Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. So today, uh,
Speaker 1: we're going to cover another topic that has been on
Speaker 1: my list for a while. And it's you know, Tracy
Speaker 1: and I often talk about our lists and their length,
Speaker 1: and sometimes something will be on the list and you're
Speaker 1: really into it, but then as as you're working on
Speaker 1: other projects, other things kind of move around. It's a
Speaker 1: very shifting list for me anyway, Oh me too. Um.
Speaker 1: And then my memory was jogged about this particular topic
Speaker 1: by contemporary television, as is often the case, specifically the
Speaker 1: Apple TV Plus animated series Central Park. That show did
Speaker 1: not sponsor this episode, but it does include a song
Speaker 1: in its opening that very briefly mentions the people that
Speaker 1: lived in New York Central Park before it was Central Park,
Speaker 1: and it kind of makes it a joke that, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't talk about that. Um. This was a reference
Speaker 1: to Seneca Villege and that reminder of it put it
Speaker 1: back at the top of the list for me. And
Speaker 1: Seneca Village is significant because this story features a predominantly
Speaker 1: black community in New York that built itself from the
Speaker 1: ground up. But this story is also fragmented because even
Speaker 1: though it existed at a time when it could have
Speaker 1: been fairly well documented, there was a vested interest in
Speaker 1: erasing it. And we're going to talk about that. But
Speaker 1: first we will talk about the island of Manhattan and
Speaker 1: how this one area of it came to be sold
Speaker 1: off in lots and thus became Seneca Village. So if
Speaker 1: you're looking into the story, the story of Seneca Village
Speaker 1: often is told with the beginning being the selling of
Speaker 1: land by John and Elizabeth Whitehead, but that of course
Speaker 1: leaves out how the white Heads came into possession of
Speaker 1: that land. So first, what we really have to do
Speaker 1: is talk about Manhattan and how it went from being
Speaker 1: indigenous land to being the property of Europeans. Manhattan Island was,
Speaker 1: according to the version from the point of view of
Speaker 1: Western his Tree that you have probably heard many times before,
Speaker 1: purchased from indigenous tribes in the area by Peter Minuit,
Speaker 1: the first director of the New Netherlands Province, in sixty six,
Speaker 1: and the purchase price was, according to these accounts, and
Speaker 1: depending on the source you look at sixty guilders about
Speaker 1: the value of a pound and a half of silver
Speaker 1: at the time, or twenty four dollars sometimes, or you'll
Speaker 1: see it said that it was just a bunch of
Speaker 1: beads and trinkets. So this entire purchase, though, is a
Speaker 1: moment in history that's difficult to untangle. It's even harder
Speaker 1: to substantiate. For one, the primary source on that transaction
Speaker 1: is a letter written by Peter Shagan, who was the
Speaker 1: representative of the States General in the Assembly of the
Speaker 1: nineteen of the West India Company. This is a letter
Speaker 1: he wrote back to the West India Company and he stated, quote,
Speaker 1: they have purchased the island Manhattans from the Indians for
Speaker 1: the value of sixty guilders. But that is the entirety
Speaker 1: of the contemporary documentation. That alleged purchase has also been
Speaker 1: represented in various painted depictions, as the Dutch representative showing
Speaker 1: the Lenape leaders a trunk of various European items, ostensibly
Speaker 1: as goods that they were intending to trade for the land. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: not that those paintings are intended to be historically accurate accounts,
Speaker 1: But even if that were the case, it's just completely
Speaker 1: muddling what the actual situation was because these depictions unsurprisingly
Speaker 1: make out those indigenous leaders as foolish enough to trade
Speaker 1: their land for beads or something similarly worthless. Uh. This
Speaker 1: hearkens back to our prior episode that we did on
Speaker 1: Thomas Harriet, who wrote the influential book A Brief and
Speaker 1: True Report of the Newfoundland of Virginia, in which he
Speaker 1: characterized the indigenous population of North America as easily awed
Speaker 1: by Europeans and thus easy to manipulate. And if you
Speaker 1: recall that episode, that book was very popular lear in
Speaker 1: Europe and got republished a whole bunch of times and
Speaker 1: kind of became the foundation of how Europeans saw North
Speaker 1: American indigenous people's and that frequently cited number of twenty
Speaker 1: four dollars as the purchase price was literally just something
Speaker 1: that got calculated out as that story was written about
Speaker 1: in subsequent years, it was an estimate by historians that
Speaker 1: then started to be relayed as though it was fact. Plus,
Speaker 1: this whole story puts a lot of significance on one
Speaker 1: line in a letter. That one line is just casually
Speaker 1: reported with no nuance, and it was written by somebody
Speaker 1: with a minimal understanding of the indigenous people he was
Speaker 1: referring to. That understanding minimal at best. I mean, he
Speaker 1: really did not know a lot. It conveniently leaves out
Speaker 1: the probability that those people probably did not see the
Speaker 1: situation in the same way as the Dutch, who were
Speaker 1: seeing it as a business deal. The idea of land
Speaker 1: as property, as something you could own, was not even
Speaker 1: part of how their culture functioned. It's entirely possib but
Speaker 1: that the Lenape were seeing the goods being presented by
Speaker 1: Manuet as a gift or as an offering to garner
Speaker 1: permission to live on the same land as the Lenape
Speaker 1: people who were already living on Manhattan. Modern day Lenape
Speaker 1: people have stated that memorials in New York that reference
Speaker 1: the sale of Manhattan are perpetuating a fabricated myth. Um.
Speaker 1: We have talked some more about like the nuances of
Speaker 1: how a different, totally different indigenous people, but still indigenous
Speaker 1: people in North America were thinking about land use in
Speaker 1: that episode earlier this year on King Philip's War. Yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: it is that thing where obviously this whole story that
Speaker 1: we get normally is from the white European lens, but
Speaker 1: Regardless of all of that lost nuance, the Dutch did
Speaker 1: believe that they had ownership, and they made Manhattan the
Speaker 1: center of their colonization efforts, and when frustrated that the
Speaker 1: Lenape were not moving out, they built a wall around
Speaker 1: their new city in the sixteen sixties to keep the
Speaker 1: indigenous people out of it. It also kept out the
Speaker 1: English for a time. England took control of New Netherlands
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty four and renamed it New York. This is,
Speaker 1: of course, part of much bigger conflicts that were going
Speaker 1: on in the sixteen seventies. The Dutch once again regained
Speaker 1: control of the island briefly, but it ultimately reverted to
Speaker 1: English rule in the sixteen seventy four Treaty of Westminster.
Speaker 1: And of course, after the Revolutionary War, it was part
Speaker 1: of the United States and became land that got sold
Speaker 1: off by the government in various ways. So as we're
Speaker 1: talking about the section of Manhattan that became Seneca Village
Speaker 1: being farmland that was owned by John and Elizabeth Whitehead,
Speaker 1: that's the backstory before it passed into the white European
Speaker 1: real estate cycle. The white Heads had purchased the property
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty four, and then they partitioned it into
Speaker 1: lots to resell. The area that made up Seneca Village
Speaker 1: was about five acres in total. I've also seen it
Speaker 1: listed as almost seven uh and it sits in the
Speaker 1: strip between Seventh and A Avenues running from present day
Speaker 1: eighty two Street to eighty ninth Street. In the lots
Speaker 1: that would become Seneca Village went up for sale, and
Speaker 1: while it is very hard to imagine if you're familiar
Speaker 1: with New York City today, that area was considered remote
Speaker 1: enough from the main city that the land there was
Speaker 1: fairly inexpensive. Fifty lots were sold in total over the
Speaker 1: course of several years. The first purchaser was Andrew Williams,
Speaker 1: who was a bootblack and a resident of Downtown. He
Speaker 1: bought three lots for a hundred and twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1: The next two people who bought lots were Epiphany Davis,
Speaker 1: who bought twelve lots for five hundred and seventy eight dollars,
Speaker 1: and John Carter. And all three of these first three
Speaker 1: buyers were black. That's notable considering that New York's date
Speaker 1: a final emancipation was still two years away. You'll recall,
Speaker 1: of course, that New York had this like very stepped
Speaker 1: in gradual way of eliminating slavery, and they weren't to
Speaker 1: the end of that yet. Two of these buyers, Epiphany
Speaker 1: Davis and Andrew Williams, were also members of the African
Speaker 1: Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Epiphany was actually a church trustee,
Speaker 1: and that church was the city's first black church, and
Speaker 1: at the time it was described as possibly being the
Speaker 1: largest and wealthiest black church in the country. It's unclear
Speaker 1: exactly how Williams and Davis had heard about the white
Speaker 1: Heads land for sale, but word clearly spread through the church.
Speaker 1: A week after the first lots were sold, the church
Speaker 1: itself purchased several connected lots from the white Heads. Amy
Speaker 1: Zion lost their access to the city's Potter's Field in
Speaker 1: eighteen seven when that land was reallocated to become Washington
Speaker 1: Square Park, and at that point several of the churches
Speaker 1: lots in Seneca Village were set aside to develop them
Speaker 1: into a cemetery. Purchases of the white Head land, made
Speaker 1: by prominent leaders within the church continued for several years.
Speaker 1: By the time all fifty lots were sold by the
Speaker 1: White heads. In eighteen thirty two, twenty four of them
Speaker 1: had been purchased by black residents of the city. Seneca
Speaker 1: Village had formed, although where that name came from is
Speaker 1: still unknown today. In case people are like, well, obviously
Speaker 1: the Seneca lived in New York. That's true, but like,
Speaker 1: we don't we don't know how the village came to
Speaker 1: be called that. We'll talk about it in a minute,
Speaker 1: But there are often when you see the village referred
Speaker 1: to in contemporary papers of the day, it is referred
Speaker 1: to with a racial slur. So in just a moment,
Speaker 1: we will talk about other black communities of historical significance
Speaker 1: to contextualized Seneca Village a little bit, But first we
Speaker 1: will pause for a word from a sponsor. We recently
Speaker 1: talked on the show about New Philadelphia, Illinois, which was
Speaker 1: touted as the first town designed and plotted out by
Speaker 1: a black man, and that did not happen until the
Speaker 1: eighteen thirties. But unlike New Philadelphia, Seneca Village's establishment as
Speaker 1: a community was a little bit more organic. Even though
Speaker 1: those plots were like separate, eat it out and made
Speaker 1: as as parcels of lands that were sold, it wasn't
Speaker 1: planned as a community. It was just broken into those lots.
Speaker 1: And we know that by eighteen twenty nine there were
Speaker 1: nine families in Seneca Village for certain, and that's based
Speaker 1: on records as well as archaeological evidence. There may have
Speaker 1: actually been more. We should mention as well that there
Speaker 1: was another area of Manhattan that had a similar black
Speaker 1: community which predated Seneca Village. It was on a thirty
Speaker 1: acre piece of land known as York Hill because of
Speaker 1: its elevation. This community's origin on the timeline is a
Speaker 1: little bit unclear, but there do appear to be mentions
Speaker 1: of it in the eighteen teens. Some of this area
Speaker 1: was city property, but some of it was also privately owned. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: York Hill's downfall was the creation of the Croton Reservoir.
Speaker 1: This water system, which was developed in the late eighteen
Speaker 1: thirties and early eighteen forties, had been preceded by the
Speaker 1: city acquiring all of the property in York Hill and
Speaker 1: displacing that community. Many of them had moved to Seneca Village.
Speaker 1: That uncertainty that we mentioned just a moment ago about
Speaker 1: how many people were living in Seneca Village early on
Speaker 1: is actually a problem that persisted for much of its history.
Speaker 1: We know that in the time immediately following the Croton
Speaker 1: Reservoir displacement of York Hill, Seneca Village had grown to
Speaker 1: a population of more than one hundred residents, and we
Speaker 1: also know that Irish immigrants started moving into the village
Speaker 1: starting in the eighteen forties, including the mother of future
Speaker 1: Tammany Hall boss George Washington Plunkett. George and his twin
Speaker 1: brother were actually born in Seneca Village, and by that
Speaker 1: time the African Union Church had also bought land from
Speaker 1: the white Heads and moved in. It's significant that the
Speaker 1: white Heads were willing to sell their land to black buyers,
Speaker 1: as that offered an affordable entry into holding property that
Speaker 1: was unavailable in most of Manhattan. The residents of the
Speaker 1: village were more likely than New Yorkers of any color
Speaker 1: anywhere in the city to own the land where they lived.
Speaker 1: In order to vote in New York, free black men
Speaker 1: had to have lived in the state for three years
Speaker 1: and had to own land valued at two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: dollars or more. So, the Seneca Village land opened up
Speaker 1: an avenue for black residents in the city to meet
Speaker 1: that property requirement. In the eighteen fifties, ten of Seneca
Speaker 1: Villages black residents were voters, and while that is a
Speaker 1: tiny number, it was by percentage far higher than in
Speaker 1: other communities within the city. In eighteen forty five, for example,
Speaker 1: there were thirteen thousand black New Yorkers and only ninety
Speaker 1: one of them had voting rights. In eighteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: the black population of Manhattan was recorded at twelve thousand,
Speaker 1: there were still fewer than one hundred who had secured
Speaker 1: voting rights, and that meant that at the time, with
Speaker 1: only about a hundred and fifty black residents, Seneca Village
Speaker 1: was home to more than ten percent of the city's
Speaker 1: black voters. There were also people who were not residents
Speaker 1: of Seneca Village but owned land there in order to
Speaker 1: attain voting rights. So if you look at black voting
Speaker 1: landholders in Seneca Village instead of the population of the village,
Speaker 1: that concentration is even higher. Yeah, there were definitely people
Speaker 1: that chose to stay downtown as where they lived, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to own this property and that once again
Speaker 1: opened up voting opportunities for them. In eighteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: a census was taken, so the information about the village
Speaker 1: during that time becomes much more robust. There were two
Speaker 1: d thirty people living in Seneca Village then in the
Speaker 1: village's fifty two homes, so a lot of these were families.
Speaker 1: Roughly two thirds of the residents were Black, roughly one
Speaker 1: third was Irish, and there were a few German residents
Speaker 1: as well making their homes there. There were also three
Speaker 1: churches in the village by that point, African Methodist Episcopal
Speaker 1: Zion Church which was the one that was there from
Speaker 1: the beginning, African Union Church, and All Angels Church. Amy
Speaker 1: Zion and African Union were all black churches. All Angels, however,
Speaker 1: had a mixed congregation and was a mission project of St.
Speaker 1: Michael's which was at Broadway in ninety nine, and that
Speaker 1: also had a Sunday school as part of it. The
Speaker 1: Semate terry associated with All Angels was also integrated, and
Speaker 1: there was also a school in the village known as
Speaker 1: Colored School Number three that had been founded in the
Speaker 1: eighteen forties. So now we're gonna start getting to how
Speaker 1: this was turned into a park. Starting in the eighteen forties,
Speaker 1: there was growing interest and ensuring that the rapidly growing
Speaker 1: city retained some kind of green space for Manhattan's residence.
Speaker 1: This was a valid concern because the natural land on
Speaker 1: the island was being sold off and built up at
Speaker 1: a really quick rate. In the space of just a
Speaker 1: decade from eighteen eighteen fifty five, the population of New
Speaker 1: York City doubled. It was also driven in part by
Speaker 1: a desire on the part of the wealthiest inhabitants of
Speaker 1: the city to have a green space similar to something
Speaker 1: that you might find in a European city. Yes, New
Speaker 1: York was building up. They were like, we should have
Speaker 1: fancy places like Paris or London, so that rich people
Speaker 1: can take their carriages through them and we will feel
Speaker 1: very worldly and fancy. There was a lot of debate
Speaker 1: about exactly where a large park might fit into Manhattan's layout.
Speaker 1: There was one fifty acre strip of land on the
Speaker 1: East River that was considered, but that was met with
Speaker 1: criticism because the size was deemed too small by a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who really wanted this park. There
Speaker 1: was also some concern that the park had been suggested
Speaker 1: by the editor of the Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant,
Speaker 1: because he and many of his Ideas supporters to put
Speaker 1: it there happened to own property very near that site,
Speaker 1: and they would have gotten a financial boost from a
Speaker 1: park project that would have raised the value of their
Speaker 1: own land. Incidentally, Bryant Park is named for him, so
Speaker 1: he did get a park. That strip of land on
Speaker 1: the East River was known as Jones Woods, and as
Speaker 1: that lost favor as an option, the idea of a
Speaker 1: park in the center of the island started to gain popularity.
Speaker 1: There were a number of factors that made this location
Speaker 1: more appealing than the previous one. For one thing, a
Speaker 1: lot of the land there was already owned by the city,
Speaker 1: whereas the Jones Wood strips had been privately owned and
Speaker 1: would have required a pretty big investment on the city's part.
Speaker 1: For another, that central strip of land had already been
Speaker 1: deemed tricky to develop as a real estate because of
Speaker 1: its terrain. This kind of cracks me up, because if
Speaker 1: you look at cities or at maps rather from the
Speaker 1: early eight hundreds of New York City, it all had
Speaker 1: like terrain that would have been tricky. Somehow they managed
Speaker 1: many cities do it, turns out right, they figure it out.
Speaker 1: But as the plan for Central Park got underway, there
Speaker 1: really was not much consideration for Seneca Village or any
Speaker 1: of the people living in the proposed park space. The
Speaker 1: initial plan for the park was seven hundred seventy nine acres.
Speaker 1: It was later expanded to its current size of eight
Speaker 1: hundred forty three acres, So that was a pretty significant
Speaker 1: tract of land right in the middle of the city.
Speaker 1: And even though Manhattan had less and less population density
Speaker 1: the farther north you went on the island, the land
Speaker 1: that had been identified as a potential green space for
Speaker 1: this project was occupied, including Seneca Village, by an estimated
Speaker 1: six hundred people. Despite that fact, and despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Seneca Village had grown into a community on lots
Speaker 1: that had been purchased from the White Heads, the park
Speaker 1: was generally described as an empty space with a handful
Speaker 1: of people living there illegally. This may have been a
Speaker 1: case of supporters of the park plan, including journalists, either
Speaker 1: willfully ignoring the residents of Seneca Village and other communities
Speaker 1: in the area, or being truly unaware of how developed
Speaker 1: these communities were. I would argue if they were journalists
Speaker 1: that was their job to figure out. Or they may
Speaker 1: have just been devaluing and disregarding the people living there
Speaker 1: because these communities were made up of black and immigrant inhabitants.
Speaker 1: I will point out that journalism was a very different
Speaker 1: thing at this point. Yeah, I know, but still yes.
Speaker 1: And we don't know the motivation of every journalist who
Speaker 1: wrote about the proposed land for Central Park as though
Speaker 1: it were inhabited. But what we do know is that
Speaker 1: downplaying any human habitation would have helped make the project
Speaker 1: more appealing for anyone in the city, particularly any stakeholders
Speaker 1: who might have questioned its expense and its purpose. And
Speaker 1: there was of course racism in the mix as well.
Speaker 1: People who did acknowledge Seneca Village referred to it using
Speaker 1: a racist slur for years, as we mentioned a little
Speaker 1: while ago. Uh. It's interesting because when you look at
Speaker 1: some of the records online, depending on where you see them,
Speaker 1: some places that show these newspapers, like the image of
Speaker 1: the actual newspaper, have chosen to black bar the name
Speaker 1: because it is gross. Um. There was also this general
Speaker 1: suspicion about any of the white immigrants who lived in
Speaker 1: the village, and they were characterized as being very shifty
Speaker 1: and untrustworthy, and there were all these rumors of misagenation
Speaker 1: and a lot of racist language about the mixing of
Speaker 1: these races. Uh the rhetoric of the park being occupied
Speaker 1: only by indigent drifters be ga in the erasure of
Speaker 1: a stable community, both literally in terms of its existence
Speaker 1: and in the historical record, and we really want to
Speaker 1: stress the stability of this village. In the book The
Speaker 1: Park and the People, authors Roy Rosenswig and Elizabeth Blackmar
Speaker 1: note that if you compare Seneca Villages tax records from
Speaker 1: eighteen forty to the records from eighteen fifty five, three
Speaker 1: quarters of the families from eighteen forty we're still living there.
Speaker 1: If you compare eighteen fifty to eighteen fifty five, all
Speaker 1: of the black residents in the community were still in
Speaker 1: Seneca Village. So it's definitely not a case of drifters
Speaker 1: or squatters. These are people who owned the land, paid taxes,
Speaker 1: and had that information captured in the city records. Seneca
Speaker 1: Village was more stable than really most city communities during
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds. They make a point in that
Speaker 1: book that if you compare Seneca Village to like I
Speaker 1: think they mentioned a neighborhood in Boston. At the same time,
Speaker 1: they're like, this is constant movement, This is almost no
Speaker 1: movement like it's way more stable, uh, and in many
Speaker 1: cases to these families were staying through multiple generations with
Speaker 1: marriages and children and adding to the village's population and
Speaker 1: reinforcing the community ties within it. So it was the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of Itinerant descriptions of the homes in the
Speaker 1: village during the time when the city was considering where
Speaker 1: to build a park also characterized them as though they
Speaker 1: were barely standing. The words shock and shanty were very
Speaker 1: commonly used. These were definitely not fancy houses. They were
Speaker 1: generally built by the residents themselves. They tended to be
Speaker 1: on a smaller side, mostly one story, and there was
Speaker 1: a wide range of quality from one house to another.
Speaker 1: But they were there through all those years of records
Speaker 1: that we mentioned, so they definitely weren't temporary structures on
Speaker 1: the verge of collapse. In terms of quality of life,
Speaker 1: if compared to the black population living downtown, the residents
Speaker 1: of Seneca Village had significantly more space as well as
Speaker 1: outdoor areas for recreation, and they weren't subjected to the
Speaker 1: cramped and poorly maintained rooms that would have been available
Speaker 1: in the Five Points neighborhood, where a large portion of
Speaker 1: the city's black population lived. When you consider that most
Speaker 1: of the people of color and immigrants living downtown were
Speaker 1: in tenements that were really poorly managed, this was a
Speaker 1: way better set up and again way more stable, but
Speaker 1: completely devalued. Uh. Most of Seneca Villages male residents worked
Speaker 1: in service or labor jobs, and the women of the
Speaker 1: village also worked. They took in laundry. Some of them
Speaker 1: worked as domestic servants. There were also gardens and livestock
Speaker 1: was kept on the Seneca Village acreage that supplemented the
Speaker 1: diets of the residents. The most well off among the
Speaker 1: people who lived there were two grocers and an innkeeper,
Speaker 1: So it wasn't a wealthy demographic, but it was the
Speaker 1: highest concentration in the city of an area where black
Speaker 1: people owned property. The people debating the future location of
Speaker 1: the park idea were generally wealthy. As the city had
Speaker 1: expanded nor to take up more and more of the island.
Speaker 1: It wasn't only William Cullen Bryant who had thoughts of
Speaker 1: how a park would drive up adjacent property values. There
Speaker 1: was definitely a recognition that the development of what was
Speaker 1: being called at the time the Central Park was going
Speaker 1: to create value in the land of the northern half
Speaker 1: of the island. Back when Jones would or Jones Woods,
Speaker 1: You'll see it written both ways was still being considered
Speaker 1: as a possible park location. Social reformer how Guernsey had
Speaker 1: written a letter to the Tribune in which he said,
Speaker 1: quote will anyone pretend the park is not a scheme
Speaker 1: to enhance the value of uptown land and create a
Speaker 1: splendid center for fashionable life without regard to and even
Speaker 1: in dereliction of the happiness of the multitude upon whose
Speaker 1: hearts and hands the expenses will fall. Even after that
Speaker 1: other strip of land was eventually dismissed because it would
Speaker 1: benefit existing landowners, At this point, it was inescapably obvious
Speaker 1: that any location was going to create a potential new
Speaker 1: area for affluent buyers to flock to. On July fifty three,
Speaker 1: the city filed the legal action that would be the
Speaker 1: demise of Seneca Village. That was when the city claimed
Speaker 1: eminent domain over the portions of the island from fifty
Speaker 1: nine to a hundred and sixth streets designated for the park.
Speaker 1: For the property that the city did not already own,
Speaker 1: the city allocated five million dollars for the purchase of
Speaker 1: the properties in that tract that were privately held. But
Speaker 1: naturally a lot of those people did not want to
Speaker 1: give up their homes, and this is not a case
Speaker 1: where they just went along with it. Many of them
Speaker 1: fought it for through legal channels. Over the next two years,
Speaker 1: there were ongoing court cases and appeal after appeal as
Speaker 1: the residents of what would become Central Park, and specifically
Speaker 1: the residents of Seneca Village, tried to hang onto the
Speaker 1: community they had built. In some instances, those battles were
Speaker 1: over the amounts of money that the city had allocated
Speaker 1: for specific properties as their like purchase agreement, because the
Speaker 1: owners really felt that they were being undervalued. As the
Speaker 1: legal issues churned, the city made a map in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty five that was an account of all the separate
Speaker 1: properties and their owners, as well as notes on what
Speaker 1: dwellings and outbuildings existed on each parcel. This came to
Speaker 1: be known as the Central Park Condemnation Map. But eventually
Speaker 1: all of the legal avenues for the residents were exhausted
Speaker 1: and the city was eager to get on with its
Speaker 1: park project. In the summer of eighteen fifty six, Mayor
Speaker 1: Fernando Wood issued an eviction notice for Seneca Village. Still
Speaker 1: a lot of the residents resisted. News writers penned incendiary
Speaker 1: articles indicating that the land should be cleared by any
Speaker 1: means necessary to make way for the park that included violence.
Speaker 1: How things actually played out is a little unclear, though
Speaker 1: some modern versions of this story suggests that police were
Speaker 1: called in and a violent series of actions resulted, often
Speaker 1: in community members being beaten and dragged from their homes.
Speaker 1: But there actually aren't any firsthand at counts of how
Speaker 1: and when the holdout residents finally left or were removed.
Speaker 1: But by October one, eighteen fifty seven, the land set
Speaker 1: aside for Central Park had no human inhabitants anymore. Demolition
Speaker 1: of existing structures followed soon after that. By the time
Speaker 1: Seneca Village was destroyed, five eighty nine people had lived
Speaker 1: there in its three decade existence. And we're gonna pause
Speaker 1: here for a sponsor break, and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: and talk about trying to trace some of Seneca Villages
Speaker 1: lost history. Construction on Central Park began in eighteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: and the lake of the park opened that same year,
Speaker 1: Although construction continued throughout the rest of the park for
Speaker 1: the next fifteen years. Almost as soon as it had
Speaker 1: been raised, it was as though Seneca Village had never existed,
Speaker 1: at least in the minds of the people who were
Speaker 1: enjoying their new park. One of the big historical tragedy
Speaker 1: these is that we don't really know where the residents
Speaker 1: of Seneca Village went after they were evicted. All Angels
Speaker 1: Church actually moved their building to a new location on
Speaker 1: the upper west side the church. Sexton William Wilson moved
Speaker 1: near the new church location. It's also known that resident
Speaker 1: Andrew Williams moved with his family to Queens, but beyond
Speaker 1: that information is thin to non existent, and there are
Speaker 1: still efforts to try to locate information about any of
Speaker 1: these community members or their descendants. In August eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: two coffins were accidentally unearthed when landscapers were working in
Speaker 1: the area of the park where Seneca Village had been.
Speaker 1: One of those coffins was really, really nice and had
Speaker 1: an engraved plate on it with the name Margaret McGuinty,
Speaker 1: while the other was a simpler style with no identify errs.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that Seneca Village had been an active
Speaker 1: community there just fifteen years prior to this discovery. It
Speaker 1: was reported as though these coffins were just a complete mystery.
Speaker 1: There is no in The cemeteries of Seneca Village attached
Speaker 1: to All Angels Church and the amy Zion Church were
Speaker 1: relocated after the inhabitants of the village were evicted. The
Speaker 1: burial records from amy Zion burned in eighteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: so the earliest records of burials were lost even before that. YEA.
Speaker 1: So it's very very possible that since they basically were
Speaker 1: knocking down buildings and then covering them with dirt. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's very possible that they basically just filled in over
Speaker 1: the cemeteries. It is difficult for historians to research and
Speaker 1: contextualize the inhabitants of Seneca Village because there aren't, as
Speaker 1: we've been saying, a lot of records, and many of
Speaker 1: the records that do exist were created because there was
Speaker 1: a desire to move those people off of their land. Additionally,
Speaker 1: as we have talked about on the show before, it
Speaker 1: was the second half of the eighteen twenties when Nissa
Speaker 1: Fournie started experimenting with photography in France. So there are
Speaker 1: really no photographs of Seneca Village. There are a few
Speaker 1: photos that were taken of the landscape as prep was
Speaker 1: underway to turn it into a park, and some buildings
Speaker 1: appear in those photos that may have been part of this,
Speaker 1: but they aren't the focus. They're sort of often the
Speaker 1: distance in the background, and it is not a comprehensive
Speaker 1: view of the entire community area. There is one family
Speaker 1: associated with Seneca Village that there are surviving photos of,
Speaker 1: but they were not residents. Albro and Mary Joseph Lyons
Speaker 1: had their portraits made as well as their children's portraits
Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties, so while these are important historical items,
Speaker 1: they are a degree of remove from actual life in
Speaker 1: the village. Will be coming back to them at a
Speaker 1: moment though. In the New York Historical Society mounted an
Speaker 1: exhibition titled Before Central Park, The Life and Death of
Speaker 1: Seneca Village, which challenged the long established story that the
Speaker 1: area that became Central Park had been essentially a waste
Speaker 1: land before Olmstead and Vox work their landscaping magic. This
Speaker 1: exhibit also stoked interest in this subject, helping to bolster
Speaker 1: a bigger exploration of the history of the Park's land
Speaker 1: before it became Central Park. The Seneca Village Project began
Speaker 1: building on work done through the nineteen nineties. That project
Speaker 1: was headed by Diana Wall, an anthropology professor at the
Speaker 1: City College of New York, Nan Rothschild of the Bernard
Speaker 1: Anthropology Department, and Cynthia Copeland of the New York Historical Society.
Speaker 1: Wall started research into Seneca Village in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: building up a case for the project to gain funding. Initially,
Speaker 1: the work that was being done was largely collecting as
Speaker 1: much documentation as they could related to Seneca Village, and
Speaker 1: then after soil studies and careful initial probing of the area,
Speaker 1: it expanded over time into an archaeological dig. And this
Speaker 1: project was funded through a number of sources. It received
Speaker 1: a Research Experiences for Undergraduates grant from the National Science Foundation,
Speaker 1: as well as getting funding from National Geographic the Durst Foundation,
Speaker 1: the Guilder Foundation, and Friends of Cornell Edwards. And it
Speaker 1: required a lot of careful and savvy negotiations to get
Speaker 1: permissions to actually have access to the park for field work.
Speaker 1: This is something I have summed up here in just
Speaker 1: a few sentences, but please know that this work was
Speaker 1: done in very carefully planned stages over the course of years.
Speaker 1: It was really really uh an instance of a great
Speaker 1: deal of dedication on the part of these people who
Speaker 1: initiated it. In twenty eleven, the first excavation project was
Speaker 1: conducted at the Seneca Village site that had a combination
Speaker 1: of classroom prep work, eight weeks of field work and
Speaker 1: four weeks of lab work for the undergrad students who participated.
Speaker 1: Field work started on June seven of that year, and
Speaker 1: the excavation located, among other things, the foundation wall and
Speaker 1: interior of the home of William Godfrey Wilson and Charlotte
Speaker 1: Moore Wilson. Also, they found a number of artifacts that
Speaker 1: had been part of daily life in the village, including ceramics,
Speaker 1: a pipe, a child's shoe, a teapot, things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. One of the things that comes up lot
Speaker 1: when you're looking at this is that people want to
Speaker 1: discuss how this was a very poor community. But there's
Speaker 1: a really lovely video I came across where some of
Speaker 1: the people who worked on this project you're talking about like, no,
Speaker 1: this china is as nice as like the middle class
Speaker 1: would have owned. Um, you know, there are enough things
Speaker 1: that they found that kind of bolster the idea of
Speaker 1: like it. It further enhances this picture of it as
Speaker 1: a very stable, settled community of people that were not
Speaker 1: just like scratching by. They had a sense of of
Speaker 1: place and belonging and stability there uh In, new archaeological
Speaker 1: work began on the site of Seneca Village as the
Speaker 1: playgrounds that have been on the plot of land where
Speaker 1: the village once existed were set to undergo renovation. The
Speaker 1: Central Park Conservancy also initiated an effort of archabole research
Speaker 1: alongside the archaeological work during this construction project, in an
Speaker 1: effort to create a more thorough record of the land's history.
Speaker 1: The result of this project in recent years has been
Speaker 1: the installation of a number of signs in the park
Speaker 1: that note the locations of various village buildings and the
Speaker 1: village's residents. In the fall of New York Mayor Billed
Speaker 1: Blasio announced that Central Park would get a historical monument
Speaker 1: about Seneca Village, focusing specifically on the Lyons family, who
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier. While they did not live in Seneca Village,
Speaker 1: they were prominent members of Manhattan's nineteenth century black community
Speaker 1: and they ran a stop on the underground railroad in
Speaker 1: the city. Submissions for the design of that monument were
Speaker 1: supposed to be open until April of this year, but
Speaker 1: the pandemic has probably put the brakes on that plan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hard to dig up information and once everything went left. UM,
Speaker 1: it's cool to me that this has gotten a lot
Speaker 1: more attention in recent years. And I like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: those people that we mentioned on the Seneca Village project,
Speaker 1: they are still working on this and there's still you know,
Speaker 1: archable analysis that goes on and and I don't know
Speaker 1: if there are plans for additional digs, but it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that UH has kind of cropped up
Speaker 1: in the news in recent years. But I thought it
Speaker 1: might be nice to really talk about just how complete
Speaker 1: this community was, because it's not often talked about in
Speaker 1: that way. UM, it's a um in that way a
Speaker 1: cool thing, and I don't I'm really really glad that
Speaker 1: they're making efforts to document prepark history of that area. UM.
Speaker 1: I love Central Park, but also am not ignorant to
Speaker 1: the fact that it did not just sprout out of
Speaker 1: nowhere with land that no one ever had. So I
Speaker 1: hope that we'll get more. I hope more and more
Speaker 1: stuff comes to light about Seneca Village and the people
Speaker 1: that live there. UM. I love it. Anyway, that's what's up.
Speaker 1: You want some listener mail, I sure do this listener
Speaker 1: mails about Bonds. I. UM, this is from our listener, Keith,
Speaker 1: who writes, Hey, Holly and Tracy, I've been listening for
Speaker 1: a long time. I just heard your podcast on Bonds.
Speaker 1: I I'm a little behind. I think that sounds behind.
Speaker 1: That sounds pretty contemporary. Uh. He says that I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to actually have a reason to contact you both.
Speaker 1: I work at a museum in Colorado, and while this
Speaker 1: isn't my specialty, I did really want to mention Colorado's
Speaker 1: role in modern bonsai in the US and around the world.
Speaker 1: You spoke of the role of Japanese interment camps in bonsai.
Speaker 1: To my understanding, the interment camp in Colorado, known as
Speaker 1: Amachi or Granada, was instrumental in the resurgence of bonzai
Speaker 1: in both the US and Japan after the war. Amasia
Speaker 1: was the smallest of the camps, but it held four
Speaker 1: expert Bonsaie artists, so the art was common there. Classes developed,
Speaker 1: and it was picked up by many of the other prisoners.
Speaker 1: Because the plants near the camp weren't traditional Bonsai trees,
Speaker 1: the camp prisoners used non traditional local trees such as junipers.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of a new style of bonzai,
Speaker 1: which focused on the plants of the area that you're
Speaker 1: in instead of limiting the craft to traditional Bonsai trees.
Speaker 1: That idea was transported back to Los Angeles after the war,
Speaker 1: and eventually back to Japan. After the camp was disbanded,
Speaker 1: many of the internees from Mtchi remained in Colorado. Colorado's governor,
Speaker 1: Ralph Carr, was the only governor who welcomed the inturnees
Speaker 1: to remain as part of their state. Denver actually had
Speaker 1: two Bondsai clubs for years, one that spoke English and
Speaker 1: one that was dominated by former internees and spoke exclusively
Speaker 1: in Japanese. The Denver Botanic Garden still has a wonderful
Speaker 1: Japanese garden and a thriving Bondsai club that we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have without this history, all of which leads me to
Speaker 1: a podcast suggestion, and he mentions Ralph Carr. Uh. He says, anyway,
Speaker 1: I hope that's interesting to you and not just a
Speaker 1: waste of your time. Thanks for all the history of
Speaker 1: the year. Stay safe and healthy. That's super interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Um And now I have a place on my list
Speaker 1: of things to do next time I am in Denver
Speaker 1: because I absolutely want to go see the Botanic Garden.
Speaker 1: Uh it's We've had a few people write to us
Speaker 1: about Bondsai, which I love, including um our listener Maggie,
Speaker 1: who shared a picture of one of hers that uh
Speaker 1: no longer survives but was very very pretty. Uh I
Speaker 1: love it. I like hearing about people's interest in in
Speaker 1: Bonzai and trees in general. It's great, so please keep
Speaker 1: sharing those. They're all interesting to me. If you would
Speaker 1: like to ideas, you can do so at History Podcast
Speaker 1: at i heeart radio dot com. You can find us
Speaker 1: on social media as Missed in History, and if you
Speaker 1: would like to subscribe to the podcast, we hope that
Speaker 1: you do, you can do that on the I heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is you listen.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
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