she can see Lake Tear of the Clouds, which is the source of the Hudson River.

Devin: The 46ers - as an active organization - began in February of 1937, when they were called the 46ers of Troy, because that's where Grace and her husband, Edward were living and others who were very interested. But the organization itself traces its roots as far back as 1918, when Robert and George Marshall - who were New York City gentlemen who were interested in the Adirondacks, because they spent their summers there - climbed their first high peak, which was Whiteface Mountain. In 1922, Robert Marshall publishes kind of the first book about the high peaks that describes them and, and as you noted, there is some leeway. Some of them are not quite 4000 feet, but most of them are right up to Mount Marcy, which is the highest elevation in New York State at 5344 feet. So the 46ers kind of started as an unofficial group of people who are very interested in climbing the high peaks in the Adirondacks and climbing them all. In 1837. They formed the official club of which Grace was the first president And to learn more about that we spoke with current Adirondack 46 or President Laurie Rankin.

Laurie Rankin: So I am Laurie Rankin, I am the president - current president - of the Adirondack 46ers, I am member number 5525 with the WV after my name and number. The W stands for having climbed all of the peaks in winter, as well as in the three seasons. And the V stands for having given at least 146 hours of volunteer service to the organization. 

So the organization is - in our mission statement - dedicated to people who have climbed off 46 high peaks, but also who are very involved in education in preservation of the environment. And we also are working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on some of their environmental goals. Mostly those have to do with stewarding and with trail crew work. And then finally, we also are very involved in supporting other organizations that hold similar missions in the Adirondack Park. So we actually go back to an earlier organization to talk about Grace and how she came to be the very first president of the Adirondack 46ers back in 1948. So Grace, as a young girl, attended a church in Troy, as did some other folks. And they'd heard about these people, [the] Marshalls and Clark, who had climbed the mountains in the Adirondacks. And they thought, “Wouldn't this be a great thing for the kids to do here and Sunday school?” And so they started climbing and taking some of the kids with them. And this young Grace had heard about this. And she thought, “Well, wow, that's something I would like to do.” But of course, at the time, this was not something that girls or women did very often. And with the support of her father, in particular, Grace decided to give it a try. And so as a girl, she climbed one of those mountains. And she wasn't sure if she could do it a few times, she was worried about keeping up with the lads. But she did it. And she found great joy in doing that. Eventually, she continued to climb the involvement in that church, which was actually the Grace Methodist Church in Troy, was the original start of an organized group of people who were dedicated to climbing those peaks. And so it was a fairly small group of people at the time. That is kind of where Grace got started. The organization itself, of course, started actually in 1948. And by then she and her husband were married. And she was the first woman to have climbed all the peaks, only the ninth person to do it. And the very first woman.

Lauren: It's important to remember that at the time that Grace and Ed were hiking and starting this club, it's not the 46 that we know today, there weren't paths that were guided by trail markers. You didn't have trail crews and stewards that were in there making sure that you didn't have a mile worth of mud or you know, they were moving The Boulders out of the way or or downed trees in a storm. We have a much easier climb nowadays, then, Grace and her cohorts did back in the 20s and 30s. And Grace actually finished her 46 In the year 1937. She finished on Esther, when she was just over 30 years old.

Devin: I think that's a great point that you make about how the high peaks are different today. One of the things that the Adirondack 46ers and their predecessor, the 46ers of Troy really did as a club - it wasn't just about climbing the mountains and getting your number and your name in the record book. It was about things like preserving the mountains in their pristine shape, they did work on trails and also did work to not create trails, because sometimes when trails are created on these kind of high peaks, they can cause environmental damage due to runoff and things like that. So they actually worked on guiding people to the tops of these mountains without specific trails so that they would not be trails kind of dug into the surroundings. But they've done all sorts of work many publications and really Grace. Even beyond her presidency, as the first club president became the institutional historian for over 50 years.

Laurie Rankin: Grace was a very organized individual to begin with. So when it started, she was like, “Well, now how are we going to put this group of people together?” And to hear her tell the story of even trying to determine how to organize, so that we know who climbed first and who climbed second, and things like that was something that she was very thoughtful about. And so she actually went by the dates by which people completed climbing the 46 peaks. As she continued through her journey, she just simply enjoyed listening to what other people were doing in their climbing journey. She loves to support, she loves to hear the stories, she has said, there are several famous quotes that she said, one which came from her dad, and was simply “It wasn't about getting to the top, but it was how you enjoyed the climb along the way.” And she wanted to hear about that, she truly did. And she felt that it was a gathering of people, this club, this organization that had this commonality of how they made that climb. And she wanted that information as part of the record. So that it wasn't just simply giving somebody a number, and saying “Congratulations!” - That there was more to it. And of course, in the early years, that was something that she was able to keep up with very, very well. But as the organization began to grow, it became really, really a full time job, if you will. But again, she was very dedicated to it. And she loved to truly love to hear what people had experienced when they were out there climbing. And not always the good things, sometimes the things that didn't go so well as well. So her boots, we don't say her shoes, but we say her boots or hiking boots, eventually had to be filled by several people. And because Grace corresponded with all these people, we call those folks the Correspondents. And letter writing has sort of gone a little bit out of vogue. And we correspond most often electronically now. But it still retains the same important information that Grace wanted to hear, and wanted to share with others. And that is about that experience, not just to say, “I got to the top of Mount Marcy on Tuesday, such and such a date.”  And, “Here's your finish number.” It was all the special stuff in between that connected them, and still does.

Lauren:  I think it's such a great way that she was able to take hiking, and bring it away from just the physicality, the athleticism, how fast can you get to the top, right, that's not the point of becoming a 46er. Because there are a lot of, you know, strong, able people who can run up; And I think they use the term sometimes, you see the term “bagging a peak,” right? Because they're trying to get to the 46. But for Grace, it was so much more than just the strength that it took to climb the mountain, the physical strength, it's the relationships formed along the way. It's the memories that are made. And that includes the failures and the triumphs. There's lots of times that Mother Nature throws curveballs in the way of hikers where you think you're going to be able to get to the top of this mountain today. And that doesn't happen. And I think Grace had that knowledge from an early age because of the way she talks about what her dad said to her as a young girl. But the idea that it's about the memories that you make along the way. It's these relationships formed between hikers. And Grace's way of capturing all of that, and making the hikers actually reflect is by writing these letters. I mean, I think it was mentioned that by the time she finished, she had written over 60,000 letters. I mean, that that's an amazing accomplishment. And we're not talking about email here. You know how many emails you can fire off in a day. She's actually going to the post office, collecting these letters, reading them all and thoughtfully writing back to these people. And there's this wonderful archive that's been created about all of these 1000s of people and there's 1000s of members of this club now. And they have a written legacy about what it's like to climb these peaks. And I think reflecting on that also is one of the reasons that they're so interested in preserving them. 

When Grace first started writing back to climbers, there were a good number of them. But the club grew very quickly. And it became a bit overwhelming to Grace in her later years; she was getting older, the letters were just coming in faster and larger quantities. So she started to have some helpers. And I'm lucky enough in my office as the Saratoga County Historian, that one of my volunteers Jane Meader Nye, who is 94 years old, and has been volunteering in my office since the 1990s. She was a friend of Grace. And her husband, Tony Solomon was also a friend. And they were helpers. They met Grace because they have their love of hiking. And I sat down and spoke with them to learn some of their favorite memories about Grace Hudowalski.

Jane Meade Nye: My name is Jane Meader Nye, I'm local, I grew up in Schenectady, New York, I was born in Ellis Hospital, so I never got far from home. But I've wandered all over the world. 

Tony Solomon: My name’s Tony Solomon. And when I retired, I was also at the time a 46er. And being bored, I contacted the president of a club, and I said, “If you need any volunteers, I'd like to help.” And she said, “That’s good! Grace lives at nine Cardinal Avenue. And what we want you to do is you go in the back door, the back door is open, there'll be somebody there by the name of Mindy, and Mindy will introduce you to Grace.”

The reason why she needed help, she was inundated with work, answering letters, and so we would help her with the letters. Grace felt that if you climb a mountain, it's good enough to write about it, tell us about it. And if you wanted to be a 46er, or you wrote to Grace, you said:  “Dear Grace, I'm starting to climb 46 peaks.” And she would send you a mountain list where you'd write your mountains down. And she didn't require this, but she would appreciate a letter every time he climbed a mountain or time to climb two or three mountains to tell her about it. She also would like - if it's a child - and have the child write their own letter, she loved having letters from children, we'd help her go over the letters. And she'd write the replies pretty much. But we sometimes would like some. When we started helping Grace, there were about 200 new 46ers every year, and these people would be writing in and she put all the letters and organize them and they'd be in order of finish, because every 46er gets a climbing number, based on when they finished. So we would do that. And then she also required that everything would be put in a loose leaf notebook and you had to make two copies of it. One copy stayed with the 46ers. The other copy was - at the end of the year - went to the State Library. 

And then Grace lived at Cardinal Ave for about six months of the year and then she moved to her cottage - actually was nice cottage - up in Schroon Lake, called The Boulders so when she moved up there, Jane and I, we went to the Boulders to help her. And on the way up to the Boulders we would stop at the post office in Adirondack, New York to pick up her mail and then go to The Boulders and she would make us lunch - usually it was toasted cheese. 

Jane: Grilled Cheese. 

Tony: We’d spend the day there. And we developed a really good relationship.

Lauren: One of the interesting stories that came out of my conversation with Jane and Tony was about Grace's connection to Noah John Rondeau, who was known as the Hermit of Cold River. Grace met him when she and her husband went in to climb the Sewards - and where he was in the woods was not an easy place to get to. It was a 14-mile walk and she and her husband went in he offered to help them find their way across the swamp to the mountain that they were climbing at the time, and on their way back offered to make them a cup of coffee and Grace talks about this experience as part of the documentary called The Mountains Will Wait for You that talks about Grace's legacy with the Adirondack 46ers, she also mentions that after that every year on his birthday, she would bring a birthday cake in.

Tony: There was a hermit that lived up in the cold river and his name was Noah John Rondeau. And he made a home there. 

Jane: Very primitive. 

Tony: Very, very primitive camp. I mean, this is a very difficult place to get to. I mean, it was a long, long hike from any place. And Grace - and some of the other 46ers - have gone there once. She had gone back again, several times. And she would carry a birthday cake.

Jane: Every year, every year.

Tony: They had a hurricane in 1950. A terrible, terrible hurricane. And it did a lot of damage up in the Adirondacks. And the Conservation Department wanted Noah out of there for years. But he wouldn't go and they didn't have, I guess... 

Jane: …the ability to make him. 

Tony: Yes. And pretty soon after the hurricane. They got him out. And he never went back. People knew about him. I don't know how but they did. I mean, I remember as a kid I knew about him. Evidently, she went in there by herself.

Jane: From what I've put together, she went by herself. 

Tony: It would be three days for us. I mean, two nights and three days. It's a long hike. I mean, she… I can't believe she did it in a day.

Lauren: With a birthday cake in her hand. 

Tony: I can't believe she did it. I mean, but… She did.

Lauren: Another great event in Grace's life was the 60th anniversary of finishing her 46th, which happened on August 26 1937, on top of Esther. And for the 60th anniversary of that Grace was brought to Whiteface. And still at that time, even in her older years, she was determined to climb to the top by herself.

Tony: Somebody was always coming up with ideas, and they still come up with ideas. And so we put a 46er on each one of the summits. And I climbed Whiteface -that was the one that I climbed. And then Jane drove Grace up Whiteface. And the first surprise was that Grace worked for the State. And she had a really good job with publicity and, and they gave her, when she retired, this silver medallion that enabled her entrance into any state building or park or wherever. So instead of paying, she just showed the medallion, and they drove up. And I met them at the parking area, and the idea was to take the elevator up to the top. And Jane is walking up with Grace and Grace takes one look at [the elevator]. She says “I have never ridden in that elevator and I'm not gonna ride it now.”

And you know, she was like 90 years and over 90 years old at the time. 

Jane: About 93, maybe.

And there's a stairway that goes up there, and it's rather steep, and it's a quarter of a mile. And she walks up that stairway - she and Jane are going up the stairway - and I’m following behind. 

Jane: I had her pack, a small pack on my back.

Tony: A lot of people up there that day - it was probably a weekend or something - and we get up to the top and she sits on this big boulder. And the next thing we know somebody had contacted Channel 5 from Plattsburgh and they’re interviewing her, but that - oh! And then - I’d forgotten - and afterwards we went back to her camp at The Boulders at Schroon Lake and then everybody that had climbed a mountain came back there and we had a rather nice celebration

Jane: That we did. 

Tony: Yeah, that was good. It was a lot of… a lot of fun.

Lauren: Grace passed away in 2004 when she was 98 years old, but her legacy lives on. Her presence is felt so much so that some of her fellow hikers and 46ers went through a grueling, decade-long process to get one of the high peaks renamed after her. And after about 12 years, the peak East Dix was finally renamed Grace Peak.

Laurie:  That was a very, very long process. And I will say that the credit to that goes to Mr. Doug Arnold, who was just fearless and going out there and meeting the very stringent criteria of the USGS in order to rename a mountain. And there was tons of legalese, if you will, that had to be followed. But aside from that, there was also - he had to prove that there really was a support locally for the renaming of this and then at the same time, he had to prove to people what an important person Grace was, and why she deserved to have her name on this peak, so it was extremely involved. It was very lengthy. And you had to maintain that momentum and that support during that time frame. And so my involvement was, was really just minute, behind the scenes, here or there and trying to get people to attend public meetings, those kinds of things. Doug really is the one who gets all of the credit for that.

Lauren: It shows how dedicated Grace was and how much of her time was spent, because she had a spiritual connection with the mountains. And that's something that she wanted to foster with others. And she encouraged not only women to write letters, but the men had to write their own letters. And she talks about how sometimes, you know, men didn't want to write letters, but she made them write. You know, she didn't want the wife to write for both of them. She wanted to hear individual experiences. And even when young children were hiking, they were drawing pictures, even if they couldn't write, they would dictate to their parents, but sometimes included pictures. It really seems like, you know, she was able to take the joy that she felt on the mountains and spread it to others, and that the joy she received from reading these letters, and, you know, living others’ experience in the mountains was really what what kept her going and living till 98 and continuing to do this work, and then passing it on to others like Jane and Tony and other Correspondents now. And even though they use email, the sentiment is the same; people are still documenting their experiences in the high peaks and sending it in to become a part of this kind of unique club.

Tony: She was the organization I mean, she was with it right from the beginning. She was the one that you wrote to when you wanted to start to climb, she was the one that presented  your certificate to you, when you came to the 46er banquet in May to get your climbing number. It's… Grace was the organization; she made the rules.

Laurie: I think that one of the other things that I liked about Grace, and I really like about the 46er organization is we have tried very hard to keep the traditions and the history alive. We really like our new climbers to know who Grace was, we really want them to know what she gave to the organization. And a quote that I do remember of hers was that “We don't use titles in the mountains,” she would say. We are all climbers, and we are all out there joyfully. And we don't give titles to one another. And we've tried to remain pretty humble, I think, and followed in her footsteps that way as well. 

When we were celebrating Grace's birthday, several years ago, we were hiking each of us to different mountains of the 46. And Grace's favorite bird was the hummingbird. And I - and my husband - hiked to the summit of Mount Colden. And it was a very cold, rainy day, and there's not a lot of blooming plants at the top of a mountain. And yet, we were greeted by a hummingbird at the summit of that mountain. And this was after Grace had passed and, and I kind of thought to myself, “Wow, she's here.” And so I hope in the short time that I've been able to help the organization that I have kept Grace's words in the back of my mind. And that visit that she made to me on Colden.

In honor of Black History Month, this episode tells the story of the 1839 La Amistad Rebellion, in which 53 illegally enslaved Africans rose up against their Spanish captors off the coast of Cuba, took over the ship, and attempted to sail it to freedom. They eventually reached Long Island, where they were arrested by U.S. officials. Aided by New York abolitionists, the Amistad Africans fought various legal battles for over two years before the Supreme Court finally ruled in their favor in what was one of the most important court cases related to slavery before the Civil War.

Guests:

Dr. Marcus Rediker, author of The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom and producer of the film Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels, and Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Eastville Community Historical Society.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Marcus Rediker, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, 2012.

Howard Jones, Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy, 1997.

Alexs Pate, Amistad,1997.

Consider the Source New York Slavery Resources—New York State Archives Partnership Trust

Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels Educator Resources

Discovering Amistad Teacher Resources

PBS Amistad Lesson Plan

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian. 

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. In honor of Black History Month, on this episode, we are heading out to Long Island. The marker of focus is located very close to the shore, near 185 Soundview Drive in Montauk. The title is Schooner “Amistad” and the text reads: In 1839, illegally enslaved Africans subdued captors on ship, came ashore nearby, then jailed in CT. Finally freed by U.S. Supreme Court in 1841. William G Pomeroy Foundation 2022. 

The story of the Amistad may be familiar to many of our listeners, because in the late 1990s, Steven Spielberg produced a major motion picture, which followed this story. And the story is of a ship that was carrying illegally enslaved Africans heading to a plantation in Cuba. These Africans rose up and revolted successfully against their white captors, and attempted to sail the ship back to Africa. 

Devin: The Amistad case is interesting in a lot of ways, we have to realize that in 1839, and the era in which they were stolen from their homes in Sierra Leone, which was a British territory, the slave trade had been made illegal by the British, but there were still slavers bringing enslaved Africans across the Middle Passage to the United States, to the colonies in the Caribbean. So that was very much still happening. In the case of the Amistad - which itself was not a slave ship, it was a schooner - it was transporting 49 enslaved men and four children from one part of Cuba to the other. These men and these children had been purchased by two plantation owners. 

So, in Spain and Spanish colonies at this time, slavery was still legal. So again, you have this complexity of violating British rules and laws, as far as the slave trade from their territories is concerned, we have the same complexity in the United States at this time: in southern states, slavery is very legal in many northern states, but at all, it's illegal. So this is a very complex case. The idea that this was a successful revolt at sea is something that we spoke to Dr. Marcus Rediker about.

Dr. Marcus Rediker: My name is Marcus Rediker. I am a distinguished professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh. I have written a number of books, all of which have something very important in common: they are all what we call “history from below.” The history of ordinary people making history.

As I was writing a previous book called The Slave Ship: A Human History - seeing one revolt after another fail - in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, “Why was the Amistad rebellion successful?” What I wanted to know is: who were these people who made it? How did they actually do it? The main finding on this set of questions was that these people were from southern Sierra Leone, all 53 of them. They were from about nine or ten different ethnic groups. But they came from a region in which the wars of the slave trade were raging. And what this meant was that the men of every village had to be trained warriors. So what I learned was that the ways of warfare in southern Sierra Leone, were the key to the successful uprising. So in my view, the most important thing about the Amistad Rebellion has its origins in West Africa.

Steven Spielberg's film begins with Cinque trying to get a nail out of a piece of wood, which he can then use to pick the lock. There are actually sources that say that they broke the padlock, not picked it that they broke it. And it was crucial for me to figure out that there was not one, but two blacksmiths on board. And metallurgy in this part of West Africa was quite advanced in this period, I'm quite confident that these people knew the properties of this metal, and they knew how to break it. 

One of the principles I might say, of the kind of history I do, is that we treat ordinary working people as thinkers. So one of the things that I'm trying to figure out is, what kinds of things would the Amistad Africans have known that would have helped them to conceive, to plan, to coordinate, and to execute this uprising on board the ship? I found that one of the keys was: all of the nine or ten ethnic groups came from areas of southern Sierra Leone where a key institution of what is called the Poro society; all male, secret society that is involved in the governance of the village. But one of the things that's really important about the Poro society is that it makes the decision about when to go to war. And it turns out, I found a document, a really remarkable document; some years after the Amistad rebellion, when - after people had gone back to Sierra Leone - one of the Amistad Africans described the process of making that decision. And he said there was a big debate. And some people, led by Cinque, who, by the way, had quite serious military experience, he was on the side of the uprising, but other people were reluctant. And so basically, this person said that a speech that Cinque made, convinced people, they decided by consensus that they were going to try to rise up and capture the ship. 

Now, something else happened that made them believe that this was possible. You know, there were four children on the Amistad, the three little girls, and little boy, they were not in chains. And so they had the freedom to sort of move about the ship. And the little girls discovered a box that had cane knives in it. But it turns out that the Mende warrior fought with a cutlass, or a long knife of this kind. So imagine yourself as a Mende warrior when you find out there are all these weapons that you can use, that you're familiar with. This is like a sign from the gods that you are meant to rise up. So again, there's a military knowledge and skill that's involved in this. 

Okay, so when they did finally break onto the main deck of the Amistad, the crew are starting to fight back but two sailors who were supposed to defend the ship and this situation saw that they weren't going to win, and they threw a canoe overboard and jumped overboard to follow it. And in a matter of five minutes, the Amistad Africans had captured the ship. So they took the two enslavers on board, Ruiz and Montez, and made them their captives, and told them to sail the ship in the direction of the rising sun, sending an eastward back towards Sierra Leone. But Montez, who had been a ship captain, was very clever. And he didn't do that. He pretended to sail in that direction during the day, but at night, he sailed back toward the coast in the hope that they would be captured. With the help of the Gulf Stream, going up the Eastern American coast, they go past Fire Island, and they go up to the northern end of Long Island, a place called Culloden Point, and they decide to go ashore and they see a group of white hunters. Now one of the members of the Amistad group could speak a little bit of English, his name was Burna. They went ashore, carrying their muskets. They put their guns down, they raised their hands they said, “We mean you no harm.” 

There's one fascinating thing that this man Burna said, when he saw these hunters he asked them: “Is this slavery country?” Now, to me, that's a fascinating point because it implies the knowledge that some areas were slavery country and other areas were not. And as it happened, New York State had abolished slavery in 1827. And so the men said, “No, it's not slavery country.” And then the Amistad Africans began to rejoice and dance, and so great was their joy at having reached a place that wasn't slavery country. This is a crucial part of the story: It turns out that Montez, the enslaver, had planned to take them ashore in Charleston, what do you think would have been the outcome there? So the fact that they did make it that far north is actually a crucial part of their eventual success. But before they can communicate very much with these white hunters coming into view in the background is the U.S. brig Washington of the U.S. Navy. And the Amistad men see this, and they go rushing back to shore, but they're too late. And so they're captured by the U.S. Navy, their vessel is towed across to New London, Connecticut, where they're put in jail. And thus begins the sort of landed part of the story.

Lauren: You mentioned the complexity of the different countries having some places that had banned the slave trade and some that had not. Another complexity is salvage rights. We're dealing with a schooner that has been taken over. So when the brig Washington gets on board, they have a decision to make once they discover that it is a number of illegally kidnapped Africans, of course, they don't know that. They believe that they are enslaved Africans, which means that they would be treated as cargo. And so along with the boxes of saddles, and cloth and other things, enslaved Africans are considered to have a monetary value as part of that cargo. So the captain of the brig, Washington decides that he would probably have a better chance bringing that ship into Connecticut to claim salvage rights, because Connecticut did not fully abolish slavery until 1848. So the ship gets brought into Connecticut, and that's where the Africans are imprisoned, and that's where the court cases begin. 

Devin: The president at the time was a New Yorker, Martin Van Buren, and he was more inclined to essentially just give the enslaved Africans back to the plantation owners, give them back the boat, send them on their way and kind of move on. But the abolitionist movement who were really gaining prominence in the North of this time in New York and other northern states really saw this whole situation as an opportunity, potentially, in their wildest dreams free these enslaved people, but really strike a blow against the entire institution of slavery in this country.

Dr Marcus Rediker: New York actually plays a very important part in the Amistad rebellion. First of all, Louis Tappan - who is probably the wealthiest abolitionist of the time - Lewis Tappan took an immediate interest in this case and devoted considerable resources to it. Joshua Leavitt, the publisher of The Emancipator was based in New York, which was one of the main ways that the story became known. They rushed to New London to meet the Amistad Africans.

And that was because a rank and file abolitionist named Dwight Janes, dockside grocer, had gone on board the Amistad as soon as it came to New London, and then went and wrote letters to Tappan and all the rest, saying, look, we've got an unbelievable opportunity here for the abolitionist movement. But here's another example of the way New York mattered, the Amistad Africans spoke many different languages, but the abolitionists could not find people to communicate with them. They brought in people from three or four different ethnic groups - African ethnic groups - to see if they could speak any of the languages that the Amistad Africans could, and none of them could. So this Yale professor Josiah Gibbs, but he talked with a little girls, and they taught him to count to ten in Mende. So what did Gibbs do? He went to the waterfront of New York and walked up and down the docks, counting from one to ten in Mende to see if anybody could understand him. But these two sailors came up to him and said, “We’re Mende.” One of these was James Covey, who will end up being the main translator, who then goes immediately to the Connecticut jail. And that then allows the Amistad Africans to tell their story to the world. Before that they were, they were like an abstraction to everybody. Nobody really knew who they were, The motley crew, on the docks of New York is what made possible the breakthrough in communication.

The first thing your listeners need to know is that a jail in the first half of the 19th century is not like a jail today, they were much more open institutions. The jailer would always try to make money on the people who are in the jail. So imagine the jailers' excitement when there's this huge interest in the Amistad Africans, and people start lining up to come and walk through the jail and see them, you know, talk to them through the interpreter after James Covey is found. And so he actually - the jailer - starts charging admission. The abolitionists don't like this. But the Amistad Africans seem to have liked it because people brought them food, people gave them money. And then the other thing that happens: artists came in, these artists would, you know, one guy created a panorama of the revolt, someone else created a history of the Amistad Africans and drew portraits of quite a few of them. And so this actually helped to fuel the abolitionist cause by making them real to people.

And see, that they couldn't really be mistreated very much, because the abolitionists were in there. So they're - everything is closely watched. At times, they would be allowed to go out on New Haven common, where they would perform these amazing feats of acrobatics. And what I learned was that military agility and acrobatics was part of the training of a Mende warrior. So there was kind of a popular entertainment aspect to all this. But what's really crucial is that many people who filed through the jail would go home and write a letter to their local newspaper. And they built - through this through this contact - a really strong following of supporters in New Haven, some of whom were abolitionists, but some of whom were not. I mean, I saw letters of contribution to the Amistad committee, and people will say things like, “I am no crazy abolitionist, but I do support the right of these people to be free.” There was a kind of social movement aspect of this, they had really, you know, most of the most white people in Connecticut, in this period, didn't know any people from Africa. So what happened was, I think they became real, they became human beings, just like you.

Devin: So this was a, as we noted, a very complex court case, it took over two years for it to finally there to be a verdict started out in the courts of Connecticut, the courts there decided that this was a federal problem. And so they kicked it upstairs to the Supreme Court. And as we noted, the abolitionists had hired a team of attorneys to really work this case at the local level, and they were successful in petitioning it to make it to the Supreme Court, but they needed a kind of star to really bring this case forward. They chose a former president, by the name of John Quincy Adams, who at the time, was actually serving in the House of Representatives, but he was also - he was elderly at the time, he was 73 years old, but he was exactly what they needed. He was a big name, a person who had impeccable legal credentials. And what he does is study the case, he studies all of the legal documents, and he argues for eight and a half hours in front of the Supreme Court, and in the end, it sways the court in the favor of the enslaved Africans. 

Lauren: Although the two year long court saga takes place in Connecticut, we need to remember that the story actually begins in New York. So we spoke with Dr. Georgette Grier-Key to learn more about the impact that the Amistad story continues to have on New York state history.

Dr. Georgette Grier-Key: Hello, everyone, my name is Georgette Grier-Key, and I'm the executive director at Eastville Community Historical Society, which is my home base, among other positions that I hold throughout the state. Eastville is situated in Sag Harbor, and we're sandwiched in two townships, the town of East Hampton and the town of Southampton. And so what we have been doing since 1981, we were incorporated by the Board of Regents to tell the history of Sag harbor in the East End. And our tagline is “Linking Three Cultures”, because we have a population of indigenous that settled from Montauk, when they were pushed out. We also have African Americans that were both free and enslaved, then we have the immigrant population of European descent that settled there. So as you can imagine, our history is very vast, from colonial times to the present. And we're making sure that we continue to tell that history through preservation, through the arts, and looking at humanities and how they matter for our life today. 

This is a global story, the Amistad - and even a national story, because this case, it went all the way to the Supreme Court. And you have John Quincy Adams defending 35 enslaved Africans. So yes, it is a story about enslavement. But it's a story also about resilience. It's also a story about their culture, I think about how they were trying to navigate back to freedom by using the stars, you know, that's another extraordinary story. So even this is the precursor to the Underground Railroad. And you start to think about Harriet Tubman, how she used the stars. But I think it's more important because when we talk about slavery, the North has gotten a pass because it has been written out of history. And so this is a nod to Northern slavery that we often don't talk about, but it's happened right here in Montauk, they came aground here, they were looking for provision here. And for my organization, along with the Montauk Historical Society, and other local groups, we have sought to preserve and reclaim this history in its specific place where it happens, this new marker from the Pomeroy foundation, it's actually closer to the spot where it happened on the beach, which is really not accessible for a lot of people. You know, it's back and off the beaten path. And so that was a day to remember. And so we can talk about that day, too.

We wanted to commemorate it at the right time, if you look at Amistad, we did it on the actual day, which is August 28. So we said this has got to be a big deal, we need to make a big deal out of this. So we went to planning. And when we went to planning, we came up with a program, I gotta tell you, most people who attended that day thought it was very, very spiritual. Because we had various things like we had Dr. Maria DeLongoria, do a libation celebration to pour out and to pay homage to the ancestors, right. So that was very powerful. Then we had a young group called the Venettes, two young men come and do a dance at the site on the beach. And then we had something that's historically called a ring shout, it's not really a dance, it's more of a cultural, spiritual type of thing, so we had that. we had African drumming, we also had an African instrument called the kora. So it was a very powerful day where there was celebration, but also remembrance, and a means to move forward with telling this truth and this history and what it means for our region. 

And then at the end, we go back up to the spot, because we were down on the beach, I gotta tell you this, walking from the actual spot down to the beach, you could swear that you were like, in the jungles of Africa, like taking that same journey walking through the woods, to go to this water, this beach. Because if you understand where the topography of this area and the terrain, it's really very difficult to navigate. And we had everything set up there. But walking through those woods, you couldn't see anything. But you could hear the African drumming. And we did that intentionally because we wanted people to understand that there's a change happening right now. And so that's why I say it started off very powerful in the beginning. So how do you top that? I gotta tell you, if you see the video, you'll say, "Oh, my goodness!"

And so this year, we're like, we got to do something, again, because we've been trying to make this an annual thing. And so we call it Amistad Weekend. This year, we will be having Discovery Amistad back. And we're looking at dates of August 22 to August 29. And so we will have tours, we will be on the beach where they actually ran aground. So we're planning a whole weekend, again, to really talk about this history.

Lauren: I think it's really cool the way that the community has used African culture to celebrate the unveiling of the marker but then to talk about the cultural influence both in 1839, and today. When the Africans who were on the ship were held captive, they were using their experience as African warriors, first of all, to be able to revolt successfully. And then they continue to use their skills and their culture, while they are trying to earn money to get themselves back to Africa. And to be able to push that forward into today, in the way that the community was using African drumming, and, and dance and commemoration. It's really inspiring to have this type of marker unveiling as the result of, you know, getting a grant from the Pomeroy Foundation to be able to reclaim this history, bring it back to New York, right near the area where it happened. And to evoke feelings about the influence of that culture on this story.

Devin: You’re right, and it does tie directly to the work of Marcus Rediker who, in his book, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Rebellion really tries to answer the question of, you know, why was this revolt successful? So it's really an amazing story. And it's a story about the human desire for freedom, I think, but it's also a story that is uniquely an African story. And that's why, as you said, the bringing together today, at the unveiling of the marker in 2023, African culture and music and all of that to the forefront really positions this as an African story by way of New York.

Dr. Marcus Rediker: One of the things that has always struck me about the Amistad rebellion is that: these 53 people stage an uprising on a small schooner on the north coast of Cuba, seize their freedom, guide the ship to Northern Long Island, and inside of two years, the most powerful people in the world are debating what they've done. Presidents, monarchs, the British Parliament, abolitionist groups all around the Atlantic, Supreme Court justices, these are the most powerful people in the world talking about this event. And to me, this is one of the really great things about history from below, you never know, when something might arise, that will create a kind of an extraordinary set of consequences. And I do think the Amistad rebellion is important because it was a victory. And even though they were not enslaved in the United States - that's one of the reasons the Supreme Court was able to rule the way it did; it ruled on the very narrow grounds of the violation of a treaty between Britain and Spain, so as not to set any precedent for anybody who's, you know, gaining freedom in the United States. But you couldn't separate out the fact that you had these self-emancipated people who had taken on, you know, not just one but two of the main, you know, governments in the world, Spain in the United States and had won their freedom through this long struggle. It's just an extraordinary story. And I can tell you, the abolitionists were shocked. They did not expect to win. When the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. They were bowled over but such as the nature of the campaign that they and these African rebels waged, it was a winning campaign.

On this month's episode, Devin and Lauren uncover a system of Confederate spies, guerillas, and terrorists attempting to wreak havoc on Western New York during the final years of the American Civil War.

Guests: Anton Schwarzmueller (Project Coordinator) and Jim Ball (Board President) of the Niagara Frontier Chapter-National Railway Historical Society, Lindsey Lauren Visser, Buffalo City Historian

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Featured Image: John Y. Beall, credit: Library of Congress

Further Reading:

Transcript of the Trial of John Y. Beall, Library of Congress

An Irrepressible Conflict: The Empire State in the Civil War by Aaron Noble, Jennifer Lemak, and Robert Weible.

Teaching Resources:

Consider the Source New York Civil War Resources—New York State Archives Partnership

An Irrepressible Conflict Online Exhibit—New York State Museum

New York State Military Museum Civil War Resources

New York State Archives Military Records

Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) Credit: The New York State Museum is an approved provider of Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE). Educators can earn CTLE credit (.5 hours) by listening to this episode and completing this survey Please allow up to two weeks to receive confirmation of completion.

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. On this episode, we're taking you to a marker located at the Amtrak train station at 825 Depot Ave West in the city of Niagara Falls, out in Niagara County. The title of the marker is “Escape Prevented” and the text reads: On December 16 1864, local police officer D.H. Thomas arrested two Confederate spies nearby after their attempt to derail a passenger train south of here. William G. Pomeroy Foundation, 2022. 

So we've got Confederate spies attempting to derail a passenger train south of Niagara Falls, it sounds like a pretty interesting story, and one that I had never heard of in context of the Civil War. So let's start by refreshing our memories about what was going on in the country in the 1860s. 

The Civil War begins in 1861, when Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter and we are launched into a long war - North versus South. The North certainly has the upper hand with personnel and money and infrastructure. And it becomes obvious that by 1863, the vast majority of fighting is in the south. And it begins to take a toll; they're running out of people, they're running out of money, they're really getting desperate. And so that's where we're at here in late 1864 when our story begins, way up north on the New York Canadian border up in the Buffalo area. So what would the city of Buffalo have been like at this time during the Civil War?

Devin: Did you get all the snow?

Lindsey Lauren Visser: I did, yes! It's… what a time to be in Buffalo. Let me tell you, you caught me right in between blizzards, it's great.

Devin: We spoke with Buffalo city Historian Lindsey Lauren Visser to get a sense of what Buffalo was like in 1864.

Lindsey: So my name is Lindsay Lauren Visser, and I am the City of Buffalo Historian and very, very new to the position. And so at the moment just trying to raise general awareness of the depth of history for our city because it has so much to be excited about. 

I think the thing that I always try to remind people is: when we think of cities within New York State, we think they're very old, and Buffalo relative to the rest of downstate is quite young. And especially when we talk about during the Civil War period, Buffalo had only really been open to European settlement from just after the turn of the 19th century. It's then promptly burned to the ground by the British during the War of 1812. So we're off to a great start! So 1813, 1814, the city is rebuilding, and it's shortly thereafter that the Erie Canal is announced and Buffalo is identified as the terminus. The Erie Canal opened in 1825 [and] completely changed the landscape for Western New York. You now have Buffalo serving as a shipment center for all of the Great Lakes, all of the Midwest, and now connecting them to the northeast. It really puts Buffalo on the map, and it puts it very quickly. But we see the railroads coming as early as 1837. So it's literally just that tiny little nudge that Buffalo needed to really secure itself as that center. And that continues throughout the development of the rest of the 19th century, because the railroads now have to connect to Buffalo because it's so important because the Erie Canal made it important. 

Buffalo really starts to turn the corner from just an industrial powerhouse; we start to get some amenities. This is the time period in the 1860s, where the Historical Society is formed, the Fine Arts Society is formed. So you're starting to kind of elevate the city. And even during the Civil War, we have a number of people who are fairly instrumental in the government at that point in time, which again, I think, adds to the gravitas and the prominence of the city in general.

Devin: You don't necessarily think of Buffalo and Niagara Falls as a battleground in the Civil War, right? We know that the vast majority of the action took place in the South, there was some in the West, there was a battle of Gettysburg, which was the one attempt that the South made to attack the North on their soil. But New York as a destination for these types of activities does make some kind of sense, right? New York was the industrial heartland of the North and the effort of the Northern cause. I mean, we know today that New York State supplied more men, more material and more money for the northern cause than any other state. So if the South was thinking about bringing the war home, and bringing it to a civilian population, that New York State could have been focused. Now, why it wasn't New York City and why we're talking about Buffalo is because of how close it was to the Canadian border. So in 1864, it was still part of the British Commonwealth - it was called British Canada - it was a neutral country, and therefore Southern soldiers, and people could travel there could live there, they weren't in any way stopped at the border or anything. So they could launch clandestine activities against Buffalo and Niagara Falls from Canada.

Lauren: So it's interesting that you say that British Canada was neutral, because this is where some of the guerrilla operatives are planning their attacks on American soil. Although they maintain neutrality, this does lead to an opportunity for Confederate spies to have some gray area where they can plot.

Lindsey: This was definitely something that the Confederacy was plotting and planning and really supporting. And so what we see is that in 1864, there's an actual effort, if you will, to make a Clandestine Service, located out of Canada, because there was the effort to strike fear into the heart of the Union, start to disrupt things, start to really target the strategic locations. And so there's actually a former congressman Jacob Thompson, who ends up being the head of this program, if you will, in setting up a base in Canada. And they gave him a lot of money to do this. I think it's a draft note of a million dollars. And it's coming at a time period in which the Confederacy does not necessarily have a ton of resources to be throwing around, so the fact that this was given that much support really does show that this was something that I think the Confederate government really was backing. 

So there's a few plots that they ended up trying to orchestrate. It's kind of logical, but the only way I can describe it is the people who they got to do this were a bit bumbling and couldn't really get the job done, which I suppose is good in the annals of history, if you will, that they weren't quite as successful in what they wanted, but at the time it made for some interesting situations. I think you kind of mentioned that the attack on the USS Michigan, this was a very concerted effort to strategically do something. This one had two kind of folds to it, if you will. The first was that they were going to try to take over the Michigan because it was a prisoner transport. So you've got 2700 Confederate soldiers who are prisoners of war, who you'd be liberating. On top of it, the USS Michigan is a gunboat. So now you have a gunboat and an army and the Great Lakes so they can effectively sail up and down the Great Lakes and hit targets like Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo. So now you've got some real means to do some damage. And this particular plan comes down to their inside guy, the embedded one who was supposed to serve the crew the spiked champagne, got caught literally like the day and they were supposed to do all of this. And so unfortunately for - or fortunately, but our Confederate soldiers who were trying to execute this plot - they anticipated the Michigan being effectively incapacitated, it was not, and they had to call off the attack. So our mayor at the time, William Fargo, of Wells Fargo fame, he actually sets up his own intelligence network to try to preempt anything and at least have some early warning.

Devin: So as we noted, in 1864, the Confederacy didn't have the infrastructure, the industry that the North had to be able to resupply in the same way. It was looking for ways to influence Great Britain to come in on its side. 

Lauren: One of the other things that they tried and succeeded at was striking fear in the hearts of people in and around Buffalo. I mean, if you're a citizen, and they're targeting ships, trains, they're robbing people, you know, this is going to make an impact on your everyday life. And it will get the attention of local officials to be on high alert when these things happen, in the same way that terrorists do today to make citizens afraid in their everyday lives.

Devin: Right, you would never know where they could strike next. 

Devin: Do we know if the Canadian government were reprimanded by the US or in any way questioned about, you know, hey, you're letting these guys operate out of your country?

Lindsey: I'm so happy you asked this question, because it actually does relate back to another one of my favorite stories from the Great Lakes, that Buffalo’s involved: I don't know how familiar you are with the the (almost) War of 1837 and the burning of the Caroline. 

It basically… This event that happens is as close as you can come to violating neutrality. In fact, they do violate neutrality, and having phenomenal consequences for it.  Long and the short of it is: Canadian rebels sneak out of Canada, they go to Buffalo, they get an enormous amount of support from Buffalo, and they occupy Navy Island which is Canadian soil. The Canadian military comes in, and they decide to take an American ship because the Canadians are using it in their rebellion. So they take out an American ship, kill an American civilian in American waters. And it leads to a huge five year long debate over what constitutes pre-emptive self defense and the enforcement of neutrality. And so Canada and the United States had literally just been doing this from 1837, to about 1842. So when I tell you Canada was like, “We need to get this right, because this was something that we had just been dealing with.” So that whole issue of Canadian American neutrality and the enforcement of neutrality, especially along the frontier, was something that was very present, I think, in everybody's minds. 

So the Canadian government is in a bit of a tough position on this, obviously, they're aware that the Confederates are using Canada to do this, the Confederates are trying to suggest that they're just residing there, and that all of their illicit activity is being conducted on the American side, they're just residing in Canada, and the Canadians are kind of like, “Okay, this is gonna get really dicey. We've been down this road before, we don't really want to do it again.” So there's moments in which they threaten to extradite some of the Confederates, take them out of the country. But by and large, the timeframe that we're talking about of these kinds of Confederate activities, is really only a period of about a year or a little bit more, which I know sounds like a long time. But when we talk about things at the federal level that, oh, that's really not a long time, I think had this been something that was going from the earliest phases of the work, the Canadian reaction and response would have had to be a little bit more pronounced, but because these were kind of these isolated attacks that are happening on American soil, they're starting to get more aware of it at around the same time that it's winding down anyway. 

So I do wonder to what extent there was a little bit of mindfulness of the fact that if these Confederates are looking a little bit suspicious, they may be part of something that's a little bit bigger. I do think there was some awareness of that as well. Because again, they're really starting to see this as a legitimate threat that they're starting to combat. So interestingly, Beall - who is the Confederate soldier, who I guess is kind of, in some respects, the star of our show today - He's involved in that attack on the Michigan and he's actually in command of that particular project. He escapes after the unsuccessful capture and lives to fight another day, which just happens to be the Dunkirk to Buffalo railroad.

Devin: These weren't exactly great criminals. Let's talk a little bit about some of the follies of Beall and his men.

Lauren: You're right. They weren't very good at what they were doing. And we know this because John Beall had already been captured and imprisoned once for his actions down in the Chesapeake where he was acting as a privateer. He was caught, imprisoned, and then after he's released, that's when he makes his way up to Canada and starts different tactics preying on the people of New York State. But they tried several times, and were not successful at any of them. They were late, they couldn't even get there on time, they missed the train. They put an obstacle in front/across the tracks, but the train could see it far enough in advance to be able to slow down and stop the train without any harm to the passengers or derailing the trains. So on their latest attempt, they decided, you know, this isn't working, we're gonna go back to Canada so they take their sleigh back to the City of Niagara Falls, and they're waiting in the train station, when Officer David H. Thomas of Niagara, sees them sitting in the train station and thinks they look a little suspicious.

Devin: To learn more about the story, we spoke to Anton Schwarzmueller and Jim Ball from the National Railway Historical Society Niagara Frontier chapter. This was the organization that successfully applied for the Pomeroy marker.

Jim Ball: My name is Jim Ball. I'm the president of the Niagara Frontier chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. And the organization owns and operates the Railroad Museum of the Niagara Frontier.

Anton Schwarzmueller: My name is Anton Schwarzmueller, I am also a member of the Niagara Frontier chapter. I was always kind of looking out for interesting opportunities that would have some connection to railroad history, in particular local railroad history. I just happened to be reading a book by Dr. Amanda Orman called A World on Fire. And I suddenly came upon a brief note about this incident. And since the incident did happen here locally, I decided that this should be something that we need to procure a historical marker for, so that the public passing by might be informed and become interested in this. And we just went forward from there. 

You know, these coaches were all made of wood, they were, you know, brittle by today's standards, it was December, so you would have had stoves in these coaches. And if you had, indeed this did happen when you would have a coach to rail and if there was a stove in that coach, well, you know, embers go everywhere, and everything is wood and cloth. And if you're trapped in that coach, you're just gonna get cooked. Other things that would happen is you could have an incident where they called up telescoping, because the ends of these coaches weren't reinforced really in any way. And if you had the coach in front suddenly stop, and you had coaches behind, you know, the weight behind the inertia going forward, you would actually have a situation where, you know, the following coach would break through, you know, the end of one coach and actually insert itself into the coach in front of it. And that was called telescoping and you probably weren't going to survive that. 

At the time, public and law enforcement and the military were aware that there were Confederate operates in Canada. And indeed, just back in October of 1864, we're probably more aware of the St Albans Raid in St. Albans, Vermont, where a group of perhaps 22 Confederate partisans practically invaded and made their way to St. Albans, Vermont, which is not far from the Canadian border - that's where they invaded from - and robbed several banks, and I believe one civilian was shot and killed. So certainly, local authorities were aware of the danger posed by partisans crossing the border and causing trouble. Officer Thomas would be on the lookout for confederates. But it's sort of interesting in that when Officer Thomas entered the New York Central Depot, he assumed that Beall was an escaped prisoner, which sort of makes sense because the fellows - there were two of them, they were waiting for the 11 o'clock train to Canada. So then Beall claimed right away that yes, he was indeed an escaped prisoner from the prisoner camp in Point Lookout, Maryland, which was not the case. Officer Thomas took that to be true at the time, which is, I think, what nowadays we would call confirmation bias. And another interesting element of what Beall said was when Officer Thomas first approached him and asked him to identify himself. He gave his name as Beall. And he asked him again, some point later and Beall said, “No, no, my name is W.W. Baker.” And Officer Thomans said “No, you just told me that your name was Beall.” “No, I did not!” he replied. So even then, even with that element, he was, you know, again, misrepresented himself as an escaped prisoner. 

And this is important, because he did have an Acting Master certificate from the Confederacy, which can also be a source of protection for someone who is actually taken prisoner, because then the capturing military would have to treat them as a prisoner of war. Whereas if you have a spy, which is what he was - a spy, saboteur, guerrilla - and traveling in civilian clothes; well, spies do not have the protection of say soldiers captured, like in a battlefield or, or escaped prisoners. They don't have that protection, you might say. So that would explain why Beall stated that “yes, I am an escaped prisoner,” he probably had some idea of what happens to spies that are caught.

Devin: So when Officer Thomas arrested Beall, he was with one of his associates, a gentleman named George L. Anderson, who was a young man younger than Bealle. And when he realized that the seriousness of the charges that were going to be brought against them, which was essentially spying, and that would mean a military tribunal, and a result of which could very easily be the death penalty.

Lindsey: Anderson, being young and realizing this is really bad, breaks. He is your typical informant in the sense that he's like, “I will take whatever plea deal I can get, this is bad, what do you need me to say?” And he completely turns on Beall. So Beall goes to trial in a military tribunal. Now we have a whole slew of new issues. He's charged with espionage, which might not necessarily be the best indictment, because his activities aren’t really typical espionage; as such, there isn't an intelligent side to it. But at the same time, it's 1864. They don't really have a concept of terrorism the way that we would, and don't use that language. So they refer to it as guerrilla attacks. But it's a case that his lawyer actually in that trial transcript makes in saying, “This isn’t espionage - first - which is super important, because you can't turn it into something you didn't do.” But second, and this is what I find so fascinating: He's acting on orders from the Confederate government. So the fact that he's acting on orders, the Confederate government makes it really complicated because the United States doesn't recognize the Confederacy as a foreign government to be authorizing the orders. So he's in a bit of a gray area, because if they say, “Okay, well the Confederate government avowed this attack,” that it's recognizing their national authority to do so. And so he's stuck, if you will, and ends up being found guilty and ultimately executed about two months before the war ends.

Devin: We have linked to a digital scan of the original transcript of the court case on the podcast website, which you can check out. And it's pretty interesting because you see that Anderson not only testified against Beall, but testified against several other people who are involved who’d made it to Canada, including a person named Colonel Martin, who was kind of the brains behind the operation if there were any, but he had already fled so Beall and Anderson were the two that they captured. And Beall was the one that ended up being tried and convicted and hung.

Lauren: And the transcript makes it clear about why there was some controversy over whether Bealle deserved to die for his actions. I mean, it's clear that he had already been convicted of this. He was not a first time offender, but he didn't actually hurt anyone because this was unsuccessful, and he possibly, probably wasn't the mastermind behind it. Once

Anton: Once the trial was finished, then the union government made this public knowledge so the media didn't know that this trial was going on until they had finished and then there was some attempts in part of congressmen and some senators to ask President Lincoln to, you know, change his sentence. These attempts, these requests, these pleadings, they went unanswered.

Devin: So why are we talking about a marker to commemorate - in a way - an event that didn't happen? They were not successful in derailing this train.

Lauren: I would argue that if it weren't for this marker, this would be a story that was lost to history. And although they were unsuccessful in their several attempts, if they hadn't been so inept, they could have inflicted real harm. And so having this marker, which, by the way, is at a modern day train station, so that we remember the importance of rail, is a way to remember that history did happen here, they were caught here, Beall was executed for his plot. And this is a way that we have a physical presence to remember that this is a different type of warfare that was going on.

Devin: Right, I agree, I think the popular image, at least that I have, when thinking about the Civil War is two big armies lining up across a field from each other and sending volleys of musket fire into each other's ranks, and then maybe one side charges the other and, and that was the reality of a vast portion of the American Civil War. But the other part is this clandestine effort on behalf of the Confederacy to bring the war home, but to also influence Great Britain and other European nations to maybe come in on their side to help them continue the war and, you know, become victorious, which was their end goal, obviously. So, you know, these are parts of the history that we don't always remember. And we don't always think about when we, when we think about great events, such as The Civil War.

Jim: We are a 501 C3 nonprofit. And our mission statement is boiled down from a paragraph into three words, and that's Preservation, Restoration and Interpretation. And the historic markers are one of the finest examples of interpretation other than our own museum that we can provide. Once they're in place, they inform the casual visitor and the serious scholar alike and they're permanent, they're there for generations to come.

Lindsey: I think what I really enjoy is that they help make very clear how interwoven the past is to the fabric of our present. And when we are going through our daily lives and you encounter a marker, it gives you an opportunity to put an event in context in a place. And I think that's so important. Because you're absolutely right, there are all of these events that kind of exist in the ether and these markers really tie them to something physical and creates an access point for people to learn more. I think the marker for this one is just this tantalizing little tidbit that as soon as you start pulling at the threads, you realize this is a really amazing story. And it gives an opportunity for people to interact with history in that way.

Devin: Thanks for listening to A New York minute in History. This podcast is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G Pomeroy foundation. Our producer is Elizabeth Urbanczyk.

Lauren: A big thanks to Lindsay Lauren Visser, Anton Schwarzmueller, and Jim Ball for taking part. If you enjoyed this month's episode, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share on social media.

Devin: To learn more about our guests and the show, check us out at wamcpodcasts.org. We're also on X and Instagram @NYHistoryMinute. I'm Devin Lander,

Lauren: …and I'm Lauren Roberts.

Devin: Until next time, 

Both: Excelsior!

Devin: WIDE RIGHT!

On this month’s episode, Devin and Lauren explore the story of Plymouth Freeman, a black Patriot who served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and discuss how disenfranchised communities have harkened back to the promises outlined in the Declaration of Independence as a strategy for inclusion in those foundational principles of freedom and equality.

Guests: Donna Wassall and Karen Christensen of the Fayetteville-Owahgena Chapter DAR, Paul and Mary Liz Stewart from the Underground Railroad Education Center, New York State Museum’s Chief Curator Dr. Jennifer Lemak and Senior Historian Ashley Hopkins-Benton.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Featured Image: Soldiers at the Siege of Yorktown (1781), by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger

Further reading:

The New York State 250th Commemorative Field Guide—Office of State History and the Association of Public Historians of NYS.

Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution by Woody Holton.

Slavery in New York edited by Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris.

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner.

My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass.

Women Will Vote: Winning Suffrage in New York State by Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello.

Votes for Women: Celebrating New York's Suffrage Centennial Jennifer Lemak and Ashley Hopkins-Benton.

Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America by Charles Kaiser.

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey.

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski.

Teaching Resources:

Consider the Source New York—New York State Archives Partnership Trust

The Underground Railroad Education Center

Votes for Women Online Exhibit—New York State Museum

Slavery in New York Educational Resources—New-York Historical Society

LGTBQ Teaching Resources—United Federation of Teachers

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian. 

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. On this episode, we're focusing on a historic marker located on Putnam road in the town of Nelson, which is part of Madison County. The title of the marker is "Plymouth Freeman" and the text reads: Plymouth Freeman, black patriot awarded Badge of Merit for six years service with third Connecticut regiment in Revolutionary War. Lived near here circa 1800 to 1829. William G. Pomeroy Foundation, 2021. 

So we're going to be talking about the story of Plymouth Freeman. Plymouth Freeman was a black man from Connecticut, who, as the sign says, served for six years in the American Revolution. He enlisted in Windsor, Connecticut in 1777, and served until he was discharged at the end of the war in 1783, at West Point. Although we don't have a record that points to this, it appears as though he may have been an enslaved man, and that he may have been serving as a substitute for either the person who enslaved him or someone else. It's not clear yet what the records are.

Devin: We spoke with Donna Wassall and Karen Christensen from the Fayetteville Owahgena Daughters of the American Revolution chapter to learn more about the research that they've done on Plymouth Freeman.

Donna Wassell: My name is Donna Wassell, and currently I'm the regent of the Fayetteville Owahgena chapter D.A.R. New York State Society. And I became interested in the organization after finding out that my great grandmother had been a member of the D.A.R. in Hartford, Connecticut, I myself have only been a member for six years.

Karen Christensen: My name is Karen Christiensen, and I've been for 31 years a member of the Fayetteville D.A.R. chapter. I became interested when my mother and I went to her cousin in Virginia, and found our nine times great grandfather's headstone. And it says “sergeant in the Revolutionary War” on it. I was researching the history of the house Cazenovia for a friend - and saying, you know, who owned what, when, where and all that - as a housewarming gift. And I came across this article about Plymouth Freeman. And from there, it just kind of escalated. I thought it was very cool that there was a Cazenovia patriot of color, a free man of color, back way back during the Revolutionary War. So that's what got me interested in it. I called Donna and of course, she's the most curious person on earth. And, and, and we started to research it together.

Donna: Actually I have a very vivid recollection of this whole conversation. It was following one of our chapter meetings and she approached me and she said, “I read this article, and it's about a freed slave who fought in the Revolution, and they settled in Cazenovia. And I think we should do the research to get a Pomeroy Marker for him,” is exactly how that went. So reading the article just opened up a whole world of unanswered questions, and that's when we really started to dig in. Some of his history that was in the article was vague, and some of it was - sounded like it could have been lore or legend, and we weren't quite sure. So I made a list of questions, and then we started from there. 

The first place I went was Ancestry. We had seen copies of Plymouth’s discharge papers from the military. And I started searching “Plymouth Freeman” on Ancestry and all I could come up with were his discharge papers. I couldn't find any information about him prior to 1782. I said, “Well, we know he served, he's got to have muster records, they have to be out there somewhere.” I started searching “Plymouth” with no last name, “Plymouth, African American.” And finally I searched “Plymouth Negro,” and all kinds of wonderful records appeared. So he had enlisted under the name Plymouth Negro. And up until 1782, all of his military records were under the name of Plymouth negro. So that was, it was like hitting the motherload, I thought, when I started seeing all that information, Karen and I, Karen looked and we could never - she looked hard - and could not find manumission records for Plymouth. That's one of the reasons on the Pomeroy marker, we could not put “former slave,” even though we believe he was, but we couldn't put that because we didn't have the documentation to prove that he had been manumitted. 

It's probably most of the common knowledge now that oftentimes enslaved persons would be substituted for their owners, sometimes with the promise of “you serve in my place, and you will, you'll get your freedom.” And I knew that Plymouth enlistment date on his master records was dated May 26 1777. And I went through these books and found an enlistment record from May 26 1777. But it wasn't Plymouth's name. It was another local citizen's name. And then, a few entries down in the same book was another entry that said that this man who had enlisted had paid £30 to substitute black man in his place. One of the questions that still needs to be answered is: Was this the guy that - did he, in fact, substitute Plymouth for himself? Or is there some other way this whole thing went about? But it's interesting that the dates line up, and that they refer to an unnamed negro man who took his place. The legend or the lore that was going around and being published about Plymouth said that, you know, he was a former slave son of a king in Guinea, Africa, and that he had served in the Revolution as a cook to General Washington. And that intrigued me, and when I started finding his muster records dating back to 1777, when he enlisted, he was a servant to a general, but it wasn't General Washington. He served almost the entire duration of his enlistment as a waiter to general Jedediah Huntington out of Norwich, Connecticut. That might seem like it's a letdown because it's not General Washington but once I started researching General Huntington, and his contributions and participation in the conflict, Plymouth’s life just it must have been fascinating and the things he would have seen and been exposed to as a waiter to General Huntington kind of still blows my mind when I think about it.

Lauren: Throughout those six years of service, he saw some pretty incredible historic moments, starting with Valley Forge, going through Monmouth, the mention of some really important trials, including Charles Lee and Major Andre. These are things that we learn about in basic American history. So to know that Plymouth freemen was part of all of these events, or was at least present at all of these events is really a remarkable past to have. And we know about these things through the research of pension papers, through muster rolls, were able to kind of follow Plymouth Freeman’s service through these major events. 

Donna: These muster records are pretty thorough. I was able to get most all of them for the whole six years, and it's pretty detailed about where they went. It would say, you know, “Plymouth Negro on command with general Huntington, Fairfield, Connecticut” or “at West Point,” you know, it would say exactly where they were. So some of the assignments that he was on with General Huntington was the Valley Forge encampment. In the spring of 1778, the both of them left for commission on the losses of Fort Montgomery and Clinton. In June 1778, they were at Monmouth during General Lee's retreat. Also in the summer, General Huntington was assigned to the court martial of General Charles Lee. In the fall of 1780, General Huntington was assigned to be at the trial and hanging of Major John Andre, the accomplice to Benedict Arnold. 

So I looked up also, besides finding out that according to the general's orders, all men including the servants in the waiters be trained in military drill and able to bear arms. The other thing says is essentially they were like, I hate to use the words “man in waiting,” but they were like a personal valet, servant - they were at their beck and call, and everywhere that officer went, their man went with them. I think with that it's safe to assume that Plymouth was with the general on all of those assignments that Huntington was on. And that said - going back to the legend about Plymouth being a cook to General Washington - General Huntington was a close confidant and comrade of General George Washington, they were friends before the war. So it is absolutely very possible that at some point Plymouth Freeman did either cook for or wait on General George Washington.

Lauren: You may be wondering if black men were integrated in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and in fact they were, and that's something that wouldn't happen again in the American army until the Korean War.

Devin: Yeah. And that's an interesting point. And it brings up some interesting questions about someone like Plymouth Freeman, or any African American who served in the Revolutionary War. They were essentially serving on behalf of a country - that would become a country - that was a slave country. Now, some of these people were free blacks, they were already freed, and some, as we noted, with the possibility with Plymouth Freeman, that they would have been enslaved when they enlisted, and could have been a substitute for someone else. So it brings up some interesting questions about the ideals of the American Revolution and the language that was used by the people like Thomas Jefferson and the “founding fathers” of the nation, with regards to liberty, with regards to freedom. And it also raises some interesting questions about why someone would choose to serve the American side as opposed to the British side who were offering enslaved African Americans freedom if they came and served for them.

Lauren: Karen and Donna planned the dedication of the marker so that it was exactly 239 years to the day that Plymouth Freeman was discharged from service. And they were able to get a pretty great turnout for one of these events.

Donna: There was a book written in the 1800s by a reverend, W.W. Crane. [He] grew up in the town of Nelson, and he wrote a book about his childhood and he makes reference in his book to being friends with this boy, nicknamed Black Jerry, and Black Jerry was Jeremiah Freeman, who was Plymouth's son. And in his book, he makes reference to [how] Black Jerry would always tell him how his dad, you know, had been a slave and served in the Revolution and waited on George Washington, and all these things. So between where I know that the Reverend Crane lived as a child, and what the Town of Nelson historian was able to put together, we were able to pinpoint within a short distance where Plymouth would have lived. So he was right in the Cazenovia/Nelson area until probably, you know, not long before his death. We do not know where he's buried. That's Karen's burning desire, but trying to figure out where his remains lie. I don't know. Other people have looked; they've been looking for 200 years to find where he is.  

The day of the marker dedication: It’s on a little secondary side road right off Route 20 in the town of Nelson, on some guy's front lawn, because he was gracious enough to let us put it there. We put a lot of press out before the marker dedication, and I would say we had probably 70 people at this thing. We had history teachers from the local school, we had some local dignitaries, the President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution showed up. It was amazing. And there were some people that had heard the story, and there were others who had never heard of it. And then there were others that were so grateful that a person of color was honored in this way for fighting in the Revolution. And we had a follow up article that went out after in the woman for the local news who did the article, I think it was a two-page spread. It wasn't just like, “Daughters of the American Revolution host a marker [dedication],” it was his entire history. Right off the biography that we had read at the ceremony. 

I think, yes, of course, Karen, I'm sure, and I - I know every chance I get to talk about it, I talk about it. Because it's a fascinating story. It really is. And I mean, Plymouth’s this one guy, one former slave, African American man who went and fought for freedoms that potentially wasn't gonna have, and did it honorably and was recognized for that.

Lauren: I think it's interesting that they just happened to come across this article in 2019, that mentions him, and, and then you fall down the rabbit hole of trying to research this person. And especially, you know, when it is a minority, or a black person from the 18th century, trying to find those records is really difficult. We have to commend those women for the research they were able to do and you know, you just wait for those needle-in-a-haystack moments to try and uncover these little bits of information to piece together the story.

Devin: I think this story of Plymouth Freeman is a fascinating story as we've gone through it. It's an incomplete story because of the records. And maybe these records will be found, as Donna and Karen continue their Odyssey to discover more about Plymouth, but it really brings to light some of the dichotomies that existed in the American Revolution. We think about the American Revolution as this revolutionary event. And it really was, it was a world-changing event. But in other ways, it was very much of its time, as I said, the United States, as it became known, was a slave nation. Also, half of the population was not given the right to vote, or the right to do much of anything, including owning property, and that's women. But over time, because of the ability to change the constitution and amend it. It really led to a series of other revolutions. 

On October 22 2023, I moderated a panel of experts on the concept of the unfinished revolution in New York State. 

Devin (at presentation): My name is Devin Lander. I'm the New York State historian here at the State Museum. And I just want to welcome all of you. As we've been thinking about how to commemorate the American Revolution. It's very clear as historians that the revolution itself was incomplete. This is something that's echoed in the founding legislation that creates a state commission in the state of New York:

 “The legislature finds that New York played an immense role in the lead up and execution of the American Revolution during the period of 1774 to 1783, and was the site of several important battles, skirmishes and other events that were internationally significant during the Revolutionary era. The American Revolution itself was imperfect, and many - including women, African Americans and Native Americans - did not benefit from its ideals of liberty and freedom. However, the struggle to fully realize the ideals of the revolution has continued over the past 250 years, as is evident in New York's leading role in such revolutionary civil rights movements, as the women's rights and abolitionist movements, the Underground Railroad and the LGBTQ movement. The commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution should also be an occasion for recognition of New York's vital role in the revolution itself as well as the ongoing struggle of marginalized peoples to achieve the ideals of the revolution.” 

So this panel has been assembled to talk about New York's role in these kinds of continuing revolutions. To my right is Paul Stewart. He is the co-founder with Mary Liz of the Underground Railroad Education Center. Next to Paul, is Mary Liz Stewart. She has an active background supporting nonprofit organizations, cultural heritage organizations, and museums. Next to Mary Liz is Ashley Hopkins Benton. She is a senior historian and curator of social history for the State Museum. Final on our panel is Dr. Jennifer Lemack, who is the chief curator of the New York State Museum. So thank you all for joining us, and we will begin our discussion. 

But let's start with, kind of the beginning with America's founding documents: How have America's founding documents been used to press for social, political and economic change beyond the founding of the United States itself?

Paul Stewart: That's a great place to jump in. Because particularly when we think about the Declaration of Independence, you know, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” that, although it was used as a theme at that moment, to the American Revolution, and I think their intent was to contrast that with the British nobility, and to sort of say that the king wasn't any better than they were. But I think implied in what they said there, was that there were rights that were inherent that were extended, and you began to see that almost right away reflected in the concern of African Americans for asserting rights within the context of the United States. It was a very strong theme within the movement that we’d come to call the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement, it continued to echo throughout. And of course, today, in this day and age, it is still something that we can use as a touchstone to talk about moving forward to create a more perfect society, and to bring those rights, or recognize those rights, assert those rights, in the context that we see them today that where they need to be asserted and defended.

Mary Liz Stewart: I'll take it a step further, with a reference to our black abolitionists, based in the research that Paul and I have been doing over the years. And we came to recognize that for our block abolitionists, while their primary concern - as with white abolitionists - was for the elimination or abolition of the institution of enslavement in the state, in the nation - we noticed that our lock abolitionists took some extra steps which was to engage in a variety of state-based and nationally-based activities. For instance, there was the existence of an organization called the American Council of Colored Laborers that had a home here in New York State. We have the New York State Suffrage Association. We have education also being a focus of attention for many of these black men. In fact, in particular, here in the city of Albany, the city school district of Albany was sued because it refused to let black children through its doors, and the legal case was initially resolved in 1851, which only to find out that the application of the legislation applied only to the children of Stephen and Harriet Meyers. So city residents took up the cause and continued the pursuit of equity in education here in the city of Albany. The relationship between these kinds of civil rights activities, really in relationship to those promises, laid out in the preamble become very explicitly engaged in by our black abolitionists.

Ashley Hopkins-Benton: As I look across the history - especially of the women's rights movement, and the LGBTQ+ rights movement - what I see is trying to find the ways in which those groups fit into those documents and can place themselves in the history that maybe they were omitted from in the beginning. 

So in 1848, and Seneca Falls, The Declaration of Sentiments is delivered, describing the demands of women and it starts “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.” So they are co-opting that document. And then by the 1970s. The Women's Declaration of Independence is rewritten again by Serena Hanson and Sidney Pendleton. And again, taking that initial document and reworking it to talk about the ways that women are still left out of society in the 1970s. 

In the 1870s. Francis Minor declares that women aren't left out of the Constitution and voting rights and that they should go try to start voting. And so in 1872, Susan B. Anthony and fifteen women from Rochester test that out, and are arrested because some say that they are wrong in that assertion. Also, in arguments for LGBTQ+  rights, they pull little bits and pieces and ways that they see that they fit. So then in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges, which is the Supreme Court case that eventually allows marriage equality, Justice Kennedy in the ruling says that “the plaintiffs ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The constitution grants them that right.” And he is looking back to the 14th Amendment finding these bits that aren't explicitly about the LGBTQ community, but can provide them protections.

Dr Jennifer Lemack: One of my favorite examples of, kind of harkening back to our founding documents and principles, is the New York State Suffrage campaign of 1894. They calculated how much women pay in property taxes. And what comes next is the cry that “taxation without representation is tyranny.” So harkening back to the founding fathers and our original patriots, and they mounted a huge campaign, and they sent out 5000 petitions across the state, and they were able to get over a half a million signatures, and they presented the signatures very dramatically to the New York State Legislature, and they were voted down. 

One of our prized artifacts here at the State Museum, is the Spirit of ‘76 Suffrage Wagon, which in 1913, in Long Island, Edna Kearns and Irene Davidson dressed as Minutemen, and carrying signs that said, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” rode the wagon from Long Island to New York City for a parade in September 1913, one of their daughters was dressed as Lady Liberty. So the suffragists constantly used this revolutionary rhetoric to get their points across.

Lauren: Recently, I attended the 2023 reenactment of the Boston Tea Party. And as part of that commemoration, the reenactors made a point to include that not everyone was included in the meeting of the body of the people where it was decided that the tea would be dumped in the harbor, they actually use the narrator Phyllis Wheatley, who was a woman of color, a poet, [a] formerly enslaved person whose book of poetry was actually being delivered on the same ship as one of the ships that was holding tea. And the point is made that people like her were not invited to participate, yet they still had to suffer along with the consequences of those decisions made by those that had the right to have a say. So when we think about the commemorations of the 250th, looking at a broader context of who was and was not represented, but also the means that were used to get their point across to King George about wanting fair representation, and wanting to be able to govern themselves for some in the colony. 

Devin: It also gives us an opportunity to think about the American Revolution as an ongoing revolution, and we're still living in the ripples. And in our case in the United States and the New York. It's been a series of other struggles, and other revolutions, and we're still living that history.

Lauren: Thanks for listening to A New York Minute in History. This podcast is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy foundation. Our producer is Elizabeth Urbanczyk.

Devin: A big thanks to Donna Wassell, Karen Christensen, Paul and Mary Liz Stewart, Dr. Jennifer Lemack, and Ashley Hopkins-Benton for taking part in this month's episode.

Lauren: To learn more about our guests and the show, check us out at WAMCpodcasts.org. We're also on X and Instagram as @NYHistoryMinute.

Devin: I'm Devin Lander,

Lauren: …and I'm Lauren Roberts.

Devin: Until next time: 

Both: Excelsior!