A New York Minute In History

Happy 200th Birthday to the Erie Canal!

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and New York State has a huge party planned. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with state officials and local partners to discuss this momentous birthday celebration and the importance of the Canal System today and into the future. Interviewees: William J. Hochul Jr., First Gentleman of the State of New York and co-chair of the New York State Erie Canal Bicentennial Commission, Brian U. Stratton, Director of the New York State Canal Corporation and co-chair of the New York State Erie Canal Bicentennial Commission, and Derrick Pratt, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Erie Canal Museum.  For a deeper dive into the history of the Erie Canal, check out episode 3 of A New York Minute in History called “Erie Canal: Compressing Time and Distance.” Marker of Focus: Old Erie Canal, Onondaga County. Image Courtesy of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation Transporting Grains on the Erie Canal, late 19th century, courtesy of the New York State Museum Courtesy of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor The Seneca Chief, Image Courtesy of the Buffalo Maritime Center Upcoming Bicentennial Events: New York State Canal Corporation Bicentennial Website Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Bicentennial Website 2025 World Canals Conference, Buffalo, NY September 21-25 Buffalo Maritime Center: The Bicentennial Voyage of the Seneca Chief Albany Symphony Orchestra: 2025 American Music Festival Water Music NY: More Voices Further Reading/Viewing: Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1997. Brad Utter, Ashley Hopkins-Benton and Karen Quinn, Enterprising Waters: The History and Art of New York’s Erie Canal, 2020. Laurence M. Hauptman, Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State, 2001. WMHT: Reflections on the Erie Canal Educational Resources: Consider the Source New York: Erie Canal Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor: Teacher Resources Erie Canal Museum: Educational Resources for School and Home Buffalo Maritime Center: Student Programs Follow Along: Lauren: On this month's episode, we're focusing on the 200th anniversary of the completion and opening of the Erie Canal. Now there are several historic markers that relate to the incredibly important history of the Erie Canal all across New York state. As an example, there's a marker located in the hamlet of Memphis, which is outside of Syracuse in Onondaga County. Although you may not have heard of this Memphis, it does have a particular claim to fame. It's located on Bennett's corners road, and the text reads, old Erie Canal, formerly called Canton Memphis, was halfway stop on original canal route, 179 miles from Buffalo and 183 miles from Albany, William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2018. Now, if you're Interested in an in depth history of the Erie Canal. You should go back and listen to our earlier podcast from several years ago in 2018 it actually predates me as co host, so you'll be able to hear our former co host, Don Wildman, and it's called the Erie Canal, compressing time and distance, and that'll give you a good foundation about why the canal was so integral to the 19th century development of New York State. But on this episode, we're going to focus on the 200th anniversary of the opening of the canal and all of the events and celebrations and exhibits that are planned throughout 2025 to celebrate this milestone. Now, being that the marker I just mentioned is just outside of Syracuse, we're going to start right in that area at the Erie Canal museum. We were able to speak with director of education and public programming, Derek Pratt, about their upcoming plans to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal. Derrick Pratt: I'm Derrick Pratt, director of education and public programming at the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, New York, and our mission at the museum is to tell the story of the canal, past, present and future. And as Director of Education, kind of my job to get that story in front of people. So the museum is housed in what we believe is our most important artifact, which is the 1850 Syracuse Weighlock building. That's W, E, I, g, h lock. It was essentially a toll booth on the canal. You would bring your canal boat into it, and it would get weighed and assessed a toll. There were seven of these across the state after they stopped collecting tolls in 1883 the weighlocks fell out of use in a lot of cases and were taken apart, with the exception of the Syracuse weighlock building, which itself was almost destroyed during the construction of interstate 81 in Syracuse. But in 1962 thanks to protests by the Junior League of Syracuse and the canal Society of New York State, the building was saved. It was purchased by Onondaga County with the specific caveat that it be a canal Museum in perpetuity. So that's how we were born. We're a private museum while the county owns the building. We're independent of them. Yeah. So we have a lot going on at the museum this year. We have our kind of flagship program, is our Sloan Lecture Series, which we've got some really great speakers in. And those events are also simulcast on Zoom, and you get recordings afterwards, so even people who aren't in Central New York can view them. We have some, some pretty interesting ones coming up. But we also have our beers bikes and barges cycling series, where we partner with different historic groups throughout the state to put on about hour long bike tours in different canal towns, learn the history of the town, and then we end at a local brewery, typically, and part of your ticket is you, you get to enjoy a beer at the end on us. So that's fun. Another big thing, we have been supported by the Pomeroy foundation in our Bicentennial research project. So one of the things the Erie Canal Museum is really committed to is expanding the narrative of the Erie Canal. And there's just so much stuff that hasn't been covered in Canal history, we are encouraging researchers to do their own research, head into archives in their communities or state archives. People are also welcome to come to the Erie Canal museums, archives, which are pretty extensive, and research a topic that's under discussed in the canal world. And we're collecting all of those papers by August 31 is the due date, and then the hope is to publish kind of a compilation of all of these new bits of research and hopefully also use them to help various people who've submitted them apply for Pomeroy markers throughout the state as well. And further expand this history, we are working to expand the history of the canal, and some of the biggest kind of examples of that that we've implemented at the museum are a series of walking tours. Pathways of resistance, walking tour looking at abolition along the canal through downtown Syracuse and waterway of change, looking at the women's rights movement. Both of those tours are being funded by on the canals, which there are free events happening throughout the state in all sorts of especially recreation. We also have tours look that look at the architecture of the canal in Syracuse and one in Baldwinsville, looking at its unique canal history as well. So that's something I would suggest people check out. And they have like bike tours and kayaking tours throughout the state as well. Devin: Now Lauren, as historians, it seems like we are always working to commemorate some momentous event, some anniversary or something related to history of the locality, the municipality, in some cases, the state. This is one of the big ones here. 2025 is a big year. The Erie Canal is beyond important in the history of the state of New York and the nation, really, this commemoration is really something that we've been excited about at the State Museum and the office of cultural education. Really, going back to 2017 when we commemorated the beginning of the construction of the Erie Canal, which began in 1817.  We had a big, exciting exhibit called Enterprising Waters. We also released a book that was a gallery guide to that exhibit. So this is something that has been part of the work of the State Museum and the State Library and state archives, really starting in before even 2017 but we've been looking forward to 2025 as kind of the completion of the Erie Canal, as we said, 1825 but also a way to celebrate the entire system. One of the things that people sometimes forget is that when we're talking about the canal system, we're talking about more than just the Erie Canal. We're talking about four canals that comprise the canal system in New York State, of course, the Erie Canal being the largest, but also the Champlain canal, Oswego canal and Cayuga Seneca canal. So when we're looking at the Erie Canal, we all kind of know the history, or we should. And as Lauren noted, please go back and check out our earlier episode from 2018 where we dive into that history of the construction of the Erie Canal and what it meant, but also some of the parts of the history, including indigenous displacement of their lands that were used to construct the Erie Canal and the complexity of the entire story. We're really excited by the variety of programming that's going on really across the canal system. Of course, it's being led by our own New York State Canal Corporation, which is part of the Power Authority in New York State and runs the entire canal system, including maintenance and upkeep of the 524 miles that exist, the 57 locks, the 16 lift bridges. So they are tasked with maintenance and upkeep, keeping the canal going, keeping this historic treasure operable in New York State. But they have partners in this commemoration. There is also the Erie Canal Way National Heritage corridor, which is a federal creation of Congress that really the breadth of the Erie Canal is a historic heritage area, and this organization does a lot of work around the history and heritage of the Erie Canal, working with communities on their history that surround the Erie Canal, and they are doing a lot of work commemorating this bicentennial in 2025 to learn more about what's going on around the state. Related to this commemoration, we spoke with New York State Canal Corporation director, Brian Stratton. Brian Stratton: Well, good afternoon, Devin. I'm Brian Stratton. I am the director of the New York State Canal Corporation. The Canal Corporation was formed in the early 90s out of legislation that was created by Governor Mario Cuomo. Brought the canal out of the working world out of the Department of Transportation and established it as a recreational based mission. And from that, the Canal Corporation was formed, and we were placed under the New York State Thruway Authority initially, and then through the years. In the end of 2016 and 2017 we're now under the New York Power Authority. So our mission is to really maintain this waterway, 524 four miles long, four different canals, 57 locks, the trails and all sorts of infrastructure along there. And it's an old system, even though we're talking about 200 years of the canal when it when it began in 1825, the final phase, or the or the most recent phase, is really the New York State Barge Canal, which opened up in 1918 so this is what we do, and although it's largely a recreational mission. It's still, it's we still haul freight to from time to time, not like we used to, not what it was made for, or at the capacity. But it's certainly there or the car goes that need to go. Well, we've been doing this for a long, long time. We really started in 2020, 2017 and all of the, all of the 200 logos that you see go back to that year because we began celebrating and really, really, really recognizing when it was the 200th anniversary of the construction starting, which began in 1817, but over the last year, year and a half, we've really begun to take up, take up speed. And Governor Hochul announced the formation of the Erie Canal Bicentennial commission in July of 2024, and we got underway very, very quickly. I have the honor of serving as the co-chair of that organization, along with the first gentleman, Bill Hochul and three of the governor's cabinet members, which would include Secretary of State, Mosley, Empire State Development, President Knight Hope Knight and New York State Parks and Rec recreation and historic preservation Commissioner Randy Simons along with me, and we are meeting monthly and really planning a whole robust series. But we have a lot of a lot of partners along the way.  So there are many canal stakeholders throughout the system that are also joining us, and so it's not incumbent upon us as a singular organization, but we're sort of the band leader and making sure that we keep our fingers on the pulse of all of the things that are that, that are going on. And it's almost, almost, almost dizzying to keep track of them all, because there's so many great things, and everybody's extremely excited. And that was one of the things that makes it very, very fun. There's never a never a boring day. There's always lots to do. And when you add to that mix infrastructure problems and rain, which is now preventing the canal from opening as we had hoped, parts of it are open, but we want the whole thing open, and I'm sure Mother Nature will abide and we'll get it open eventually. Lauren: One of the most exciting projects that canal Corp has been working on is the recreation of the canal packet boat the Seneca chief, which was the boat that DeWitt Clinton traveled on along the Erie Canal back in its opening in 1825. Brian Stratton: Well, this is one of my favorite projects, so I'm glad that you've, you know, gotten to this quickly. Yeah, the Seneca chief is a full-scale replica of Governor DeWitt Clinton's packet line boat as we know it to to have been in 1825, full scale. It was built by the Buffalo Maritime Center, probably over the last three to four years. And it is a community boat building, boat building project. There have been more hands on this boat than probably any other, any other project that that they've done, and I'm proud to say that I have even planed a few planks. Thank goodness they've able to cover over my errors with paint and caulking, but, but it's a beautiful boat, and it's been under construction. Was under construction probably from 2020 through 2024, when it was rolled, rolled out of the barn last year. It's the exact length and width of the packet line boat that that the Buffalo Maritime Center knows Governor DeWitt Clinton sailed on and he left the commercial slip on October 26 1825 he arrived in New York maybe eight days later, and the actual wedding of the waters took place on November 4, 1825 but we marked his departure out of the buffalo harbor as the anniversary, and it was a grand affair, and certainly the buffalo maritime center knows all of those facts. This was really the brainchild of Dr John Montague, who is the president emeritus of the Buffalo Maritime Center. And I remember I was at a Erie Canal way National Heritage corridor board meeting in Buffalo, probably in 2018 when he first came to so the Commission said, you know, we have the plans. We can make this boat. We just need the money, of course. And I just thought it was, it was the most fascinating thing, of course, you're always thinking about, you know, okay, it's 2018 we need it by 2025. Let's get the money and let's build it. And fortunately enough, they, they secured a private donor with a very generous donation, but also a lot of public donors too. And I think that through the Canal Corporation, through the Regional Economic Development Councils, we have three or four grants in there totaling maybe $600,000 that went in over several years. And those are matching funds that the that the maritime center matches dollar for dollar in kind or in cash. I'm not exactly sure of what the final figure was in terms of cost, what it cost to build, but it is a beautiful boat. It has been out on the water since it rolled out of the shed, and a very public, exciting ceremony that you know, photos everywhere it has sailed along the canal. It actually floats. It is very happy that that worked out, but it's, but it, but it's a wooden boat. And any wooden boat takes on a little a little bit of water, does Governor Clinton's did? Yeah. So it has been touring, and they are getting ready to launch a very exciting tour to pay tribute to Governor Clinton's 1825, journey. And the Seneca chief is scheduled to depart from Buffalo as part of the world canals Conference, which is going to be taking place there September 21 through 25th and on September 24 they're going to launch the Seneca chief and a very public ceremony from canal site not far from where Governor first shoved off, and it will embark on a month long journey with 28 stops along the canal. And the communities are extremely excited and getting ready, and there's going to be a lot of a lot of fanfare, a lot of ceremony, education. People be able to find out about what the Seneca chief did, and what it was like to live and sleep on a boat. These were supposed to be luxury items, but everybody slept in the same space. And you had women's quarters, men's quarters, you had you had mules or donkeys. You had horses too. I don't think they brought those on board, not this particular boat, but there was also cargo too. So we're very excited about it, and we have lots of conversations, almost on a daily basis with the maritime center, working out how we can bring stakeholders in and make it a very exciting experience. Devin: one of the interesting things about the modern canal system is how it's changed over time. Certainly, it was built as a transportation corridor for goods, mostly, and at some extent, people traveled along the canal. But nowadays it's mostly recreation. Of course, there's boaters and those who are traveling along the canal system and using the locks with their boats and all of that, that exciting kind of traditional way of using the canal. But the canal is also a multi modal recreation corridor in many ways. There's bike trails, there's the Empire State trail that goes the length of the Erie Canal, and beyond a walking trail. There's towns and villages along the canal system that have recreation areas that are nearby to the canal, whether it's parks or trails or other ways of enjoying the outdoors. The New York canal system has really become this 524 mile recreation experience for people of all ages. Brian Strattion: One of the things that we've done recently through one of the original, statutorily created bodies within the Canal Corporation is called the canal rec recreation way Commission, which really guides the recreational mission of the canal. And these are appointees by the by the governor, by the Senate, by the the the assembly and agency representatives. And they convene at least four times a year and really guide everything that we're doing to make sure that the canal is a world class rec recreation way. And when the Canal Corporation was formed in 1992 the canal recreation way plan was first put into place, saying, how do we want the canal to look? How can we maximize this fantastic infrastructure that was built to haul freight on a very large scale? How can we make it a more human scaled, individual, individually sized recreational corridor Blueprint was put into place with the first canal recreation way plan, which was finalized in 1995 and that really is, you know, that's, that's a long time ago. So third, 30 years old. We have through the last year, worked very, very hard through public input, through public information sessions, outreach and the input of more than 500 persons across the system. Stakeholders in every region of the canal have updated the canal recreation way plan looking forward, and it's called the canal 2050 plan, and it really looks forward to what we want the canal to be, and what our what our guiding light ought to be, to make sure that the canal grows and evolves and continues to be this great economic system. And I don't know that I've that I have mentioned it, but the economic impact of the canal statewide is more than $400 million annually. So that's a tremendous economic engine. It's great. And sometimes we don't see all of that here in the local Albany capital region, but the further west you go, where the canal is more central to the main street of our communities, whether it's in Syracuse, Rochester Utica, you really see how important it is and how essential it is. Lauren: Two of the most prominent travelers on the canal system in New York are Governor Hochul and the first gentleman, William Hochul Jr, who have traveled almost every mile along the canals in New York State, except for the Oswego Canal, which they plan to travel sometime soon, we were able to speak to the first gentleman who is also the co-chair of the Erie Canal Bicentennial commission about what he loves most about the canal. William J. Hochul, Jr: Well, first of all, thank you for having me, Devin, and to all the listeners out there you are going to be so impressed with the summer we have scheduled to commemorate the very important bicentennial of the Erie Canal. I'm the co chairman, along with the Canal Corporation director, Brian Stratton, and we have an entire schedule and calendar of events that we've been building out along with the communities that are touched and impacted by the Erie Canal, such an experience for people that are boating enthusiasts to experience the canal the way the canal was designed and then grew over the last 200 years. Really included different towns about every 10 miles or so, which is about the distance that a mule team could go. And in each of these towns, people that visit by the canal or even by car, for that matter, or bike, they will find, in some ways a step back in history, 200 year old history you will see in many of these communities, architecture from that period. You will see little shops, little restaurants, gazebos, museums of different type. But then you will also experience personalities that each community has developed over the 200 years. And I think what's important for all the listeners to realize, if they haven't been on the canal lately, is boating is just one of any number of ways to experience a canal. There is a bike path, for example, that goes almost the entire length from Lockport, even before Lockport, but from Lockport to Albany and then up and down the Hudson River and into Lake Champlain. There's different ways that bikers can either be literally next to the canal or within a very short pedal from the canal, there's paddle boaters that experience the canal, kayakers. There's people that hike and again, you can also drive to these different communities. But as a boater, if you don't happen to have your own boat, there's opportunities for people to rent packet boats. These are boats that are in many ways, replicas of the canal boats that made the journey during the heyday of the canal, but they're now fully motorized, fully equipped, and on some of our journeys, the Governor and I have met people that are from Europe, from different parts of the country, because they recognize that what we have here in New York is really unique to any place else in North America, And in some ways it's unique to any other canal system in the world. So that's what we have right here in New York, and that's what the listeners should hould really be mindful of as we head into the 200th anniversary of it. Well, there's nothing like going into one of the small towns that maybe you heard about or you saw on a map once upon a time, and just experiencing it, either by boat and parking your boat or by a car or your bicycle if you want to do a longer trip by bike, these communities are just so wonderful, and as I reflect back on some of our happiest moments, It was the surprises that we would find in different communities. There are museums, for example, that the general public, and certainly I put myself in this category, had never heard about. There's a really a world class train museum, for example in one of the communities, and my wife and I just happened to stop in and see this wonderful exhibit of cranes then and all the architecture that went into building this complicated system. And I will name drop in that case, that's in Medina, New York. And then again, as you're going along the canal system, you might find yourself visiting Seneca Falls for another example, and so many people rightly credit it as the birthplace of the women's movement, women's right to vote. Of course, conventions were held there, but women's suffrage began there. But beyond that, there's the bridge from It's A Wonderful Life, and it was really the inspiration many think, for that particular movie that all of us watch over Christmas, and all of these communities are just so wonderful and and when you are traveling at canal pace again, whether it's a hike, whether it's a bike or whether it's a boat, you just Find yourself slowing down from some of the rush or the  activity that's at the two big Terminus is of the canal, obviously Buffalo, big city, New York City, one of the world's largest and one of the world's most important cities, but along the way, it's just such a refreshing and in its own way, energizing experience. I can't be a larger fan for everything that canal and the communities have to offer you. Lauren: So Devin, both of us grew up in upstate New York, you in the western part of the state, and myself in the eastern part. But I remember as a child visiting sites along the canals. I was a Girl Scout growing up, and remember that they, every year had an event where you could walk along the canal. And I remember visiting Schoharie crossing, which is a state park site where they have the remnants of one of the old aqueducts along the canal, which I always remember thinking was so cool, both for the engineering feat, but you know also what it's left behind on the landscape. And they also have a recreated canal store where you can kind of learn about why it was so important to have the canal go through your community, and what that could mean for economic development. And of course, you know, being the Saratoga County Historian, we have two very important canals. Not only is the Erie Canal important to the southern part of our county, but the Champlain canal runs north, south, along our eastern border, and certainly influenced the way that the county developed in the 19th century, and most notably, perhaps in the recent past. We have canal Fest in Waterford, which is a yearly celebration of the canal. It happens on opening weekend of the canal. Well, usually, except for in years like this, when we have extremely high water. But even though they couldn't open this part of the canal, the celebration still went on. And I think it shows the importance that the canal still has 200 years later, both in remembering the history of the canal, but also in the ways that we've shown adaptive reuse of the tow paths as walking paths and bike paths, in encouraging people to use the canal with kayaks, and in ways that we can preserve the canal and have historic tours along the canal, so that 50 years from now, when it's the 250th anniversary of the Erie Canal, we still have something to celebrate, and we still have places where we can go and learn about the history and continue to use it as a recreational place as well. Devin: Absolutely true. And as you mentioned, I grew up in Western New York, or at least farther west than Albany. It's debatable whether where I grew up is actually western New York or more central western New York or the Finger Lakes. But anyway, I grew up in the town of Wayland, which isn't directly on the Erie Canal, but it's not far from it, and it doesn't take much, and it doesn't take long to find evidence of the canal system, either historically or still there today with the Erie Canal, but to also see the direct economic and social impact of the canal in that part of the state, in Western New York. So many of these towns and cities are in existence because of the canal. As it as it opened and transportation began to take place, it transformed the landscape, physically and environmentally and economically and socially by bringing more and more people to Central and Western New York and really opening it up to the rest of the world, in many cases. So yeah, the canal was never far, physically from where I was growing up, and it also wasn't far as far as the historical importance of it in these communities throughout New York State. You mentioned canal Fest in Waterford, which is a great annual event. But New York is also extremely fortunate to be hosting the World canals conference in Buffalo New York, September 21 through the 25th and this is a big deal. The World canal conference is exactly what it says it is. It's an international conference that brings together canal historians and enthusiasts, those who are interested in the mechanics of the canal, together with organizations and government entities like Canal Corporation that operate canals today. And these people and these organizations are from all around the world in countries that continue to have canals and operate them. And this conference moves around the world. It is in a different place every year, and for the significance and for the birthday celebration of the Erie Canal, it's in New York State in 2025. Brian Stratton: You asked about events? Yes, let's talk about partners. Is the Erie Canal National Heritage corridor, yep, and working with them, we have a interactive calendar of Bicentennial events. It grows every single day. And if you were to log on to Erie Canal way dot, O, R, G, forward slash events, the event calendar will come up. It's searchable by region, by activity, by month, by everything you like to do. There's more than 100 I'm sure there's well over one 100 that was as of two weeks ago. It's interactive, so every community can make sure they can add their event to the growing list. And I know that there are many communities that are still planning events. They may not be on there. So please check out the Erie Canal way calendar of Bicentennial events. You'll find something that's going on near you all summer long and into the fall. And one of the things we're also trying to do through the Bicentennial commission is to get our agency partners to get in on this wonderful milestone that our state is marking in 2025 and the New York State Lottery is coming forward in a big way, and I can't take the wrapper off of that yet, but they're very excited to have a lottery game that's coming this summer that's going to help commemorate 200 years of the Erie Canal. That's great, and it's a lot of fun, and it's a lot of a lot of money too. So we're going to look forward to hearing more about that. I've probably said too much about that. And the Albany Symphony Orchestra is also going to be playing with us. They helped to start the bicentennial in 2017 they are back. They are traveling along four or five community concerts, five destinations along the canal. It's going to be wonderful. And we're going to celebrate that. These are canal side concerts. That's wonderful. We also have Stewart shops, who is well known here, has come up with a bicentennial ice cream flavor perfect, and that's actually on sale now at your local Stewart shops. The name of that flavor is minted in 1825, a little idea of what the flavor is. And that is a we had an internal competition through the Canal Corporation and the Power Authority employees what the flavor name should be, and it was chosen last month. And we've been eating a lot of ice cream. That's, hey, I wish I had that. I wish we did something like that. So let's, let's get everybody out to Stewart’s shops. So, you know, even if you can't get to one of these wonderful events, or by some way, you can't make it to the world canals conference in September, you can go to your Stewart shop and have an ice cream cone and say you're doing your part to mark the 200th anniversary of the opening of Erie Canal.

Troy Trailblazer: Garnet Douglass Baltimore

On this episode of the podcast, Devin and Lauren were able to attend the unveiling of the brand-new Garnet Douglass Baltimore historical marker at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy along with Bill Pomeroy himself. Garnet Douglass Baltimore was the first African American graduate of RPI and went on to a long and very successful career as a civil and landscape engineer. Interviewees: Dr. La Tasha A. Brown, Director of Community Relations at RPI Unveiling Ceremony Speakers: Bill Pomeroy, founder of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and Dr. Martin A. Schmidt, President of RPI Marker of Focus: Garnet Baltimore, Rensselaer County Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts by the Garnet Baltimore marker. Photo courtesy of Lauren Roberts. Garnet Douglass Baltimore. Image courtesy of the Hart Cluett Museum William G. Pomeroy speaking at the Garnet Douglass marker dedication, April 15, 2025. Photo courtesy of Lauren Roberts. William G. Pomeroy speaking at the Garnet Douglass marker dedication, April 15, 2025. Photo courtesy of Lauren Roberts. Further Reading: Kenneth Aaron, “Troy Street Paved with Family Pride,” Albany Times Union, February 11, 2021. RPI Alumni Hall of Fame. “Garnet Douglass Baltimore, 1859-1946,” The Cultural Landscape Foundation. “Garnet Douglass Baltimore,” Black Past. Suzanne Spellen, “Garnet Douglass Baltimore: Troy’s Landscape Master,” New York Almanac. “The History of Oakwood Cemetery,” Oakwood Cemetery. Teacher Resources: Hart Cluett Museum, Educator Resources Follow Along: Devin & Lauren Welcome to a New York Minute in History. I'm Devin lander, the New York State historian, and I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Lauren Roberts: On this month's episode, we're taking you to a brand new historic marker located at one oh 5/8 Street in the city of Troy, which is part of Rensselaer County. The sign is located at the top of an elaborate granite staircase known as the approach, which connects the city of Troy to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, better known as RPI. And the text reads, Garnett, Baltimore first black RPI graduate class of 1881 lifelong Troy resident, civil engineer who designed Prospect Park and parts of Oakwood Cemetery, William G Pomeroy foundation. 2025. Now many of our listeners who are not from the Troy area may have heard of RPI, but they probably haven't heard the name Garnet Baltimore. So let's start off with talking a little bit about who he was and how he came to be the first black graduate at RPI. Devin Lander: Well, let's start with his name, Garnett, Douglas, Baltimore. So he was from a very prominent African American, free black family in Troy. His father, Peter was a barber and also very active in community life in the city. He was also a member of the Underground Railroad and was an abolitionist, of course, and very involved with several of the most prominent abolitionists in the state and nation at the time, including Henry Highland Garnet, who was a legendary preacher and an abolitionist based in Troy at the time, and also was associated with Frederick Douglass. So that's where we get the name Garnet Douglas Baltimore. He's named after Henry Highland Garnet and Frederick Douglass. And even going farther back, his grandfather, Samuel Baltimore, was born enslaved and sought his freedom as a soldier in the American Revolution. He was promised to be free if he had fought on the side of the Americans during the revolution. Unfortunately, after the war, he was denied his freedom by his master or owner at the time, and so he escaped and settled in Troy, which is how the Baltimore family came to the area. Now Garnet, Baltimore was born on Eighth Street, so not far from where the marker is, and right in front of the RPI campus, actually at 160 8th street in 1859 he was born, and he again, was born into a prominent African American family that really valued education and valued the ability of education to lift up a person and allow them to pursue a career and a life on their own. Lauren: Garnett studied at the William rich school and then went to Troy Academy, where he and his brother were the first black students accepted there. He had great grades, and because of the family's connections with prominent people around Troy, he was able to gain acceptance into RPI in 1870 seven's freshman class, and that's how he became the first black graduate in the year 1881 which then led to an amazing career as a civil engineer, and he remained in Troy for the rest of his life. Devin: One of the things about Garnett that we've learned is that beyond being, you know, the first African American RPI engineering graduate in 1881 was the fact that his career was long and varied, and evidence suggests that he received his first job the day after getting his engineering degree from RPI. And so that started a career in which he worked on a variety of projects around the area and around the state, including parts of the Erie Canal, the Oswego Canal bridges, other types of civil engineering projects like that. Now we were fortunate to go to the unveiling ceremony for the garnet Douglas Baltimore marker. And this entire project, the work, the research that was done to apply for the marker and to receive a marker from the Pomeroy foundation. Was done by Dr Latasha Brown at RPI, and we had the opportunity to speak with her after the event. Dr. La Tasha Brown My name is Dr La Tasha Brown, and it's my pleasure to be here. I have a PhD from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, in comparative cultural studies from there, I Well, prior to that, I should say I have a master's degree in African New World Studies from Florida International University down in Miami, Florida, which is now African and African Diaspora Studies. That changed a couple of years ago. My undergrad is from bachelor's degree in history, minor in English, lit, from St Lawrence University in Canton, New York. So I've had quite a bit of experience up and down the East Coast in terms of educational development, and then I did a bit of study abroad in the Caribbean at the University of the West Indies. So throughout my career, I've had the privilege of learning and working across the US, the Caribbean and the UK. So I bring a particular perspective that is global to the work that I do right now at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as the Director of Community Relations within the Office of Community Relations and Communications. Devin: Alright, well, let's, let's talk about, a little bit about Garnett Douglas, Baltimore. When did you first become aware of Garnett Douglas, Baltimore and how did that whole interest that you have start? La Tasha: Yes, I started at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute back in February of 2022 I was the Director of the Office of Multicultural Programs at the time, and everyone was talking about the first African American to graduate from RPI, Garnett, Douglas, Baltimore. And I'm like, Oh, okay. Neat. You know most institutions has the first African American. What year did he graduate? Most people did not know oh. And I was just like, oh. And I was just like, Okay, I need to find this out, just because it's the first and knowing that RPI has been around for quite some time, since 1824 which we just celebrated the Bicentennial, so I really wanted to sort of position him within sort of that historical moment. And so 1824 you know, RPI is founded, and then he graduates in 1881 and I was just like, This is amazing, regardless of the fact of, you know, putting the title or the adjective of him being a trailblazer, I'm like, that is just really interesting when you're thinking about the development of America and, you know, upstate New York, and him working in a space that is not heavily filled with African Americans, right? And so that was like the journey he was well connected. And I should say that his father was well connected. His father was part of the Underground Railroad. And so having the opportunity to be around sort of intellectuals, at the time, black and white, being around affluent people. Because, you know, Troy, New York, my understanding, was filled with billionaires, right? And so he had the opportunity to excel, but also be very much in the midst of change and creating opportunities for a lot of people, economically as well as socially. What was neat about him, and just in terms of his namesake, is that he was given the name after Reverend Highland Garnet Douglas. And so if you think about these two individuals that carry such significance within American history, you have to expect for him to be brilliant in whatever he attaches himself to. He went on to the William Ridge school for colored children in Troy. And then from there, he went to the Troy Academy, where he was there for five years with his younger brother. And then he was thinking about Harvard University. And then he decided to focus on STEM as we call it now, and apply to RPI. And so that started his journey, but thinking about physically where he was in Troy, he was right on 8th street, and so RPI was right above so every day, he was engaging with that academic space very intentionally, but also just being a passer by the education institution as it was being built out. The suspicion is that there was other African Americans, and I say other for small number, right? This is class size for 1881 was only 17. So there might have been one or two other individuals of African descent. We would know that they would be male as opposed to female, but we don't have that definitive answer as of yet. But you know, you know more work is to be done on his life. I wanted the marker just to sort of signify, not so much that he went to RPI, but to really mark the year, because everybody knew his name, you know, well known on campus at RPI, well known in the community, but to have that historical date that people can pass by and see constantly that was really important to have it at the approach that really came later. But with regards to the foundation and the process, I was concerned about what region I was located in, right? So when is the deadline? Because I was already going into the archives at RPI and looking at the various maps, and then going down to the, looking at their materials, looking at the materials online, but I didn't have a sense of what was his story, and so there was a lot of conversations that I was having with people that were intimately connected to his journey, that had documented in various ways, whether it's for political speeches, for the, you know, the various presidents, or just kind of folklore in the community. We had a Juneteenth event back in June of 2022 and it was a localized version that was to celebrate Garnet Baltimore, and it was at that moment I was just like, this would be a really good idea to have a historical marker for him. And so I went onto the website, I missed the deadline, and then I was just like, Okay, let me get this started. What is needed in terms of the primary and secondary sources. So I started to do a deeper dive in the archives at RPI, and having conversations with Jennifer and Tammy, who were the archivists at the time. And then, you know, it was everything from his academic records to what was he involved with in school in terms of extracurricular activities, because that shaped his world view. Who else was in the class, who was on the Board of Trustees? Because all of this is being shaped by the fact that he was the first How did he get into this space, right? You know, what was the political connection to the community and the capital region at large? And then knowing that his father was an affluent person in terms of, not just, you know, financial means, but also political connection that played a role. But then I also wanted to know, did he have any writings for himself, right? And he didn't. There was a lot of newspaper clippings that I was able to come across up and down the country of him visiting Ian. There's quite a bit in black newspapers announcing his visit, for obvious reasons, right? And then there was just a series of committees and councils that he was a part of in terms of being part of the community and volunteering, not just with RPI and the alumni network, just but beyond that. And then I realized I needed to have his birth certificate, his death certificate, and then going down to Troy and getting those records, and then looking at the records of where exactly was his house, because that was the big challenge. Was it on the side of RPI? Did RPI, you know, do they now own that property, or is it owned by the city? Because originally it wasn't going to be a marker just for him. Am, but it was a marker at the location of where his house was located. And then I had a lot of conversations with Christy at the Pomeroy Foundation, and she's just like, if there's not a stone or anything left, you can't put the marker there. And so it was a series of brainstorming like, so what is the real sort of draw between the campus, remembering him and the community, and then you have Prospect Park, Oakwood Cemetery, and then he's a true Trojan. And so it just seems fitting to have it at the approach, and then the history of the approach and the Rubin foundation, it just all came together about a year later, because, again, I missed the deadline, and then you have another job, though, I had another job, right? But to me, it was the process of utilizing the skills that I acquired, you know, as a result of getting my PhD, and then also not just looking at the race component, but like the cultural impact. How was he instrumental in creating community? And he was very much involved in community building and community change and providing access through his work as a as an engineer, and so that that was the process. And then I think it was November, the beginning and though the end of November, beginning of December, I got noticed that, you know, I was awarded the Pomeroy historical market grant, terribly excited. And then we had to figure out what was the proper wording, and that is where the challenge comes in, because it's a small space, and it's not a poem, right? And so you want to be as concrete in terms of delivery of the words, but also as impactful, because you know that people are going to see this for a really a long time, and this is possibly their first touch point into doing a deeper dive, not just into gardening deep Baltimore, but Oakwood cemetery, RPI, Troy. And then it opens up a bigger space to go down a rabbit hole of just knowledge and time and space, and so it's lovely to know that the marker is up at the approach. And that is not just an RPI experience, but it's a community experience. Devin: But I'm curious about so some of the logistics stuff with all of this, I know can be complex. With placing a marker in certain spots, was there a difficulty in placing it where it is now on the approach? La Tasha Brown It wasn't smooth sailing. It was a process, for sure. It's figuring out the foot traffic, right? Yeah. Logistics is, you know, who's gonna see this, you know, are we just looking at it from the standpoint of vehicles passing by? Are they gonna actually slow down? Not too long ago, RPI put in a crosswalk, and so that was the perfect locations you would, you know, travel up or down the approach, but more so traveling up the approach, and where the mark is located is right at the crosswalk, so you have to press the button and wait, and as you're waiting, you're now reading. And so that allows for not just the individuals that's standing at the cross walk to cross the street, but it also allows for the vehicle, the person's in the vehicle to then look at the marker themselves, because it's big enough for you to take a peek. And if you're really curious, you can pull over and park safely and get out and read the marker. Lauren: One of the attendees at the unveiling ceremony for the Garnett Baltimore marker was Bill Pomeroy, who is the founder of the William G Pomeroy Foundation, and also a graduate of RPI from the class of 1966.  He was invited to give remarks about the Garnett Baltimore marker located at his alma mater. Bill Pomeroy: Thank you, folks, and I'm excited to be here today to celebrate the life and the legacy of Garnet Douglas Baltimore, an accomplished engineer, landscape designer and RPI first graduate. We're marking that legacy literally with this new historic marker funded by the foundation I started 20 some years ago. That foundation, like many, many meaningful things came from a deeply personal place. My time at RPI from 1962 to 1966 taught me a lot about perseverance, problem solving and purpose, but it was a unexpected leukemia diagnosis, AML, that gave me clarity on how I wanted to give back. With the odds stacked against me, I set out to create something that could help others. Long after I was gone, I focused first on expanding the bone marrow registry, especially for underrepresented communities. The goal give more patients like me a shot at a life saving donor match, and I'm proud to say that our work has helped facilitate over 300 bone marrow transplants. Thank you very much. Later, my interest in history took hold, and our Foundation began helping communities across the country uncover and celebrate their local histories. As a boy, my dad took me on his sales calls and frequently stopped at historic sites to learn more about them, and I guess that's where the bug got planted in my head. And I continue now with markers. So when I learned that someone had proposed a marker for Garnett, Baltimore and on the approach, no less, you know the one I remember as an ankle breaker from 1962, I was thrilled. It's a perfect spot. And thank you, Dr Brown for thoroughly documenting the facts for the marker and the back story.  Baltimore lived his whole life right here in Troy, likely right down here, close to where the marker is today. The approach physically and symbolically connects the city of Troy to RPI. What better place to celebrate someone who embodied both and Garnet Baltimore is not just celebrated here, his influence, you know, really goes further than here. He helped design Oakwood Cemetery. His grandfather, Samuel Baltimore, a revolutionary war Patriot is buried in Troy's Mount Ida cemetery. Garnet likely became aware from family lore of patriots buried in both places, and we're currently developing a new marker with the sons of the American Revolution to honor 22 known patriots interned at Oakwood. We're also working on a marker for Mud Lock on the Oswego canal, where Baltimore oversaw a challenging expansion project in the mud. He'll be recognized by name when that marker is installed later on this year. All of this makes me especially proud to now see a marker here that ties him firmly and forever to RPI and the city of Troy. This marker will spark curiosities and passers by, pride in the community and the inspiration of future generations who, like Baltimore, use their talents to make a lasting impact as someone who shares his own whose own story was shaped by this place. It's an honor to share in this moment of pride for your community, and I want to thank you for the opportunity. Devin: You now, much like one of his family's friends, Frederick Douglass, who, for his second marriage, married a white woman, Garnet Douglas Baltimore also married a white woman named Mary Lane, who he met doing a job on Long Island. Her family originated from Long Island, but they moved back to Troy to help further his career and keep his career going. And she was a strong advocate, not only for equality for African American people, but also for women. She was known as a suffragist, and when we spoke to Dr Brown, she talked about how she was able to track down Mary Lane's family and actually have representation from that family at the unveiling event. La Tasha Brown: I reached out back in I want to say it was 2016 if you look on the archival website for RPI, there was a thread of discussions that were going on, and there was a woman, she said that she was a descendant of Garnet Baltimore, like a great, great grandniece. And so I did a deep dive and Googling and putting in her name in various websites and forums, and then even sending a follow up to that thread. I presume she's still alive. She's about 66 and I've called three different four different emails were available. I presume that they are still members of the family that are alive, but I don't have exact evidence to prove that, obviously, with the Mary Lane family, they were here yesterday, and that is the Charles Marder, who is the nephew, the great, great, great grand nephew of Mary lane. And I found him through having conversations with several people, and then coming across his mother's announcement of her death, yes. And so I read that, and then they had a listing of him, along with his children and his, you know, extended family members. And then I did a deeper dive on a Sunday afternoon. I would never, you know, forget that I'm sending out emails, looking at LinkedIn profiles websites and reading additional articles. So I got in contact with several of individuals via email, and then I was hoping that somebody was going to reply back, but I didn't know how it was going to be received, right, right? Right? And so few emails bounced back, saying that their mailboxes were full. And I was just like, all and then then one came, I want to say, maybe two weeks later. And so he replied back. And just like, this is really interesting. I'm like, indeed is interesting. And then he was telling me that he went to Bennington, Bennington College, okay? And Vermont, so he used to pass through the area right to go back down to Long Island, okay? And so he was familiar, um, within reason, yeah, of RPI. Well, he knew RPI, but the area. And then he paused a bit, and then he reached out to the local librarian, archivist, and they did a little bit of research, and then they came back and just like, let's talk a little bit more. And so I met Charles maybe three weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago, via WebEx, and we had our discussion, and sort of finalizing the details of this event, and talking about RPI and Mary Lane and what information is available. And then I reached out further to the librarian down on Long Island, and again, there is no primary information from them, right? Everything else is just secondary. And so I was taking these, these puzzle pieces, and putting them together, and they weren't aware that she left. So they were being introduced to her and to Garnet Douglas Baltimore yesterday. But clearly they did a little bit of research prior to our event, my event yesterday, but this was their introduction to that side of their family. Charles Marder: Thank you, Dr Brown, I really appreciate it. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here. You literally dug us up, or rather, figuratively dug us up. I will be careful when I say here, talk about cemeteries, but thank you. That's I'm here. You know why I'm here, but I don't know, or you know how I'm here, but why I'm so excited to be here is because I am a landscape design, horticultural person that been doing for 50 years with my wife and later on, my son, Silas, who's right over here. It took him a little while, but he's come a long way. And I've also worked on Prospect Park in Brooklyn Central Park in New York City, museum decommissioning Philip Johnson's Museum of Modern Art about 10 years ago, when they renovated the place, took them out to the Botanical Garden. I've decommissioned Linden circle and the botanical garden. I have built some things. I'm not just a decommissioner, but believe me, we moved giant trees. We moved one today to Connecticut with a police escort. It was a valuable tree, but so anyway, I have a certain sympathy or empathy, when I found out about my aunt's great my great, great great aunt's husband and so proud that he was part of the family. Lauren: Two of the major projects that Garnett worked on in Troy was the laying out of Prospect Park and also laying out parts of Oakwood Cemetery, which is a beautiful cemetery that Troy is well known for as part of the unveiling ceremony, attendees were treated to a tour of Oakwood Cemetery, which included mentions of several prominent people that were buried there, but also a tour through the areas that Garnet laid out, and also a stop at his grave and that of the grave of his wife, where there was a wreath laying ceremony and a local pastor gave some moving remarks about the legacy of Garnett Baltimore. In addition, we stopped back at the chapel, and on display were maps from the early 1900s that Garnet Baltimore had actually laid out and signed. His original signature was on the maps, so it was a real treat to be able to see his actual presence in the cemetery on these maps as part of their archives. Devin: We've talked on this episode about how Garnet Douglas Baltimore was a trailblazer, first African American civil engineer, graduate of RPI, first graduate from other schools in the area, and also a very active and prominent Civil Engineer for his whole career, working on projects around the state and around the area. But he really was a Trojan. He was a proud resident of Troy, New York. He was very active, along with his wife, Mary Lane, in local community events and community works beyond his career, as I noted, Garnett was born on Eighth Street and Troy, and in fact, he died in the exact same house he was born in. He died in 1946 he was 87 years old, and he was active as an engineer right up until the end of his life. So the location of the marker could not be better. It's located on Eighth Street, as we said, which has also been renamed Garnett Douglas, Baltimore Street in Troy. And it's on the approach, which is this arched concrete walkway and stairs that connects RPI campus to the city of Troy, crosses Eighth Street and goes down the hill into the city itself. And no better place could have been picked to honor the legacy of Garnett Douglas Baltimore, who was himself, a connection between the Institute and the city RPI, President Martin Schmidt reflected on this connection at the unveiling ceremony. Martin Schmidt: It's a real pleasure to be here. We're gathering, of course, to unveil a significant tribute, a New York state historical marker dedicated to the pioneering spirit and lasting impact of Garnet Douglas Baltimore, and it's made possible by the William G Pomeroy Foundation, and I'm deeply grateful that they're present with us today. Wonderful to see fellow alumnus, Bill Pomeroy, and just delightful. It's also special that this marker will be placed at the approach, which is a site that's deeply embedded in the history of both Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but also the city of Troy. It's our gateway between the campus and the town. And to that note, before I continue, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Mayor Carmela Mantello for joining us today, we're delighted with the partnership that we have with the city on so many fronts and her continued dedication to preserving and celebrating the rich history of Troy is really inspiring. So thank you. I also want to take a moment to recognize and thank the members of the extended family of Gardner, Baltimore's wife, Mary Lane, who are here with us today. Your presence is a meaningful reminder of the lasting connections between history, family and community. Additionally, just thanks again for to the Foundation for their incredible work in recognizing and commemorating historic figures who have shaped our community. Their mission ensures that we never forget the contributions of individuals like Garnett, Baltimore who helped lay the foundation, both literally and figuratively, of the places we call home, Garnet Douglas, Baltimore was not just a trailblazer. He was a visionary. As the first black graduate of RPI in 1881 I hadn't realized it was 100 years before I got to graduate from RPI. He forged a path in civil engineering that would leave a lasting mark on this city and beyond. His work, particularly his contributions to the design and preservation of Oakwood Cemetery remains an enduring testament to his expertise and deep connections to Troy, the city where he was born and spent his life. Baltimore's legacy as a civil engineer, landscape designer and lifelong Troy resident is a reminder of the importance of recognizing those whose work continues to shape our communities for generations. Here at RPI, we take great pride in our long and storied history of innovation and leadership in engineering science and technology, but our mission extends beyond technical achievements. We seek to make an impact in the communities we serve. Garnet, Baltimore embodied this principle, bringing his technical expertise with a profound sense of civic responsibility and the approach. The approach is a historic landmark that connects our campus with the city, and so in placing the plaque at the top of the approach, we're recognizing the bridge Baltimore created between engineering excellence and community development. This unveiling is not just about marking history. It is about learning from it. It is an opportunity for individuals of all ages to explore and appreciate the contributions of those who came before us. I hope this historic marker serves as an enduring symbol of Baltimore's remarkable achievements and inspire future generations of engineers, leaders and innovators to follow in his footsteps. Devin: Now Garnett was such a prominent resident of Troy that when he passed away in 1946 the Troy record, which is the local newspaper, ran a front page obituary with a photograph, and they said, quote, There was a time when he was in the thick of Municipal Affairs. He was architectural engineer at Oakwood Cemetery. He laid out Prospect Park. He was probably the greatest surveyor in the city's history. He was as much a part of Troy as the monument. La Tasha Brown: With Garnet D Baltimore, there is so much to still uncover about his life and providing a holistic view of who he was, I think at the moment, is very fragmented. I mean, we're getting better at looking at or positioning these puzzle pieces together, but there's just so much that can be discovered and sort of put out there for public consumption. And I think when you think about curriculum, local curriculum, and I know that you're, you know, part of that space that becomes really important when we're thinking about how young people, particularly K through 12, but specifically K through eight, can feel a connection to their lives and learning environment. And this is one example that they can say he was a trailblazer. He wasn't a trailblazer in terms of being at the forefront, and, you know, of various movements or economic development in terms of benchmarking at different periods in time, but he was at the forefront of creating change and creating community. And we always need community. So I think this would be really important to put into the curriculum on a regular basis. That sort of feeds into opening up the space of thinking about STEM and STEAM for younger individuals, particularly those of African descent. But all students.

Women’s History Month: Sojourner Truth and Her Groundbreaking 1828 Court Case

This episode of A New York Minute in History commemorates Women’s History Month by uncovering the groundbreaking 1828 court case of Sojourner Truth, a self-emancipated Black woman who took on a white slave owner to free her young son from bondage. Interviewees: Barbara Allen, author and Sixth-Great Granddaughter of Sojourner Truth and Taylor Bruck, Ulster County Clerk and the City of Kingston Historian Marker of Focus: Sojourner Truth, Ulster County Office of the Ulster County Clerk Library of Congress Library of Congress Further Reading: Barbara Allen, Remembering Great Grandma Sojourner Truth, and Journey with Great Grandma Sojourner Truth New York State Education Department, “Sojourner Truth’s Historic Supreme Court Documents From the New York State Archives on Display in Kingston” New York State Archives: People vs. Solomon Gedney Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 1850. Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol, 1996. Teacher Resources: National Park Service: Ain’t I a Woman Lesson Plan PBS Learning Media: Sojourner Truth: Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Activist Consider the Source NY: Sojourner Truth's Fight for African American and Women's Rights in 19th Century New York Follow Along: Devin & Lauren Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian, and I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Lauren: In honor of Women's History Month, we are taking a look at a marker located at 285 Wall Street in the City of Kingston, which is in Ulster County. It's just outside the Ulster County Courthouse, and the text reads, Sojourner Truth at this courthouse in 1828 the orator and anti-slavery activist successfully sued to free her son Peter from enslavement. William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2023. Before we take a deep dive on this particular marker, I want to point out that it's not the only historic marker erected by the William G Pomeroy foundation in recognition of the life and accomplishments of Sojourner Truth. There's actually four in total. One of them is just south of Kingston in Ulster Park, which marks one of the locations where Sojourner Truth lived when she was enslaved by tavern owner Martinus Shriver. There's another one down in Cold Spring Harbor, which is out on Long Island, where she's noted for visiting for three weeks in 1843 and taking part in a temperance meeting there. The final one is located in Florence, Massachusetts, and that marker is part of the national votes for women trail, and it marks where she lived from 1844 to 1857. It's just incredible to think that this woman who lived so long ago in the constraints of the society at the time, has Four Pomeroy markers dedicated to her accomplishments back then, and that's just William G. Pomeroy markers. There are numerous other monuments and statues and parks named after her, so it's a pretty incredible legacy that she has left behind. Now, getting back to the marker of focus that we're talking about outside the Ulster County Courthouse in Kingston, this court case in which Sojourner Truth brought the complaint against her sons and slavers, and where she was able to win this case, the first time that an African American was able to win a court case against a white man. It's an incredible story, but I think knowing her background and her early life makes it even more incredible. Devin: So let's start by talking about her early life when she wasn't yet Sojourner Truth. So Sojourner Truth was born enslaved in Ulster County. We don't know the exact date. I've seen dates suggesting 1797 but we don't know 100% exactly when she was born. But she was born into enslavement. She was born into a Dutch enslavers family, essentially, and spoke Dutch as her first language, and again, was enslaved in a situation in which, although the enslavers didn't have huge numbers of slaves, they did a variety of types of work. She would have worked in the house. She would have also worked on the property outside hard labor type of work, and she was sold several times in her youth, she was actually sold as a small child to a person named John Neely for $100 along with a few sheep. And by the time she was 13 years old, she had been sold two more times and ended up enslaved under a person named John Dumont. It's interesting to think of having a young woman who had been sold so many times in her short life. Sometimes we think about that in the as happening in the south, but it also happened here in New York and as late as the 1800s and you know, there was a variety, as you mentioned Evan in the work that she had to do. And we talked a little bit about this in the Frederick Douglass episode, that there was a difference between enslaved people who were on a farm, type plantation or a state, and then moving to the city, where they had maybe some more freedom than they were used to on the state. And Isabella, which was her given name at birth, experienced this too. She mentions in her autobiography the difference between, you know, having some more freedoms once she gets to a place of where she is learning some skills in a tavern setting when she's enslaved by Martinus Shriver, but also, you know, being able to learn English, which she hadn't been able to do previously. So she experiences a lot of different situations at a young age, even in in the state of New York. While Isabella was enslaved by Dumont, she made a deal with him, because of the laws of gradual emancipation in New York State, all slaves would be freed in 1827, however, the deal that she made with Dumont was that if she worked hard enough, she could be released a year early in 1826 so she worked very hard, she kept up her end of the bargain, and when it came time for her to go to him and to get her freedom, he basically reneged on the deal and said, No, you can't, you have to stay until 1827, and she decided that because she had held up her end of the bargain she worked hard, that she was going to leave anyway. She did make a point to leave in the daylight, so it wasn't as though she was running away in the middle of the night. So she woke up in the morning, in the daylight, and she walked away, and she was able to find help with the Van Wagonens, not too far away from where the Dumonts lived. And she went there and was able to stay with them. Dumont did come after her, but she refused to go back with him. And also, we should mention that she had a baby, Sophia, with her at the time, who she also took with her, although she had no choice but to leave her other children behind with the Dumonts the van Wagonens, who she had found shelter with, offered to pay Dumont cash for the rest of the year that she would have been enslaved to him, and he accepted that, and from then she was free. Unfortunately, though, her children that she had to leave behind were not free, including Peter, who was born in and around 1818, and was about eight years old when she walked to freedom. John Dumont sold Peter to a man named Eleazer Gedney of Newberg for $20 and Eleazer Gedney, in turn, sold Peter into enslavement in Alabama, so the deep south plantation slavery, and this was the origins of this court case, and because Peter was born after 1799 he was legally no longer an enslaved person in New York State, and as a result, his sale into slavery and into the south could be challenged in court With the help of the Van Wagonens, Sojourner Truth, again at the time, known as Isabella Baumfree, brought forth a court case against Eleazer Gedney, and this case we've known about for, you know, 200 years, essentially at this point. But there was very little archival evidence, very little transcription of anything related to the case. And that was the case right up until 2022 when some of my colleagues in the New York State Archives actually discovered new court records in a major collection that they had acquired from the New York State Supreme Court. Early cases, about 5000 cubic feet of early court records. And it is when they were going through and processing these materials that they came across this evidence, which is now been digitized and is available on the State Archives website. You can see clearly the court case and how it was brought forward. You can see the response from Eleazer Gedney. You can see how the judge ruled in the reason that it was ruled the way it was. So all of this was kind of swirling around, and this major discovery that the State Archives found in 2022 kind of at the same time Taylor Brooke, who is the city of Kingston historian, was thinking about how to acquire a Pomeroy marker to commemorate this court case, which, up to that time, did not have its own marker. We spoke with Taylor Brook about the process of acquiring the Pomeroy marker. Taylor Bruck My name is Taylor Bruck. I'm the City of Kingston historian and the Ulster County Clerk. I started my career at the county as the Ulster County archivist in 2016 did that for six years, and then was the deputy county clerk in charge of records management. Manage all the county's records. Here in Ulster County, our records go back to 1658, we have, like some of the oldest Dutch records here in Ulster County, since Kingston or Warwick was one of the first three original Dutch colonies. So I just really love the history of the area. Fell in love with the history of Kingston very young. My mom used to work at the Senate House, and I've been historian now for about five years here in Ulster County. This is where Sojourner Truth was, was born and raised. And there's, there's a number of different monuments and things about her around the county, but there was nothing ever at the courthouse where her historic court case took place. You know, being the first black woman to win a court case against a white man, we felt that that was a perfect location to have a Pomeroy marker. And it actually came about three years ago when we had the affneys conference here in Kingston, the Association of public historians for New York State. And I was giving a tour of the stockade district in Uptown Kingston, talking about Sojourner Truth in her case in front of the courthouse, and there was a representative from Pomeroy there on the tour. And afterwards, they said, you know, this is a perfect spot for a Pomeroy sign. And so we started the process, and thankfully, a few months prior to that, is when the New York State Archives found the original court case documents in the state archives that had been really missing since the case happened. So we had all this new primary source documentation, and it was exactly what Pomeroy needed to really prove that what we were saying was true. And we were fortunate enough to be awarded the grant and got the marker, and then we had to wait almost a year to install it, because there was some serious renovations going on at our historic courthouse. So just this past few months ago now, we finally installed it, and it's been fantastic. We got a lot of good feedback on it already. Devin: You mentioned that there were documents discovered at the State Archives here in Albany. What can you say about those documents? Taylor Bruck: Well, they answered a lot of questions we had, and also made a lot of different questions come up. So before those documents were found again, all we had was this recognizance note that said that Solomon Gedney had to appear in court, and we never knew what happened in court. We thought it may have been settled at, like the conference level, but there was always questions about what happened with the case, and we had no idea, until, thankfully, Jim Fauci stumbled upon them, and it that's how we know about the commissioners to perform certain duties of the Supreme Court judge and how it was actually settled with Mr. Gedney, bringing Peter back and really saying that he didn't feel he did anything wrong. We never knew what his justification was or his argument that this was all really unknown. We had Sojourners narrative. Of course, she did talk about it briefly, but never went into any detail about what, Gedney said his side of the story was, and how the court case came to an end. So it really opened, it wide open, and then set us down another path of months of research about what actually happened. Because even when you read the documents, you're like, Wait, so there wasn't a jury, it never actually went to trial. Like, how did this conclude? And thankfully, I have to give a big shout out to our commissioner of jurors and local history buff Paul O'Neill He has a really good sense of the history of New York State courts and the New York State court system. And without his expertise in that, and really diving into the court aspect of it, I would still be very confused about how this all took place, because it's, you know, it's all in legal ease, too. If you're not a lawyer and you read these documents, it can be very confusing to know what actually happened. I'm wondering in these documents, does it name Sojourner or Isabelle at the time? Does it name her as the complainant, or is it like the DA took up this case? No, my understanding is that it names her as the complainant. But yeah, you're exactly right. When we found these documents, we thought, Oh, the mystery is solved. And then as you dive into them, you're like, oh, it's actually more mysterious. It's more mysterious in some ways, how it ended the way that it did, and why the records ended up in Albany, because that was a question like we always had researchers coming to us in Ulster County asking us where the court case was, and for years we thought we lost it, or something like when people were looking for this in the early 1900s we knew we had the recognizance note, and we just thought, who knows the we didn't Have an archivist until 2000 so maybe sometime between 1828 and then it just was misplaced or misfiled. So it was a relief for us when they found it in Albany that when we were telling people for years we just don't have it, that turned out to be true. One of the more historic court cases we think in the country, really, it shares the foundation of like the original courthouses in Kingston and Ulster County, which the first courthouse, I believe, was built around 1661, it is seen virtually the entire history of Ulster County and a lot of our country. One of the biggest things that happened at that courthouse before the Sojourner Truth case was the New York State Constitution. So Kingston was the first capital of New York State, and the Constitution was being drafted here in Kingston, New York State Constitution. So folks like John Jay Governer Morris, George Clinton, were there drafting this New York State Constitution that included a lot of language that ended up in the United States Constitution, and it was read aloud for the first time in New York on the courthouse steps, right in front of where Sojourner Truth eventually walked Up to have her freedom granted, which is pretty remarkable. And those steps actually the original steps that Sojourner walked up. They just replaced and they took the old steps and just put them in Sojourner Truth Park, which is a state park here in Kingston, right along the river. So you can go see those, those historic steps now right along the brand new Sojourner Truth park just opened two years ago, I believe, and it's really a nice addition, but we're very proud of our courthouse here and some of the history that it's seen. Devin: Taylor, you're a city historian and a local government historian, and you went through the process of getting a Pomeroy marker. And what can you tell us about what that process was like and how it is working with Pomeroy, who I will know, is a funder of this program. The funder. Taylor Bruck: They're the absolute best we've gotten a couple markers through them now, and I find the process very fun, because you have to prove everything that you're saying. And for historians, I think that's very important, but they're rigorous in their research that is required to have them. If you see a Pomeroy sign, you can rest assured that that is a true statement that's on it, and that that really give me relief that they're not putting them up willy nilly, but they're super responsive. We went back and forth on the wording. They helped us with the wording, because for something this complicated, you do have a character limit, so it's hard to determine what's important enough to go on the marker itself. And they were able to give us really good guidance and help with the wording also, because depending on what the wording is, you have to prove different things. So that's always part of the fun of trying to draft it. It's almost like writing a poem. You have to really be clever and precise with the language, but just the responsiveness, and they're so polite, and you can tell they're always excited. It never even feels like they're at work when, when you talk to them about a marker idea, they usually jump right in, get their hands dirty and help out. I just love working with them. Devin: We'll make sure that gets included. Lauren: Taylor, can you tell us about the event of actually unveiling the marker? Did you do anything special? Did you invite people? How did that go? Taylor Bruck: Oh, yeah, this, was big time. We invited, you know, all of our local elected officials and so on. And our special guest Barbara Allen, who I think you'll be talking to as well. She is remarkable. I think she's seventh or eighth generation descendant of Sojourner Truth. So she came and spoke, and we were able to announce a very exciting project that was years in the making, really, but Sojourner Truth day, it is an official New York state holiday now, November 26 our local state representatives, Michelle Hinchey and Sarah Hana Shrestha, had been advocating and pushing for that after a youth group here though, YMCA farm hub youth group, a group largely of young women who, when they learned about Sojourner Truth in school, they said, this should really be a holiday. And they talked to our reps, they put in a resolution, and two years later, it went through, and we were able to announce that, actually, I think it was the day before we held our unveiling ceremony, the governor signed it into law, and that was a huge win for the whole community, really, but I shout out to those YMCA farm hub kids for getting this started, because it was really cool to see something started by I think when they started it, they were in like ninth and 10th grade, and by the time they graduated high school, they had passed a New York State law. Just remarkable work, and thankful for our state reps for listening and advocating on their behalf and getting it done. Devin: The first steps to freedom exhibit featuring the new bronze statue is on display in Kingston at City Hall until August 2025. So after winning the court case, Sojourner Truth would go on to even greater accomplishments, if that's possible, and become a legendary figure in American history. First, she moved to New York City, where she spent some time, and then eventually moved on to New England and to Massachusetts, where she essentially became a preacher and an orator for the cause of the enslaved African Americans. And we have to really think about this deeply, because she could neither read nor write. She was completely illiterate, but she went on to become one of the most popular and powerful speakers against enslavement and eventually for women's rights and in the temperance movement.  So she became one of these 19th century great orators along the same lines as what Frederick Douglass would become a couple decades later, when he gains his freedom, and again, follows a similar trajectory by moving to New York and then eventually New England, and then moving west, as our last episode discussed. So she really became a powerful orator. She also published a autobiography, obviously with the help of a ghost writer, that told her story how she walked to freedom, how she was able to free her son Peter, and then how she made the transition into a public speaker and a passionate advocate.  It was in 1843 that she decided to change her name from her enslaved name to what we know her today as Sojourner Truth during the 19th century, probably the most famous speech that she was credited as giving took part on May 29 1851 as part of the Ohio women's rights convention in Akron, and this became known as the Ain't I a Woman, or Aren't I a Woman? Speech? Now there is some discussion among historians today as to whether or not she actually said those exact words or a version of those exact words, and one of the reasons that this is being discussed is because some of the people who were there and who really said that she meant, said these words years later, were giving Sojourner a southern accent and the way she spoke, they were kind of putting words into her mouth, and because we know that she grew up speaking Dutch in New York, she would not have had a southern accent, but irregardless, the sentiment was there, and she was advocating for the fact that men and women are equal and should be treated equally under the law. So this became her kind of defining speech in the 19th century. She was also very good at creating her own image, similarly to Frederick Douglass, who many people suggest is the most photographed person in the 19th century, Sojourner Truth was probably a close second, and she did that to sell her image, to help support her activities as an advocate, and really controlling the image of herself and being able to profit from it, to make it so that she could continue her advocacy efforts. Lauren: In thinking about the legacy of Sojourner Truth in the present, it's great that we have these markers and monuments and statues to her, because her accomplishments were really remarkable for the time that she was living in as an African American woman, and we were lucky enough to be able to speak with Barbara Allen, a sixth great granddaughter of Sojourner Truth. And she explained to us what she's doing to keep moving the legacy of Sojourner Truth forward. Barbara Allen: My name is Barbara Allen. I am the sixth-generation granddaughter of Sojourner Truth, and probably everyone knows the story. When Sojourner walked away from slavery, she took her daughter, Sophia with her, and that is the line that my family is from, Sophia. Now, Sojourner, during her travels, she ended up in Battle Creek, Michigan, and that is where she's laid to rest at to this day. So most of my family is still here in Bell Creek, Michigan, and we honor the journey by going out and sharing her history. For me, I wrote two children's books. One of them was named Journey with Great Grandmother, and the other one is Remembering Great Grandmother. And I wrote them really to tell children about this, this wonderful woman, and what she did for all of us in history. And one of them is a story that my mom used to tell me over and over, about Sojourner. And it was amazing, because, you know, when I'm look when I'm smaller, I didn't understand just how fantastic this woman was, but as I got older, I kind of researched who she was, and so I wrote two children's book to share with other children. Devin: I'm curious. You're in Battle Creek, Michigan, and that's where Sojourner, you know, lived the end of her life and several decades. When did you first become aware of her origins in the Hudson Valley in New York? And maybe you can take us back to the first time that you would have come and visited the area, and what was that like as a descendant. Barbara Allen: That was amazing, because my mom used to tell me that she was, she was a slave in upstate New York. That's all I knew. Was the name upstate New York. And when I was a child, I used to think, where could that possibly be, you know, it just didn't resonate with me. The historian told me about Upstate New York again, but he never said Kingston to me. And when I wrote the two children's book, I think it was my first one, this young lady named Tiffany got a hold to me because she saw my Facebook, and she said, You need to come visit here. And I, and I was like, then, and she put in all the missing pieces for me. Sojourner up Kingston was upstate New York, because I didn't know I didn't know that. So the first time I came to visit, I actually was invited by, I think it's Scenic Hudson. They donated a park to Sojourner, right and I and it was Earth Day, and I think it was in me 2023, I came there for the first time. And I've been here probably five times since. Devin: Were you aware of the court case that she was is being commemorated on this marker, but was also a very groundbreaking court case, where were you aware of that history as well? Barbara Allen: Yes, I was aware of it. I was aware of it on the surface, like say, I didn't know a whole lot, but I was aware that she did sue to get her son Peter back. We didn't know that probably when I was a younger child, Ian. I had heard the name Peter, so I did know that I was there on the day that they brought the court records back, because they got lost, and then they had them, they brought them back. I was there for that as well. So it was amazing, you know, because I didn't know it was really basically two court cases gone, one to free him and one, one to get him back to his mother, and then one to free him. So it was amazing when I read some of the documents. Battle Creek celebrates her just as much as Ulster County. And so I do read, especially during Sojourner Truth day in Black History Month. I read a lot in the local elementary schools, and one of my books I even read in the high school. The second book is more towards middle school and high school, but the first one is for more elementary children, and I read to them all the time. I read out our library, and I'll come to Kingston. I think I read at probably five schools there at one time in one day. And it was, it was amazing. So Kingston and Battle Creek both, they celebrate the journey for her time that she was there in Ulster County and for a time that she was in about in Battle Creek. So when I come to Ulster County, I feel like I'm bringing Sojourner home. I'm, I'm telling you  it's a spiritual visit for me every time. Devin: I can imagine. Lauren: Can you tell us a little bit about what the process was for you to write the actual children's book? Well, I had known the story, you know, of course, some of the story. And the historian that taught me passed away, and he gave me a big box, well his wife did after he passed away, of all his research, a lot of his research. So I got to know Sojourner for like, two years after that, after he passed away, I just read everything that he had in there. So I got to know her more and more. And, you know, I talked to some family members about her, and I it was COVID, actually, when I wrote my first children's book, I had nothing else to do, you know, I thought, finally, I have some time to get this out of my head and get it onto paper. I just start typing I had, and I found an illustrator to illustrate all the pages, watercolor so that it looked like it was like back in history, and it was just it was beautiful. Devin: Sojourner Truth's historical legacy is assured and continues to this day. The emphasis on the court case came to a crescendo, really, last year, not only with the erection of the Pomeroy marker and Barbara Allen attending that event, but with the opening of the Sojourner Truth, first step to freedom exhibit, which features a bronze sculpture of Sojourner Truth, done by the renowned sculptor Trina green, it also the opening reception in September featured the documents that were discovered by the State Archives on display those archival documents, again, are available online at the New York State Archives for anyone who wants to download high resolution images and see those court cases. They are in the State Archives collection. They're not on display a lot because they are old and very fragile, but you can get a sense of what they say and their importance by taking a look at them firsthand on the Archives website, it's important for us to realize that as much as we are and should be commemorating Sojourner Truth in New York State and in Ulster County, her experiences there were not positive. She was not there by her own will, as we have seen, she had to walk away from enslavement. She had to battle for her son's freedom in the court of law in Ulster County. And it was really possibly, as a result of her experiences that she never returned to Ulster County after she left and after she moved to New York City and then eventually New England, and then eventually Battle Creek Michigan, where she spent the rest of her life. Lauren: One of the other things we learned about her legacy is that both the City of Kingston and Ulster County and Battle Creek Michigan work together to share the memory of Sojourner Truth, and both of those communities are doing things to make sure that her name is not forgotten, and that her accomplishments are talked about and that they help people today who may be who may be experiencing similar struggles in their own lives. Taylor Bruck: I would just encourage folks to stay tuned for the next Sojourner Truth Day, November 26 I think it's a state holiday. And again, the work that she did as a suffragist and an abolitionist should be celebrated statewide, not just here in Ulster or in Albany, and on November 26 really hope there are other communities that will do something for Sojourner and help get her story into schools. She's a very inspirational figure. Barbara Allen: She had hope. You know, she was a slave, and she still knew that there was a better life out there. And she hoped upon hope, and she did everything she could to be free. So, I see her legacy is just about hope and promise and that, that if you use your voice, you use what God has equipped you with, you can change things, you can you can make changes. And it doesn't have to be angry. It just has to be deliberate in what you're doing. And she was so deliberate and that's when I look at her, her legacy, that's what I think of. It's just hope. It gives people that hope to just get up and try again. She did that for me, if I sometimes, you know, if I have a bad time, I think about her, I think if she could do it, I definitely can pull myself back up. And I have because of her.

Black History Month: Frederick Douglass in Rochester

In honor of Black History Month, this episode will delve into the life and work of Frederick Douglass during his time living in Rochester and discuss the legacy of Douglass today. To help us understand this important story, we welcome very special guest Hon. Malik D. Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester, NY. Markers of focus: Douglass Home, Monroe County Interviewees: Hon. Malik D. Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester. 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 David Hopper. Our executive producer is Tina Renick.  Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby. Photographs courtesy of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. Frederick Douglass, 1879. Photograph by Frank W. Legg, National Archives and Records Administration. Hon. Malik D. Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester. Photo courtesy of the City of Rochester. Further Reading: Shayla Martin, “2 Black Heroes, 2 Cities in New York: A Journey into the Past,” The New York Times, 2024. Frederick Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Collection: A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 2023. David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, 2020. Victoria Sandwick Schmitt, “Rochester’s Frederick Douglass: Part One and Part Two, Rochester History, 2005. Teacher Resources: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: Lesson Plans for Frederick Douglass National Park Service: (H)our History Lesson: Frederick Douglass’s Life-long Fight for Justice and Equality. PBS Learning Media: Becoming Frederick Douglass Follow Along: 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. In honor of Black History Month, we're focusing on two markers for this episode, both located in the city of Rochester and both honoring the contributions of one man, Frederick Douglass. The first marker is located at 297 Alexander Street in the city of Rochester, and the text reads, Douglas home. Frederick and Anna Douglas lived in a home on this site with their five children, 1848 to 1851 welcomed freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, the William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2018 the second marker is located at 271 Hamilton Street and is titled Douglas house. And the text reads, Frederick Douglass, noted abolitionist and orator, lived here with Sprague family. 1873 to 1874 owned a building for 32 years, William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2019, so both of these markers focus on the noted abolitionist orator and printer of the North Star, Frederick Douglass, and on this episode, we're going to take a look at his life and his influence, especially in the city of Rochester. Devin: And to do that, we spoke to Malik Evans, the Mayor of the City of Rochester. Hon. Malik D. Evans: So I'm Malik Evans. I'm the Mayor of the city of Rochester, and I grew up on a street in which Frederick Douglass owned a home the corner of bond in Hamilton. So it's great to be on, be on your show. And I'm a student of history. I love history, so any chance I get to talk about history, I like to take that opportunity. Well, my father was big into history, particularly African American history, and its effect that it had on America. So by the time I was probably 12 years old, I had read both of Frederick Douglass books. So Oh, wow. Became very aware of Frederick Douglass at an extremely early age, and also the elementary school that I went to, we knew that that was also near a site of where Frederick Douglass had lived, the house that actually was down the street from where I grew up. Grew up, we actually did become aware that that was a house that Frederick Douglass had lived in until I was older. So but, but the fact that he was in the area of the school that I would walk to every day, that that was cool. And then we knew he was buried in in Mount Hope cemetery. And then there was a in my neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in a neighborhood where the statue was a Frederick Douglass in Rochester. So a lot of people don't know, but the first statue to an African American in America was to Frederick Douglass, and it was here, Eureka Lodge, number 36 back in the late 1800s commissioned that statue, and it was downtown, near the train station. At the time we had this major train station, and I mean, presidents came when the statue was unveiled. I mean Frederick Douglass was just really a major, major figure in Rochester history. So I was very, very much aware of Frederick Douglass growing up. There was a gentleman who's now probably close to in his 90s, Dr David Anderson, who actually would play Frederick Douglass when I was in elementary school. He would come to the school dressed as, you know, dressed as Frederick Douglass. So he's always been someone that is a that someone I looked up to as a hero, and His books were just amazing to me, that someone was able to write like that and not have a background in in schooling. I mean, he never PhD or or a master's degree in English, but you would think he would by however. When his writing was, you know, Rochester was, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It was, it was a safer place to be than in the south, but it also had a strong abolitionist movement. I think that when he started writing his doing his newspaper here, which ran for years, the North Star, was published in Rochester for years that, you know, that kept him here, and people came through here. He had a great friendship with Susan B, Anthony, who was also here, I d B, wells, Barnett came through here. So Rochester was, was a place that all these people could come to and but it was also very strategically located, yeah. So I think that that helped him. John Brown. John Brown, who, you know, who was hung but was a big abolitionist. He came through here to meet and talk with Frederick Douglass and when John Brown was captured and hung, if you remember, Frederick Douglass left and went overseas for an entire year before he returned, before he returned back to Rochester. So I think it was just, you know, a place that was that that was comfortable, comfortable to him, and a place where he saw as a base of his work. You know, he's born in Cordova, Maryland, but if you look at the most amount of time that he spent, it's been in Rochester. So I always argue with my my fellow mayors in Baltimore or in Maryland, and I say, No, Fred, you go. Belongs to us. He might have been born in Maryland, but he spent more time in Rochester than any other place, and he's buried here, yeah. So you know that's what states our claim to Douglas. Devin: Yeah, I think we should talk a little bit about how Frederick Douglass ended up in Rochester, New York. Well, he was born into slavery in Maryland and Tuckahoe, Maryland, to be precise. And he was actually born Frederick, August, Washington, Bailey. His last name was not Douglas at the time, and he was born into slavery raised predominantly by his grandparents, because, as was a common practice during the time slave owners often sold off children's mothers or vice versa before the age of one, in many cases. So that happened to Frederick, his mother was sold off to other slave owners, and he was raised by his grandparents. He started out his enslavement as what was commonly known as a house slave. So he was six years old when he actually started laboring for his his owner and doing errands and odd jobs as as a child would be able to do eventually, Frederick's enslaver died, and he was inherited as property by this person's brother in law, and he ended up being traded to this person's brother and ended up in Baltimore, where the enslaved had a little bit different experience than those working on the rural plantations and the hard labor he was, Frederick was actually able to learn a task while he was in Baltimore. He was a ship caulker, and although he had to give most of his wages to his owner, he was able to keep some of that for himself. And it was also during this time in Baltimore when he took the first step towards what he would eventually be in his career, and he learned how to read. He was actually taught for a short period of time by his owner's wife, who taught her son and a young Frederick some of the rudimentary spelling and language. Once the husband found out, he ended that, because it was actually illegal in the south to teach an enslaved person how to read and write. So Frederick was kind of left on his own, and he kept learning, though, he took this rudimentary knowledge that he had, and really expanded on it on his own. He basically taught himself how to read and write, and this would be the again, the first step in his journey towards becoming the iconic orator and author that he became. Lauren: after experiencing a few years in the city of Baltimore, he is again sent back to rural plantation life in Maryland, and he talks about how the experiences he had in the city really made it unbearable to go back to the rural plantation life, where he was starving, where he witnessed brutality, beatings and whippings all the time. They weren't given any of the basic comforts they needed to really survive and thrive, and he just finds it really hard to deal with because he had experienced this other life in the city of Baltimore, and so he's eventually sent by his enslaver to someone known as a slave breaker, which is a horrible man who was known to try to break the spirits of enslaved people who were considered to have a strong, wild spirit, they needed to be tamed and basically beaten into submission. And he fights back. Douglas finds the courage to fight back against this slave breaker. Miraculously, he doesn't experience any major punishment for this, but he notes this as one of the ways that he really gains confidence in himself, that he has shown that a struggle, where he's in the underdog position, and he fights back, gives him the confidence to really have hope and believe that his life will get better, that he will get the opportunities to seek freedom, and it's really a pivotal moment in his life. After his time with this slave breaker, he eventually goes back to the city of Baltimore, and has another pivotal moment in his life when he meets his future wife, Anna Murray. Devin: Yeah, this is a vitally important in his story and their story as a family, obviously, but his wife, Anna Murray, was actually born free, although her parents were enslaved, her and some of her siblings were born free. She was a domestic servant when they met in Baltimore, and she really helped give Frederick the courage, I think, and also some financial backing for him to be able to flee, which he does in 1838 when he leaves Baltimore and ends up in New York City, where he waits for Anna to join him, and where the two are actually married, they then move to Massachusetts, and they end up settling in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Frederick actually works for a while as a ship caulker and as a general laborer and tries to support his family. That's where his daughter, his first daughter, is born. And Anna also takes work as, again, as a domestic at this time. And they're kind of moving in the direction of a working class African American couple in New Bedford with a small family. Lauren: And the way that Douglas was able to take his own freedom was that he dressed as a sailor and he had papers semen papers from a friend of his and Anna Murray actually supported him by purchasing or helping him purchase the train ticket that would then bring him north. Devin: It was in New Bedford that Frederick Douglass actually became Frederick Douglass. He changed his name from Frederick Bailey to Frederick Douglass as a way to remain anonymous as a fugitive slave. This was a very difficult time for those who fled enslavement and remained in the United States, they could be hunted down, essentially, and brought back to slavery. So he changed his name. The family took the name Douglas, and it was in New Bedford that Frederick met the Reverend Thomas James from the AME Zion chapter in New Bedford, who was an African American Reverend and also an abolitionist, who happened to have spent several years in Rochester, New York. He was actually born enslaved in Canajoharie, New York, and then fled to Canada to achieve his freedom, but then settled in Rochester and spent some time there, where he became a reverend and also was self-educated. So it was really Thomas James and his experiences in Rochester that introduced the idea of moving to Rochester to Frederick Douglass. The second important person that Frederick Douglass met at this time was William Lloyd Garrison, who was one of the most prominent abolitionists in the North. He was the editor of The Liberator which at the time was essentially the most important abolitionist newspaper. He was also a prominent in abolitionist organizations that met around the north and brought in speakers to talk about the horrors of slavery and the moral degradation of slavery. And he meets Frederick Douglass and realizes that Frederick Douglass had been born enslaved, and asks him to tell his story about how he was enslaved and how he achieved his freedom. Douglas does so and blows people's minds, basically, with his ability to speak and to talk eloquently and passionately and in a moving way about his own experiences. And so William Lloyd Garrison asks Frederick Douglass if he would like to have a job going around and representing the abolitionist movement at different gatherings and essentially become a professional public speaker. Yeah, and I think it's really important that the focus is on his own story, right? It makes it so much more powerful that he lived this experience. And sometimes we think of the North being far removed from slavery. And of course, you know, at this time, there wasn't slavery in in New York, it was abolished in 1827, so northerners are somewhat removed from the actual day to day horrors of slavery, but when someone comes to them and is speaking about their personal experience, I think that that raw truth really makes more of an impact. And so Douglas was able to really influence people by his own experiences, that's absolutely true, and in reality, it's it's what makes him famous, you know, for the first time, not only as a speaker, but in publishing his first autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which becomes An instant bestseller, and really makes him famous and makes his name attached even more closely to the abolitionist movement. And it's really this fame from his speaking and from his own autobiography that leads to a speaking tour that takes him to Europe and the British Isles, specifically, for 18 months that he spends essentially on the road in Europe giving talks about the abolitionist movement, fundraising for the Abolitionist Movement, which was always part of what he was hoping to achieve, not only getting the word out and telling people about the horrors of slavery, but also fundraising. It was while he was in the British Isles for that 18 month period that his friends there raised money to send back to his former enslaver so that he would no longer have any claim upon Douglas as his property. And so once he does come back to America, he comes back as a free man after this long tour, and after fundraising around $4,000 for the cause that he decides he would like to open his own abolitionist newspaper and print his own abolitionist newspaper. Unfortunately, his colleagues and associates in the abolitionist movement in New Bedford think that would be a terrible idea. They can't envision an African American man having his own newspaper and printing and distributing that. They don't think it'll be successful. They think the resources could be spent better in other ways. So it's really that decision on their part, that makes Frederick Douglass think that perhaps New Bedford is not the best place for him and his family to be, and instead, he chooses to move to Rochester, which he had heard About through his association with the Reverend Thomas James. Lauren: And once he got to Rochester, he turned his attention to the press. What better way to get his message out to a larger audience than the newspaper? And so on December 3 of 1847 he published his first issue of the North Star, and he uses the name the North Star because that was known as a guide for freedom seekers. They used the north star as a direction for heading north towards Canada, towards freedom. The North Star really becomes probably the most influential venture that Douglas takes on in his time in Rochester. Hon. Malik D. Evans: Well, I just think that, you know, it's amazing to think that in the 1800s during slavery, you had a fruit, you had an African American publisher of a newspaper that was almost basically circulated worldwide. I mean, I think that that's important for people to remember. So I think it gives people help hope to know that during the some of the most turbulent times in our country, you had an anti slavery newspaper in the 19th century that was published and well received. And not only that, it was a weekly newspaper, which not monthly. I mean, that is, I mean, you know, Frederick Douglass was the editor. And for, you know, from 1847 I think, to about 1851 you had this newspaper that was being circulated around, around the country, you know, similar to the liberator, you know, it's, it's sold prescript subscriptions. I think they were $2 a year, which is amazing. This might have been a lot of money back then, but it had readers in Europe, in the Caribbean. So I just, I just think that it was, you know, it to me, it was brilliant and amazing to know that someone was able to publish such a newspaper during a time where publishing something like that could get you, could get you killed, and Frederick Douglass was able to do it. Devin: And Anna Douglas plays a massive role in all of this, because it's really her keeping of the home keeping of the five children that they end up having in Rochester and everything else kind of in operation while he Frederick is on the road. So Anna Douglas doesn't really get the amount of credit that she really deserves, and being able to enable Frederick Douglass to become this great orator, this great publisher and this great author, without her, probably none of that would have happened. And as we saw before, really, without her financial backing, he may not have ever even been able to leave Baltimore or enslavement. Lauren: yeah, and not only just keeping the home for her husband and her children, but we know that he was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, very active while he was in Rochester, and while he was absent on all of these speaking tours, the freedom seekers didn't stop coming. So she would have still been responsible and a large part of helping African Americans seeking freedom in arranging for them to stay either at their house or other houses that were part of the anti slavery movement, feeding them, finding them enough money so that they could get to Canada. She would have been very important in all of those details of the Underground Railroad, since he was gone for so long, he also traveled to Saratoga County. He actually came and spoke in June of 1849 and we know about his experiences here in Saratoga County because he wrote about it in one of the issues of the North Star. And this is, you know, a part of what he talks about. He actually speaks three times. The first time he speaks in Schuylerville, he gives a lecture at a schoolhouse near Dean's corners, which is a small hamlet within the town of Saratoga. And finally, on the third day, he speaks at the Friends Meeting House in Quaker springs, which is also in the town of Saratoga. He talks about how the crowd was largely made up of Quakers, the Quaker community in Saratoga County. We think that he came to Saratoga County because of some family connections through the Quaker community. That's how he knew that he could come here and be welcomed by the Quaker community and have an audience. Because he also, you know, in the same article where he's talking about some of the other places that he went, he says, you know, some of those meetings were not successful in Saratoga, he really felt like his influence could help the anti slavery cause. He actually says, quote, I had a quiet and undisturbed meeting and circulated a number of my narratives which may pave the way for anti slavery effort in that place, unquote so he, you know, he's making these tours and speaking so that he can further the cause of anti slavery. Frederick Douglass spent 25 years of his life in the city of Rochester. He does eventually leave and he moves down to Washington, DC. Rochester was his home. It wasn't without tensions, and he did experience prejudice there as well. While he had moved down to DC, actually, his one of his homes in Rochester caught on fire and burned to the ground while his daughter and son in law were living inside. They did live through it, but he felt very bitter about that. But he always considered Rochester his home, so much so that even after dying in Washington, DC, his remains were brought back. His funeral held in Rochester, he was given a lot of honors, and he chose to be buried there. His influence over the city continues today in the ways that they choose to honor his memory and his activism, and even Currently, there are projects underway that make sure that Frederick Douglass is remembered in Rochester. Devin: One of those projects was the purchase of several Frederick Douglas statues by the city of Rochester that were erected originally in 2018. Hon. Malik D. Evans: So first off, let me tell you was, is this, this has been a very popular move that we did. So what happened was, these statues in 2018 were meant to be outside for, like, a year. Okay, they were so popular we kept them out there longer, but they were, they weren't designed to be out there that long, so they got very weathered, and they were going to be decommissioned and put into storage. And I said, Oh, no, we can't do that. So we found a way for the city to acquire those, get them all restored, and then, and then I made the mistake of saying, we'll talk to community organizations and see who wants them. Well, wow, overwhelmingly, everyone wants them. So we have to have we came up with a process to see where we could put these restored statues. And in fact, just a week ago, we unveiled one at the Hall of Justice in the atrium. So anybody going to the courthouse, they will see this statue and it will have some information on Frederick Douglass. So we thought that this was very important to have these statues live, live on, because they are an opportunity for it to be a teaching tool for future generations who may not be familiar with Frederick Douglass, to say who is this person and why is he important, not only just in Rochester history, but in American history. Devin: So just circling back to the statue that's in it's an aqueduct Park, the one by the Talman building. And the Talman building is still there, and it's still is there, like businesses in there, believe it or not, there is a printing business that's there. Hon. Malik D. Evans: Ah, there's, there's a printing business there and there, and a couple of other business that are rip businesses that are there. But that are there. But that building is extremely significant. We want to make sure that we preserve it, because it's been there. If you go in that building, there's a plat that talks about how it was Frederick Douglass, how he printed the newspaper there. So he printed there and there, and there's also an old church where he also printed some of some of the other things that were there. So I mean, I think it's so very, very important. I think one of the things that troubles me sometimes is that I think if you if you don't learn you know, sounds cliche, but if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. And that's true. I mean, when you look through the when you want to know an answer to something, go back and look at the historical record. You know, I'm a preacher's kid, and you know, the book of Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. And to make it even more non religious, Mark Twain said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, right? And so if, when we're wrestling or dealing with something, go back and look at how people dealt with it before. This isn't, you know, a lot of the stuff that we're seeing is not new. The year might be new, the conversations might be new. But there was some times over some historical period, either in American history or world history, which you know it was Ian. You can go back and look and see how people dealt with it. So that's why it's important for number one, to make sure that people work to learn history in an authentic way, but also that we don't minimize history, that it's not relegated to something that's not important. And that happens a lot. You know, you're often here. I always get upset when I hear people say, oh, you know, I'm minored in history in college. People say, Oh, what are you gonna do with that? It's like, well, there's a lot you can do with it. Of all of our greatest rewards, history is our greatest teacher. It's, it's, it's extremely important for that we that we make sure we honor, that we invest in our museums, that we visit, museums that we read, that we look to see what what history said. I mean, I'm always going back to look, to say, Okay, what happened here. So I think that that is very important for us to make sure that we are engaging in history in our everyday lives, is extremely important. I mean, could you imagine if we didn't know about Frederick Douglass? How many people has he inspired that we don't even know? You know, I learned the other day, for example, that that he used the shackles that used to hold him when he was in bondage, and he melted them down and made him into weights that he used to to exercise. I mean, I never knew that, but I heard that. I heard that the other day. So every day, there's something new that you learn about Frederick Douglass. 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 David Hopper. Lauren: A big thanks to city of Rochester Mayor Malik Evans for taking part. If you enjoyed this month's episode, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share on social media to learn more about our guests and the show. Check us out at W, A, M, C, podcast.org We're also on x and Instagram as @NYHistory Minute, Devin & Lauren: I'm Devin Lander and I'm Lauren Roberts, until next time, Excelsior.

Patriot Burial Markers: Ormsbee Cemetery and the First Rhode Island Regiment

Our new season kicks off with an episode that highlights the war experiences of the legendary  Rhode Island Regiment, a multiracial combat regiment that served through the entirety of the American Revolution, from the Siege of Boston to the disbanding of the Continental Army in 1783. The regiment saw action at the battles of Red Bank and Rhode Island before being transferred to New York’s Hudson Valley where they took part in the battle of Pines Bridge and an unsuccessful attempt to seize Fort Ontario in 1783. They mustered out of Saratoga later that year. The episode also tells the story of Isaac Ormsbee, a white private in the Rhode Island Regiment who took part in the Oswego Expedition and mustered out at Saratoga. He would later return to Saratoga on foot, walking from Rhode Island to the Town of Greenfield, to purchase land there. Descendants of Isaac Ormsbee still live on that land today. Markers of Focus: Patriot Burials: Ormsbee Cemetery, Saratoga County. Interviewees: Dr. Shirley L. Green, author of Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence and Eric Schnitzer, Park Ranger and Military Historian at the Saratoga National Historical Park. 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 David Hopper. Our executive producer is Tina Renick.  Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby. Photo courtesy of Saratoga County Historian. Further Reading: The New York State 250th Commemorative Field Guide—Office of State History and the Association of Public Historians of NYS. Shirley L. Green, Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence (2023) Gary B. Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution (2006) Robert Geake, From Slaves to Soldiers: The 1st Rhode Island Regiment in the American Revolution (2010) Teaching Resources: National History Day: “Promises Made, Promises Broken: The Rhode Island First Regiment and The Struggle for Liberty” Battle of Rhode Island Association: Resources New York State 250th Commemoration Commission: Educator Resources Consider the Source New York: American Revolution Follow Along: 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 focusing on a marker in Saratoga County. It's located at 299 Ormsbee Road in the town of Greenfield, and the text reads, Patriot burials, Ormsbee cemetery, revolutionary war veterans, Ambrose Cole and Isaac Ormsbee interred here circa 1828 to 1848 both served in Rhode Island as privates. William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2023. Now this marker is part of Pomeroy’s partner program called The Patriot Burial Markers. They do this in conjunction with the Sons of the American Revolution, and this allows people to mark cemeteries that have patriots from the American Revolution buried in them. I think this program is a good way to include a lot of different communities that might not have maybe a specific battle in their backyard or a historic site directly tied to the revolution, but so many of the veterans that fought in the American Revolution moved to other places after the war and settled in small, rural towns, and so these small family cemeteries often hold a lot of really interesting stories, and the Patriot Burial Marker Program gives you a chance to mark these unmarked cemeteries, and it also gives you a chance to delve into some of these individual stories of the veterans that are buried there. Now the Patriot burial marker program has a few requirements. The cemetery can't be already marked as having Patriot burials in it. So, if you already have that marker, it would disqualify you from this program. If you don't, this is a great way to mark a cemetery and to have communities included in the upcoming 250th commemoration of the American Revolution. Now this marker in particular is in front of Ormsee cemetery. It's a small family cemetery, and there are two patriots called out, Isaac Ormsbee and Ambrose Cole. And Isaac Ormsbee is the one that we're going to be talking about today. Not to leave out Ambrose Cole, but his military record is a little more sparse. We know a little bit less about him and his story in the revolution. We know that he was from Barrington, Rhode Island, and he did come to the town of Greenfield in Saratoga and settle alongside of Isaac Ormsbee. But Isaac has a really interesting story. Isaac Ormsbee enlisted in January of 1781, for three years of service. So, he enlists towards the end of the war, he is with the Rhode Island Regiment. They’re present at Yorktown for the defeat of Cornwallis. And then after that, he is in the Hudson Highlands, and then the Rhode Island regiment comes to Saratoga in 1782 and 1783. But one of the really interesting parts of his story is that after the revolution, he walks from Rhode Island back to Saratoga to find farmland, and then moves here in the 1790s and he leaves behind a diary that describes exactly the route he took on foot, walking from Barrington to Greenfield, covering 20 to 30 miles a day. He talks about all of the different places that they stop along the way. He even describes stopping in Ballston Spa, which was then Ballston Springs, and tasting the mineral water. He comments on the taste of the water, before he makes it up to Greenfield, where he purchases a farm that's part of the Kayaderosseras Patent. And then walks back to Rhode Island, where he collects his family and his things, and they move to the town of Greenfield. And of course, we think that he was familiar with Saratoga, because he was stationed there at Saratoga, which was actually in what we now call the town of Stillwater. And then his family continues to live in the town of Greenfield. In fact, the people that own the farmhouse are still descendants of the Ormsbee family, and the person whose property the cemetery is on, he's also a descendant of the Ormsbee family. So they have a long history, from right after the revolution all the way through until present day, where they settled. Obviously, the road, Ormsbee road is named after the family. They continued to farm there for quite a long time, and part of the original farmhouse is still located there. As part of the Patriot Burial Marker Program, we had a ceremony at the Ormsbee cemetery to unveil the marker. We were joined by the family, Mark Young, who was so gracious in helping us to erect the sign. And he cares for the cemetery itself. And one really interesting thing, one of the other descendants, Cy Young, actually has in his possession the spy glass that was used by Isaac Ormsbee when he was serving in the American Revolution, and he brought it out for us to see. Clifford (Cy) Young, direct descendent of Isaac Ormsbee, showing Isaac’s spy glass to Tim Mabee of the Saratoga Battle Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. Photo courtesy of Saratoga County Historian. And Devin, you know that we have been working together on a regional working group for the 250th, so we have lots of the New England states and New York, and we meet pretty often and talk about all the different things that we're doing for the 250th.   And through that group, I met Lauren Fogarty, who is the program coordinator for Rhode Island 250 and she was gracious enough to arrange for Secretary of State Greg Moore, to send a citation from the state of Rhode Island, thanking us for honoring these Rhode Island veterans. And it was really great. We read it at the ceremony at the Ormsbee cemetery. It's been a really interesting journey to find out about this. And I don't know about you, but when I'm researching about the revolution, there's so many different things you can delve into, but it's when you see these personal stories, it's the individuals that make up the Continental Army that really make it interesting to learn more about. And it's great when we have a program like Patriot Burials, where we can mark these patriots. Devin: I think this is incredibly interesting. And you know, not only the story of Ormsbee himself, which is fascinating, but once we delve into the history of the regiment that he was part of which is mentioned, you know that he was from Rhode Island along with the other veteran, but the regiment that he was part of is actually quite famous. It's known most regularly as the First Rhode Island Regiment, although it went through different iterations when it's formed and it was formed as a multiracial unit at the beginning of its formation in 1775.  Not segregated. These soldiers were all together in fighting and combat and marching and everything together, whether they were white, whether they were African American, or whether they were Native American, and they could be free born or otherwise. To learn more about the Rhode Island Regiment itself, we spoke with Dr Shirley L. Green, who recently published a book on the regiment told through the story of her own family and her own ancestors, the Frank brothers, who served in the Rhode Island Regiment and were free born African Americans. Shirley L. Green: I'm Shirley Green. I was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. I was a police officer for 26 years for the local police agency, the Toledo police department. I eventually obtained the rank of Lieutenant on that department; I was the first female lieutenant in the history of PPD. After my retirement, I attended graduate school at the University of Toledo and then Bowling Green University, and I got my PhD in history at Bowling Green State University. And currently, I serve as an adjunct professor of history at the University of Toledo and at Bowling Green State University, and I am also the Director of the Toledo police Museum. Devin: That's great. What a career you've had two it's been a long one, two or three careers. That's great. So, let's talk a little bit about how you came to this idea of writing this book and telling a portion of your family history through the Frank brothers and how this whole idea come about. Shirley L. Green: So, I was always curious about my maternal grandfather. He was quite elderly when I was growing up, and he lived in Massachusetts with his family. I hit my grandmother, and that is where my mother was born and raised, in a town called Lynn, Massachusetts, and we used to visit for most of the summers, we would go visit him, and he had a Canadian flag displayed in the dining room. And I asked him about the flag, and he said, Well, that's where I'm from. I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada. And I was always curious as to how a black family came to be in Nova Scotia Canada, and that always sat at the back of my mind. So, I was an undergraduate African American class at the University of Toledo. It was being taught by Dr Nikki Taylor, who I believe now teaches at Howard University. But anyway, she was talking about the first great wave of emancipation after the American Revolution. And she started to talk about a group of people known as Black loyalists. And she said many of them, not all, but many of them would eventually leave the United States, the new United States, and eventually migrate to Nova Scotia. And as soon as she said that, my head popped up. I stopped taking notes. And after class, I went up and talked to her about it, and she asked me if my grandfather was a descendant of one of the black loyalists. I said, I don't know. So, I went home, and I started to question my mother's family members, and eventually I talked to the oldest surviving member of her family, my uncle Ben Franklin, and he told me this story. He said that there were two brothers with the last name of Frank who fought with the black regiment out of Rhode Island for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, both brothers started in the spring of 1777, and at this point, Rhode Island was required to provide two infantry regiments for the Continental Army service, and they were the first and second Rhode Island regiments. The Frank brothers enlisted into the second Rhode Island regiment, which was an integrated battalion, and that battalion regiment was composed of white, black or Native American soldiers, and they had white command officers. And for the Frank brothers, they were receiving the same amount of pay as their white counterparts. When they did receive it, they got the same equipment, they got the same assignments, so they were getting that equality that they had signed up for. But those continental soldiers, especially the first year of their service, were living very tough and rough lives. As I said, the pay was very sporadic due to the limited treasury of the new federal government and the state governments. When they were paid, they got right around $7 a month, which I don't know what that extrapolates out to, in current terms, right around $200 a month. I believe. They were issued muskets and bayonets. Their issue clothing consisted of hunting shirts or smocks, smocks that were big enough to cover up all the rest of their equipment. Their shoes were always in short supply. I know we hear the story about shoeless continental soldiers, but their shoes were always in short supply in the summer. Sometimes they would go barefoot in the winter. Sometimes they would have to wrap their feet. There is a diary entry from one of the doctors at Valley Forge who said All he had to do was follow the bloody footprints into the winter encampment. It was so bad for them, and they also had to deal with diseases, diseases that ran rampant through those camps. There was smallpox epidemic during the Revolutionary War, which led to General Washington inoculating the troops to make sure that they didn't die from smallpox. So that's how tough it was for the brothers that first year. At the beginning of the war, when General Washington took command of the Continental Army, he basically gave his recruiting and enlisting officers the mandate to not enlist black or black soldiers, and he was concerned about continuing support from the south for the war effort, and he did not wish to to arm black men to serve in the common army, and that's whether they were formally enslaved or where they were free born, like the Frank brothers. Um, his hand was pushed. He decided to change his policy when the royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation in November of 1770 I'm going to get this date wrong, so I won't say it, but Lord Dunmore, it's, I want to say 1775 but I don't think that's it. Um, anyway, he proclaimed a proclamation, and it basically stipulated to enslave black and Native American men, that if they came to the British side, that they would gain their freedom if they were willing to fight for the Brits, and around 2000 if that number is correct. It's pretty tough to determine how many fugitive slaves ran to the British side, but a great number of them did do so, and he was able to start his own black regiment called the Ethiopian regiment. He trained them, he gave them uniforms, and they did fight in a couple of battles for the British side. So, when that happened, George Washington had to react to that, and he also was reacting to some pleas and appeals from black leadership in the in the Revolutionary era America and some of his own command officers who wanted to allow the enlistment of veterans who had already fought in the militia, to allow them to serve an accountant army. So, in January of 1776 he revised his policy and allowed free veteran soldiers to enlist an accountant army. Then in January of 1777 he changed his policy once again to allow all free black men to enlist, and that's what allowed the Frank brothers to enlist in the spring of 1777. So, Washington was against arming enslaved people and but because of the circumstances at Valley Forge, general Varnum and other Rhode Islanders were able to convince them that they could go back to their home state and enlist a battalion of slaves. And Washington agreed. The Rhode Island General Assembly agreed as well, and they allowed couple of their a few of their command officers to leave the Valley Forge encampment to go back to the state of Rhode Island and enlist a battalion of slaves. So at this point in time, you have the first and second Rhode Island regiments that are decimated at Valley Forge. Now you have this great influx of formerly enslaved men who are now going to be trained and serving with the Continentals as part of the Rhode Island regiments. And for some reason or another, and I can't find any written policy that states it, but for some reason, I believe that this is the first case of sanctioned segregation in American military history. Because what happened was the new recruits were combined with over 70 documented veteran, black and Native American soldiers from both the first and the second Rhode Island regiments, and they were all transferred to the newly configured first Rhode Island regiment, and that would become known as the Black regiment. So now you have all of the white soldiers that were initially serving in the first Rhode Island regiment. They all were transferred to the second Rhode Island regiment, and the any black soldiers, or Native American soldiers, like the Frank brothers who were serving in the second Rhode Island regiment were all transferred to the first Rhode Island regiment. So, you have these segregated forces now in the Rhode Island Continentals and they also had white command officers, Ian. What is really interesting about what happens with the Rhode Island regiments. They started when, when the Franks is enlisted in the spring of 1777, they started with these two infantry regiments that were integrated. You had white soldiers, black soldiers, Native American soldiers, all serving together. Then you have Valley Forge. You have the slave enlistment act. There's a segregation of the regiments. And by February of 1781, they have lost more often, more soldiers, I shouldn't say officers, more soldiers, during this period of time. And they just finally decided that the best thing, the deal, the best way to deal with this, this lack of manpower, was just to consolidate the first and second Rhode Island regiments. So, they became the first and second Rhode Island consolidated regiment, and it was now being led by the original commander of the black regiment, a guy by name of Christopher Green. And in the spring, the first and second consolidated led by Colonel green. They were in camp in Westchester County, New York, near pines bridge, and their primary responsibility was to guard the continental lines and but in Westchester County, there was almost a daily confrontation between loyalists and patriots, and that area was known to have a lot of guerrilla warfare that was being carried out by a loyalist group that was led by a colonel by the name of James Delancey. The group was known as Delancey’s core of refugees, and they were composed of American born soldiers who were living in Westchester County and had chosen to remain loyal to the British cause. And at sunrise on Monday May the 14th, 1781, Delancey led his loyalist militia group towards Pines Bridge, and one group would attack the guards at Pines bridge, and another group would attack the headquarters of Colonel Green, which was located at a place called Davenport House near Pines Bridge, and that is where the most brutal fighting occurred at the Davenport House. There, Colonel Green in a small detachment of soldiers from the first and second Rhode Island. They were ambushed there, the major who was in the headquarters sleeping with in the same room as Colonel Green, he was awoken he was shot in the head while he was reaching for his pistols to fend off the attack. Um excuse me, Colonel Green was wounded in the initial attack, and what they did they attached his wounded and dying body, they strapped it to a horse and dragged him about a mile away from the Davenport House. Alright, they eventually left Colonel Green's body at the side of a road, and of course, it was later buried along with Major Flagg at a cemetery in Westchester County. There is a monument there that commemorates that battle. It is located in Yorktown Heights, New York and Westchester County. Pines Bridge Monument is probably the first Revolutionary War Memorial that depicts a white American and that is Colonel Green, an African American member of the original black regiment and a Native American all fighting together. There's three statues on top of this monument. It's an amazing monument. So, if any of your listeners are in that area, they really should go to Yorktown Heights and take a look at that monument. It is an amazing piece of work. Lauren: We noted earlier that Isaac Ormsbee enlisted in January of 1781, so he would have been present with the regiment in May of 1781, at the Battle of Pines Bridge. Verger, Jean Baptiste Antoine De, Artist. Soldiers in Uniform. United States of America Rhode Island, 1781. [Williamsburg, Virginia: publisher not identified, to 1784] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669876/. Everyone knows what happened in Saratoga in 1777 when Burgoyne surrendered to the American troops there known as the turning point of the American Revolution. But after that date, Saratoga kind of takes a back seat to other main players during the revolution. So, we may be wondering, why would the Rhode Island regiment be sent to Saratoga in 1782 much later in the war after Yorktown has already happened. In order to learn more about why the regiment was sent there, we spoke with park ranger and military historian Eric Schnitzer from Saratoga National Historical Park. Eric Schnitzer: My name is Eric Schnitzer, I am the park ranger military historian at Saratoga National Historical Park. i.e. Saratoga battlefield. I've been at the park since 1997 and I've learned a lot over that time. As you can imagine, for decades being in this wonderful place, I've always had an obsession with the military events of the Revolutionary War. Ever since I was an elementary schooler and learned about the subject in fourth grade, and then my interest was further spurred when in seventh grade, I learned from a great teacher the broader story. And since then, of course, read and wrote and worked as a park ranger to continue all of that. So certainly, General Burgoyne’s British Army, invading New York from Canada, surrendered in October of 1777, at Saratoga. When we say at Saratoga in an 18th century context, we are typically referring to what is now known as the village of Schuylerville. So, when Burgoyne’s army surrendered there in Saratoga, i.e. Schuylerville in 1777. No longer would you have massive invading armies coming out of Canada trying to quell the unnatural rebellion of these revolutionary Americans. You know, from the north, it wouldn't happen again. The British had learned their lesson the hard way with the surrender of the first ever British Army in World History, General Burgoyne’s Surrender at Saratoga. Now the British forces would never strike directly at Saratoga. They didn't do so because Saratoga was really kind of the hub, the strongest hub, that the Continental Army held north of Albany. It had been Saratoga garrisoned by Continental troops since the very beginning of the war in 1775 and would be throughout the remainder of the war, through December of 1783 there was always a Continental Army presence in Saratoga. But even after we're going surrender, Saratoga was the northern most permanent outpost of continental troops. And so, you always had a presence there. I'm not saying you had 3000 troops there at any time, but you would always have a cadre of Continental Army forces. They would have a barracks there, block houses, of course, a supply depot, at times, the commander of the Northern department of the Continental Army, let's say John Stark, later in the war, his space of operations was in Saratoga. So, Saratoga was a stalwart northern most defense for the Continental Army operations. Lauren: So then, why was it, if there was always a presence there…What happened in 1782 that had the Rhode Island regiment moving up to Saratoga? Eric Schnitzer. When they were ordered to go to Saratoga in October of 1782 when they actually got there, in November of 1782 that regiment had been present with the main army for a couple of years already, and so now it was time for them to replace another regiment that had been doing the duty. So, it was just part of the cyclical deployment operations of the Continental Army, and it happened to be that the Rhode Island Regiment was the regiment selected. There is no known reason why the Rhode Island Regiment was chosen, as opposed to some other unit. There's no known documentation or thoughts written down by anybody that informs us why that regiment was chosen as opposed to another. Lauren: So, the Rhode Island Regiment is pretty famous for being an integrated regiment. I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about what those demographics looked like while they were at Saratoga Eric Schnitzer: The Rhode Island regiments of which there were two, formed in 1777 late 76 early 1777 were racially integrated. But then in starting in 1778 Rhode Island decided that they were going to actually segregate their two regiments. The first regiment would be black only insofar as the enlisted personnel. You'd have white officers, commissioned officers, but black men would be in the ranks. And then the second regiment was racially integrated, and it didn't work. It did not work. And so, by 1781 at the part of 1781 Rhode Island decided that what they needed to do was combine their two regiments into one, and that's where we get the Rhode Island regiment. When the regiment arrived in November of 82 at Saratoga. It effectively was organized like this. It consisted of six subdivisions or companies. Of these, four of the companies were white companies. One of the companies was a black company, and the sixth company was racially integrated. So, it was uniquely that no other regiment did this in the whole war. It was uniquely interest segregated, but it had an integrated company within the interest segregation of the unit. Very strange. Now you asked about numbers. If we look at the percentage of non-whites in the Rhode Island regiment at this time, it was about 20% which is pretty substantial. Most regiments, and it varied regiment to regiment, of course, and it differed during the course of the war, etc. But the best we can we can view when it comes like to racial integration in the Continental Army broadly throughout the whole course of the war, you're looking at an average of somewhere between five and 8% of any regiment at any given time, on average, was nonwhite, and in this case, it's almost 20%. Devin: One of the things we do as historians is attempt to uncover new information and new resources about the past that will lead to new discoveries and new interpretations of past events. This discovery and reinterpretation of the past is specifically true with relation to the Rhode Island Regiment itself, which was thought to have been involved at the Battle of Normanskill, but as Eric Schnitzer tells us, that could not be true. Eric Schnitzer: The Battle of Normanskill. So, I think we all know that there is within the town of Guilderland a wonderful blue and gold marker, a sign there, and it tells us that there was this battle of Norman skill, fought in August of 1777 and it involved the suppression of a Tory rising, which is true, and that it involved Schenectady militia, which is true. And I think it says 40 Rhode Island troops. Now, when I became aware of this sign years ago. I thought to myself, knowing how, in 1777 especially how the army was organized, where the various regiments were and everything, I thought there were no Rhode Island troops anywhere even close to Albany or the Normans kill or anything like that. So, there's no way that just couldn't be I looked into it in deep, did a deep dive in the military, you know, deployments and everything. And, of course, the two Rhode Island regiments, because we have to remember, there were two. They were downstate in the, you know, the Peekskill area. They were way down there. And it wouldn't be long before they would be ordered to join George Washington's army in, you know, to try to defend Philadelphia, ultimately. So, the regiments were down in Peekskill. There's no question about it. There was no detachment you can and the idea that you would have a detachment go from one department, i.e. the Hudson Highlands department, and traverse the boundary of the Northern department without the orders of the commander in chief to put down a dozen, you know, loyalists, is crazy. It's not a thing. And so, I looked into the primary source material, and it's very clear that the 40 Rhode Islanders were, in fact, 40 Massachusetts Continental Army soldiers. What had happened was the Schenectady County committee was informed of this gathering, and so what they wanted to do was form a body of Schenectady militia to put them down, but they didn't know if that would be enough, because reports were like they were in the hundreds. And so, we got to match their numbers. And so, the committee requested that the Continental Army Detachment in Schenectady augment their numbers for this little expedition, and so they called upon the senior Continental Army officer located in Schenectady at the time, a captain by the name of Abraham Childs. Now Abraham Childs was one of the eight captains commanding one of the eight companies of what was called Colonel James Wesson’s later known as the ninth Massachusetts Regiment. That regiment had its subdivisions, its companies, strewn throughout the Mohawk Valley at the time. This is in advance of the battles of Saratoga, when the regiment was consolidated and went up to ultimately fight in the battles of Saratoga, which it did. Child's company was in Schenectady. He was requested by the committee to have you know himself, lead a detachment of his company and helped quell this rising in what became the Battle of Normanskill. It's really an over glorified skirmish. Lauren: While at Saratoga, even though it was towards the tail end of the war, the Rhode Island Regiment was ordered to take part in the ill-fated Oswego expedition. Eric Schnitzer: So, in the beginning of 1783, I mean, the last year of the war. You know, things are expectedly winding down. You don't have the declaration of secession of arms yet, but that'll be a few months off. It came to the mind of Marinus Willett that we should mount an expedition against Fort Oswego. Fort Oswego in Oswego, New York, right at the outlet of Oswego, the river there into Lake Ontario. And the idea was that, well, there was a British base of operations there, and we ought to attack them in the winter when they least expect it, because it worked at Trenton. So, let's do it here in upstate New York. In 1783, they never made it. Their guides got them lost, and the snows, deep snows, freezing temperatures, they ran out of food. All of these things hampered their progress to the degree that Marinus will it ordered the troops to be returned back. But it didn't end there, because, obviously, the regiment was based in Saratoga in the winter of 82-83 but then they were also based in Saratoga at the end of 83 when you have the beginning of the winter of 83-84, well, this is when things were winding down. The war was winding down. Half the regiment had been discharged in June, and so the cadre of somewhere around 150 plus soldiers left behind, officers and soldiers left behind in Saratoga were really left out on a limb by the state of Rhode Island for the rest of the year. The Congress and the state of Rhode Island barely even noticed them because, you know, it's the end of the war. Well, you know, the war is going to wind down. They'll be discharged soon. Why should we spend money to send them blankets or shoes, even though they don't have any many blankets, and many of them are already barefoot because they've run through their shoes, because their shoes are made of leather. And those things don't last long, you know? And so, you had many, many soldiers at Saratoga suffering freezing conditions barefoot in December of 1783, because the state and the Continental Congress just wasn't supplying them. I gotta say, this is a running theme that you have throughout the whole war, from beginning to end, Congress and the states or colonies before them not readily or appropriately supplying the regiments under their auspices. This is a running theme. So, this is not like the Rhode Island regiment was targeted. And if I may also add, this was not a black and white issue, so to speak. This the you had white men and black men suffering at Saratoga because they had to reorganize themselves, because now you've just half the regiments gone. So, we gotta consolidate the regiment into a more manageable establishment. So, they decided to organize for the second half. The latter half of 1783, the Rhode Island regiment consisted of two companies, not six. They went from six to two companies, and those two companies, one was a white company. The other was a racially integrated company. And so, you had black men and white men still there, but the proportion was actually still of black men, and let's say nonwhite men, because it wasn't just black men. You also had some indigenous people of indigenous descent that were in the ranks of the Rhode Island regiment and other regiments too, not just the Rhode Island regiment, but regiments in New York, New York, New England and broadly other states also included indigenous people and their descendants as well. And it approached 25% in December of 1783 nearly a quarter of the Rhode Island regiment that was remaining in Saratoga were nonwhites, which is, I think if I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong. I don't think I am. I think it's the highest percentage seen by any singular Continental Army formation in the entire Revolutionary War. Insofar as racial composition. Lauren: Now Dr. Green mentioned that her research into the Frank brothers all started with her grandfather's Canadian flag. Let's find out the rest of that story. Devin: What about Ben Frank and maybe, maybe this will bring us back to your grandfather's Canadian flag. But what happened to Ben Frank, you made the connection. Shirley L. Green: So, Ben's story is, it's wow…it's an adventure tale, I think, and as we were trying to make the connection between the Canadian Franklin family and Ben Frank, it got to be very, very difficult. But there was a curator at a Nova Scotian museum who brought to our attention the muster role from a black loyalist who had migrated to Birchtown, Nova Scotia after the end of the war. And they indicated that there was this one gentleman on one of the list who was the same age that Ben Frank would have been at that period in time. But this gentleman's name was Frankham, not Frank. Now Ben Frank, and all the records that I have where he would have been able to sign his name. No, he always marked with an X, so he was not literate enough to sign his name. So, if he is giving his name to an individual to write down, it might sound different than Frank. It may sound like Frank on, or he may have purposely said that his name was Frankham there is at the end of the war, Ben Frank winds up, I believe Ben Frank winds up in New York, with the rest of the loyalist as they're waiting to understand the outcome of the Paris Peace Treaty talks. What is going to happen to all these individuals I mentioned earlier about Dunmore’s Proclamation, many enslaved blacks ran to the British lines because of that, including women and children, to gain their freedom at the end of the war, British officials in New York stipulated to General Washington that we are going to hold on to our promise to these individuals since they came to our side during the war, up to a certain time period, we are going to grant them their freedom. We will, however, compensate their former slave holder for their losses. How are they going to do that? Well, General guy Carlton, who was in charge of the British forces in New York, planning the evacuation of these loyalists, came up with an idea of compiling an inventory of the blacks who were behind British lines by a certain time period. And that book became known as The Book of Negroes. There has been a mini-series on CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Company a few years ago based on a novel by Lawrence Hill. It was originally titled The Book of Negroes. But what all the blacks who were behind British lines had to do was present themselves to a commission that was formed by General Carlton and explain to who. To this commission, who they were, who that their former owner was, or if they were already free. And Ben Frank I believe, is listed in the Book of Negroes. And this is where the curator from the Nova Scotia Museum was pointing us to, I believe that he is listed in the Book of Negroes as Ben Frankham. So, he gets on a ship with other loyalists, and black loyalists included, and they sail out of New York up to Nova Scotia, Canada. Ben Frank spends been, excuse me, Ben Frankham serves a period or stays a period of time at the black settlement of birch town, which is in the southern part of Nova Scotia. Birchtown at that point in time, became the largest free black settlement in the Americas. Ben spent a little bit of time there, and then he eventually migrated to the Annapolis region of Nova Scotia. It's on the western side of the peninsula across the Bay of Fundy from Maine, and he remarried. He remarried in to the family of another black loyalist, and he started to have children. He is easier to trace in Nova Scotia because of the record keeping for the loyalist cause, because loyalists and black loyalists were always petitioning the government for their land. This promise of land comes back into play, and black loyalists were constantly petitioning to get their fair share of land, which, for the most part, they did not receive. And because of that, about two thirds of them would leave Nova Scotia and settle in Sierra Leone and start the black settlement there in Freetown in Sierra Leone. Ben Frank wasn't one of them, and at this point in time, when he is among these other black loyalists who are petitioning for land, his name has changed again. He has now been Franklin, and that name stuck. And when we initially went to my grandfather's hometown, the Annapolis Historic Society has multiple binders of the genealogy of black loyalists that lived in that particular region. And when I initially the first research trip that I made up there, I was presented with the binder that had the Franklin family in there, and I found my grandfather's name towards the bottom of the list the family tree, and then pushed all the way back up, and the first name at the top of the Franklin genealogy page was Ben Franklin. So that is the connection that goes back to my grandfather having Canadian flag in his dining room. Devin: One of the joys in speaking with Dr Shirley Green was the fact that, as she mentioned, she was a retired police lieutenant, on top of being a PhD in history, and as a historian, I've long heard and been told by teachers over the years that history is a lot like detective work. We're detectives of the past. So, I couldn't let this opportunity pass without asking Dr Green what she thought about historians being similar to detectives. Shirley L. Green: Yeah, yeah, I believe it did. You have to be persistent, right? And you have to be open minded and willing to look at all of the evidence that's out there to close a case, right, or to make a case that's going to be proven in court. So, you know, for my dissertation, it's, you know, the case I have to prove to the dissertation committee, and have to be able to articulate, articulate what your argument is and what your findings, what the results were of that investigation. So definitely, I think I looked, I took those skills that I learned as a supervisor of investigations and what I expected from the investigators that were assigned to me, what I expected them to do and show in their own investigative work. So, I looked at the research like that. It's, you know, solving a mystery. 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 David Hopper, a big thanks to Dr Shirley Green and Eric Schnitzer for taking part. If you enjoyed this month's episode, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share on social media 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 and Lauren: I'm Devin Lander and I'm Lauren Roberts until next time…Excelsior!