Lost in Time: Seneca Village

Lost in Time: Seneca Village

Central Park, one of New York's most famous landmarks for tourist and despite its popularity few people know that the creation of this park was built on the destruction of a little known residential area occupied by free blacks called Seneca Village.

 

Seneca Village…a buried place; If it were not for historical records or the many artifacts found during a recent excavation and a stone outcropping near the 85th Street entrance to Central Park believed to be part of a foundation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, it would be another important aspect of our history that would have been forgotten and erased from the pages of time. 

Seneca Village existed from 1825 through 1857, it was made up of a community founded by free black people who purchased land for sale from West 82nd to West 85th streets. The first to buy land in the area was Andrew Williams and Epiphany Davis in 1825. The population was 250 residents living in 70 houses. In 1821, the state of New York decreed that if African American men possessed $250 in property holdings and proof of three years of residency in the state they would be eligible to vote.The ownership of property gave African American men the opportunity to participate in the US democracy.   Because of this decree many residents like a cooper (barrel maker) named James Hinson was eligible. Census data shows that his property, including two lots of land and a two-story residence with an attached shed, was valued at $550. Hinson had originally purchased his property for $325.

As Seneca Village's population began to increase and thrive Irish and German immigrants also purchased property among the African American residents. By 1855, a New York State Census found that Seneca Village had 264 residents. In 1851, Ambrose Kingsland, New York's mayor decided with the influx of immigrants to enhance the city's popularity and aesthetics, he along with the wealthier merchants, bankers and landowners would create a park for their families to enjoy for leisurely pleasures. The land they chose was occupied by the residents of Seneca Village as well as 1,600 people who lived in the surrounding areas.  Of course, the residents protested through the court system but the city used the law of eminent domain to seize their land. The Seneca Village homeowners had little recourse as the media labeled them as "squatters living in shanties" and "nigger village" this did not garner public sympathy or support. 

Over two thirds of Seneca Village was African America and 50% owned their land. Sadly,not only were the residents forced to leave, (some evicted violently), renters got no compensation at all and homeowners were poorly compensated for their land. In the thirty-two years of its existence Seneca Village had made its imprint in America History as a defining community in its time. 

~In 1855, over 2,000 African American residents lived in New York and only 100 were eligible to vote. 10 of those 100 were residents of Seneca Village.

~50% of African American residents owned their own land and this was five times the average ownership rate for all New Yorkers.

~Albro Lyons, Levin Smith and S. Hardenburgh were property owners of Seneca Village as well as participants in the abolitionist movement.

After the residents were evicted and Seneca Village destroyed they did not rebuild, some remained in New York but there is no record of what happened to them. Some historians tried to locate the descendants of the Seneca Village residents but none were ever located.

 Central Park (today)

In 2011, a group called the Seneca Village Project pressured the city to create a plaque.  It describes the Seneca Village as a "unique community" that was probably "Manhattan’s first prominent community of African American property owners."

 

The group went on in 2011 to get permission for an archaeological dig in Central Park to gather more information about the village and its residents.

*Sources:

wikipedia.org

citymetric.com

centralparknyc.org