Read Online Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City by Carla L. Peterson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carla L. Peterson
Ads: Link
of unprecedented growth. Its population doubled from 31,131 in 1790 to 60,529 in 1800. Economic activity boomed. The city rapidly expanded north. Most of Lower Manhattan from Broadway to the East River was owned by Trinity Church and six Knickerbocker families, Bayards, Stuyvesants, and others whose farms ranged between one hundred and three hundred acres. They had built their original homes, manufactures, and stores on this land, but they now began laying out and paving new streets, on which they constructed new and grander residences. They also divided their land into lots to sell, lease, or build rental properties—all at great profit. So began Manhattan’s first real estate bubble, which lasted until the Panic of 1837. 21
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, all three of Pierre Lorillard’s sons were active participants in this real estate frenzy. They acquired property in the areas where their manufactures were located, Jacob in the Swamp on Ferry and Gold Streets, Peter and George on Chatham Street near their tobacco manufacture. But they also bought land on just about every street in Lower Manhattan, including Collect Street.
The Destruction of the Negroes Burial Ground
George Lorillard had sold or leased land on Collect Street to black New Yorkers. But he and his brothers had also taken from them. When black parishioners petitioned Trinity Church in April 1795 for help in buying a “burial place to bury black persons of every denomination and description whatever in this city whether bond or free,” it was because the Negroes Burial Ground was being sold from under them. As speculators in real estate, George Lorillard and his brother, Peter, were indirect participants in this destruction, buying a portion of the land that had once been part of it.
A court case,
Smith, ex dem. Teller, v. G. & P. Lorillard
, tells the following story. In January 1795, a group of men of solid Knickerbocker stock—Henry, John, and Samuel Kip, Abraham and Isaac Van Vleeck, Daniel Denniston, and the estate of the deceased Samuel Bayard (fromthe prominent sugar and tobacco family) obtained a deed of partition from the city of New York granting them permission to divide the Negroes Burial Ground into several lots. On today’s map, the property extended from Broadway to Centre Street, and from Chamber Street north to Duane Street. Originally, the land had been part of the city’s Commons, but in the mid-seventeenth century the government gave it to one Sara Roeleff for services rendered in negotiations with Native Americans upstate. At her death in 1693, Roeleff bequeathed the property to her several children; disputes among her heirs, executors of her will, and later descendants left the property largely unused. Most New Yorkers simply continued to think of it as part of the Commons, that is, as public land. But for New York’s black population, this was the place allotted to them to bury their dead. In the 1790s, the Roeleff heirs recognized the enhanced value of the ground, took control of it, and agreed to its partition. One year later, Peter and George Lorillard bought a piece of this land from Bayard’s estate for 560 pounds (although they were later obliged to return it to a Bayard heir in 1811). 22
As an early black institution, the Negroes Burial Ground antedated the founding of St. Philip’s by a century. For New York’s eighteenth-century black population, it was a hallowed place where they gathered to bury their dead and honor their memory. It was in use as far back as 1712, or perhaps even as early as 1697, when Trinity Church decided that blacks, whether free or enslaved, could no longer be buried in its cemetery. For much of the eighteenth century, the burial ground barely lay within the city limits. It was located between the palisade, which protected the city from attacks by French and Indians, and the Collect (Kalkhook) or Fresh Water Pond. Covering some seventy acres, Collect Pond was fringed by
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, all three of Pierre Lorillard’s sons were active participants in this real estate frenzy. They acquired property in the areas where their manufactures were located, Jacob in the Swamp on Ferry and Gold Streets, Peter and George on Chatham Street near their tobacco manufacture. But they also bought land on just about every street in Lower Manhattan, including Collect Street.
The Destruction of the Negroes Burial Ground
George Lorillard had sold or leased land on Collect Street to black New Yorkers. But he and his brothers had also taken from them. When black parishioners petitioned Trinity Church in April 1795 for help in buying a “burial place to bury black persons of every denomination and description whatever in this city whether bond or free,” it was because the Negroes Burial Ground was being sold from under them. As speculators in real estate, George Lorillard and his brother, Peter, were indirect participants in this destruction, buying a portion of the land that had once been part of it.
A court case,
Smith, ex dem. Teller, v. G. & P. Lorillard
, tells the following story. In January 1795, a group of men of solid Knickerbocker stock—Henry, John, and Samuel Kip, Abraham and Isaac Van Vleeck, Daniel Denniston, and the estate of the deceased Samuel Bayard (fromthe prominent sugar and tobacco family) obtained a deed of partition from the city of New York granting them permission to divide the Negroes Burial Ground into several lots. On today’s map, the property extended from Broadway to Centre Street, and from Chamber Street north to Duane Street. Originally, the land had been part of the city’s Commons, but in the mid-seventeenth century the government gave it to one Sara Roeleff for services rendered in negotiations with Native Americans upstate. At her death in 1693, Roeleff bequeathed the property to her several children; disputes among her heirs, executors of her will, and later descendants left the property largely unused. Most New Yorkers simply continued to think of it as part of the Commons, that is, as public land. But for New York’s black population, this was the place allotted to them to bury their dead. In the 1790s, the Roeleff heirs recognized the enhanced value of the ground, took control of it, and agreed to its partition. One year later, Peter and George Lorillard bought a piece of this land from Bayard’s estate for 560 pounds (although they were later obliged to return it to a Bayard heir in 1811). 22
As an early black institution, the Negroes Burial Ground antedated the founding of St. Philip’s by a century. For New York’s eighteenth-century black population, it was a hallowed place where they gathered to bury their dead and honor their memory. It was in use as far back as 1712, or perhaps even as early as 1697, when Trinity Church decided that blacks, whether free or enslaved, could no longer be buried in its cemetery. For much of the eighteenth century, the burial ground barely lay within the city limits. It was located between the palisade, which protected the city from attacks by French and Indians, and the Collect (Kalkhook) or Fresh Water Pond. Covering some seventy acres, Collect Pond was fringed by
Similar Books
