Brooklyn Hamlet of Free African-Americans Was Ahead of Its Time
By JULIE BESONEN
New York Times
MAY 29, 2015
The three restored houses of the WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER on Hunterfly Road speak of gentility in what was a hamlet of free African-Americans in Brooklyn that began decades before the Emancipation Proclamation. Credit Devin Yalkin for The New York Times
The houses on Hunterfly Road, an abandoned Colonial trail, are the last vestiges of a lost settlement in Brooklyn. Clustered behind a dense meadow rippling with bluestem grass and dandelions, the three wooden houses were once part of Weeksville, a hamlet where more than 500 free African-Americans lived the white-picket-fence dream years before President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
The fences that enclose the houses at THE WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER in Crown Heights are unpainted, but the brick fireplaces and lace curtains speak of gentility, not poverty. New York State abolished slavery in 1827, and free black men began buying acreage there five years later. By 1838 the community was named Weeksville for James Weeks, a stevedore who was neither the first landowner nor the largest, though records show he was a leader in lobbying for voting rights.
“It was a black separatist community,” said Judith Wellman, author of “Brooklyn’s Promised Land: The Free Black Community of Weeksville, New York.” “To invest in the idea that all men were created equal, they made a place for themselves where they could have more power. It would have been a constant struggle if they’d stayed in a white community.”
Part of that power came from having the right to vote. The New York State Constitution had been revised in 1821, granting universal suffrage to white men over 21, but black men had to own $250 worth of property to be eligible. According to Ms. Wellman, 31 black men in Weeksville met the $250 qualification in 1850. The property requirement for black voters was not overturned until 1870 by the 15th Amendment.
They were shoemakers, carpenters, cooks, horse dealers, seamstresses, teachers, cigar makers, grocers, preachers and land speculators. Weeksville was suburban, divided into affordable lots that allowed enough space for gardens, a few chickens and pigs. They founded a school, churches, a hospital, an orphanage and a newspaper. They valued education; the literacy rate of early residents was low, but by 1865 it had climbed to 93 percent. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward was New York’s first black female physician, and Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet, a suffragist, was a pioneering school principal. The women were sisters.
A stroll along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. Credit Devin Yalkin for The New York Times
Many residents were former slaves. Megan Goins-Diouf, the center’s archivist, said: “It’s not that we don’t talk about slavery, but it’s not part of our story. There were thousands of slaves, and we’ll never know their names. At Weeksville, they had names written on documents in elegant cursive.”
After the Civil War, Weeksville began to be absorbed by European immigrants and urban renewal, its original residents dying or moving away. A remaining clergyman, J. H. Gordon, raised his voice in 1906 when a captive Congolese pygmy, Ota Benga, was exhibited along with primates at the Bronx Zoo. He helped win Ota Benga’s release and gave him refuge at Weeksville’s Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, “the only place in the white man’s country where they would welcome him for his own sake,” The New York Times reported on Sept. 29, 1906. In his 20s, Ota Benga was educated for a time along with children and given his own room where he could smoke. (Sam Roberts reports on a new book, “Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga,” in Bookshelf on the following page.)
By the 1950s, Weeksville was forgotten, its buildings mostly torn down. James Hurley, a Pratt Institute professor, found references to the colony and in 1968 took aerial photographs of its footprint. Houses decomposing in an alley were revealed.
Archaeological digs unearthed 19th-century shoes, delicate gloves, rusty roller skates, hair dye bottles, dolls and a tintype of an African-American woman in Victorian attire. The houses on Hunterfly Road were eventually restored, and a visitor’s center opened in 2013. Summer weekend events are held in addition to house tours on Wednesdays and Fridays for $5. The center, at 158 Buffalo Avenue, is underfunded and recently cut staff, so check the website (www.weeksvillesociety.org) for updates or call 718-756-5250.
Redevelopment in the area is accelerating, but there’s more fast food than fresh nearby. An exception is a tiny West Indian spot, JUST GREAT FOOD, that opened in April at 1489 St. Johns Place (718-513-4433). A steam table holds spicy jerk chicken soft enough to pry from the bone with a plastic fork,; moist rice with pigeon peas; and fried fish spiked with vinegar and peppers. Prices seem from an earlier era, with meals ranging from $6 to $12.
New York Times
MAY 29, 2015
The three restored houses of the WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER on Hunterfly Road speak of gentility in what was a hamlet of free African-Americans in Brooklyn that began decades before the Emancipation Proclamation. Credit Devin Yalkin for The New York Times
The houses on Hunterfly Road, an abandoned Colonial trail, are the last vestiges of a lost settlement in Brooklyn. Clustered behind a dense meadow rippling with bluestem grass and dandelions, the three wooden houses were once part of Weeksville, a hamlet where more than 500 free African-Americans lived the white-picket-fence dream years before President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
The fences that enclose the houses at THE WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER in Crown Heights are unpainted, but the brick fireplaces and lace curtains speak of gentility, not poverty. New York State abolished slavery in 1827, and free black men began buying acreage there five years later. By 1838 the community was named Weeksville for James Weeks, a stevedore who was neither the first landowner nor the largest, though records show he was a leader in lobbying for voting rights.
“It was a black separatist community,” said Judith Wellman, author of “Brooklyn’s Promised Land: The Free Black Community of Weeksville, New York.” “To invest in the idea that all men were created equal, they made a place for themselves where they could have more power. It would have been a constant struggle if they’d stayed in a white community.”
Part of that power came from having the right to vote. The New York State Constitution had been revised in 1821, granting universal suffrage to white men over 21, but black men had to own $250 worth of property to be eligible. According to Ms. Wellman, 31 black men in Weeksville met the $250 qualification in 1850. The property requirement for black voters was not overturned until 1870 by the 15th Amendment.
They were shoemakers, carpenters, cooks, horse dealers, seamstresses, teachers, cigar makers, grocers, preachers and land speculators. Weeksville was suburban, divided into affordable lots that allowed enough space for gardens, a few chickens and pigs. They founded a school, churches, a hospital, an orphanage and a newspaper. They valued education; the literacy rate of early residents was low, but by 1865 it had climbed to 93 percent. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward was New York’s first black female physician, and Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet, a suffragist, was a pioneering school principal. The women were sisters.
A stroll along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. Credit Devin Yalkin for The New York Times
Many residents were former slaves. Megan Goins-Diouf, the center’s archivist, said: “It’s not that we don’t talk about slavery, but it’s not part of our story. There were thousands of slaves, and we’ll never know their names. At Weeksville, they had names written on documents in elegant cursive.”
After the Civil War, Weeksville began to be absorbed by European immigrants and urban renewal, its original residents dying or moving away. A remaining clergyman, J. H. Gordon, raised his voice in 1906 when a captive Congolese pygmy, Ota Benga, was exhibited along with primates at the Bronx Zoo. He helped win Ota Benga’s release and gave him refuge at Weeksville’s Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, “the only place in the white man’s country where they would welcome him for his own sake,” The New York Times reported on Sept. 29, 1906. In his 20s, Ota Benga was educated for a time along with children and given his own room where he could smoke. (Sam Roberts reports on a new book, “Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga,” in Bookshelf on the following page.)
By the 1950s, Weeksville was forgotten, its buildings mostly torn down. James Hurley, a Pratt Institute professor, found references to the colony and in 1968 took aerial photographs of its footprint. Houses decomposing in an alley were revealed.
Archaeological digs unearthed 19th-century shoes, delicate gloves, rusty roller skates, hair dye bottles, dolls and a tintype of an African-American woman in Victorian attire. The houses on Hunterfly Road were eventually restored, and a visitor’s center opened in 2013. Summer weekend events are held in addition to house tours on Wednesdays and Fridays for $5. The center, at 158 Buffalo Avenue, is underfunded and recently cut staff, so check the website (www.weeksvillesociety.org) for updates or call 718-756-5250.
Redevelopment in the area is accelerating, but there’s more fast food than fresh nearby. An exception is a tiny West Indian spot, JUST GREAT FOOD, that opened in April at 1489 St. Johns Place (718-513-4433). A steam table holds spicy jerk chicken soft enough to pry from the bone with a plastic fork,; moist rice with pigeon peas; and fried fish spiked with vinegar and peppers. Prices seem from an earlier era, with meals ranging from $6 to $12.
No comments:
Post a Comment