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[[File:Seneca Village-Central Park-Nyc.gif|thumb|right|400px|Map showing the former location of Seneca Village (Egbert Viele, ca. 1857)]]
[[File:Seneca Village-Central Park-Nyc.gif|thumb|right|400px|Map showing the former location of Seneca Village (Egbert Viele, ca. 1857)]]


'''Seneca Village''' was a small settlement of mostly [[African American]] landowners in the borough of [[Manhattan]] in [[New York City]], founded in 1825 by free black people &ndash; the first such community in the city &ndash; although it also came to be inhabited by several other [[minority group|minorities]], including [[Ireland|Irish]] and [[Germany|German]] immigrants, and possibly some [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]]s.<ref name="maap.columbia.edu"/><ref name=encnyc>Wilkins, Randall Sharon "Seneca Village" in {{cite enc-nyc2}}</ref>
'''Seneca Village''' was a small settlement of mostly [[African American]] landowners in the borough of [[Manhattan]] in [[New York City]], founded in 1825 by free black people &ndash; the first such community in the city &ndash; although it also came to be inhabited by several other [[minority group|minorities]], including [[Ireland|Irish]] and [[Germany|German]] immigrants, and possibly some [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]]s.


The settlement was located on about {{convert|5|acre|ha}} approximately bounded by where 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues would be now, if [[Central Park]] had not been built. A stone outcropping near the [[85th Street]] entrance to Central Park is believed to be part of a foundation of the African Methodist Church.
The settlement was located on about {{convert|5|acre|ha}} approximately bounded by where 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues would be now, if [[Central Park]] had not been built. A stone outcropping near the [[85th Street]] entrance to Central Park is believed to be part of a foundation of the African Methodist Church.
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==Existence==
==Existence==
Seneca Village was bounded by what would have been Eighth Avenue on the west, 89th Street on the north, Seventh Avenue on the east, and 82nd Street on the south.<ref>[http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/htm/history.htm "History"] ''Seneca Village Project''</ref><ref name="encnyc" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/nyregion/uncovering-the-ruins-of-new-yorks-first-free-black-settlement.html|title=Uncovering the Ruins of an Early Black Settlement in New York|last=Williams|first=Keith|date=2018-02-07|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-31|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Seneca Village was bounded by what would have been Eighth Avenue on the west, 89th Street on the north, Seventh Avenue on the east, and 82nd Street on the south.<ref>[http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/htm/history.htm "History"] ''Seneca Village Project''</ref><ref name="encnyc">Wilkins, Randall Sharon "Seneca Village" in {{cite enc-nyc2}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/nyregion/uncovering-the-ruins-of-new-yorks-first-free-black-settlement.html|title=Uncovering the Ruins of an Early Black Settlement in New York|last=Williams|first=Keith|date=2018-02-07|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-31|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>


===Development===
===Development===
Blacks first came to the area in September 1825, when John Whitehead, a white real estate prospector, began selling off parcels of his farm; at the time it was far from the core of New York City, which was centered in what is now [[Lower Manhattan]]. A young black man named Andrew Williams was the first person to purchase parcels, obtaining three lots for $125.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 65">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=65}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016">{{cite web|url=https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/seneca-village-black-town-razed-central-park-article-1.2639611|title=A look at Seneca Village, the early black settlement obliterated by the creation of Central Park|last=Blakinger|first=Keri|date=May 17, 2016|website=New York Daily News|access-date=March 31, 2019}}</ref> The same day, Epiphany Davis, a laborer and trustee of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, bought twelve lots for $578.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 65" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> The AME bought six additional lots the same week, and by 1832, at least 24 lots had been sold to African Americans.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 65" /><ref name="maap.columbia.edu">"[http://maap.columbia.edu/place/32.html Seneca Village]". ''MAAP: Mapping the African American Past''. Columbia University.</ref><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> Between 1825 and 1832, real estate records show, the Whiteheads sold at least 24 land parcels to black families.<ref name="nyt-1995-04-07"/> Additional development was centered around "York Hill", a plot bounded by imaginary Sixth and Seventh Avenues between 79th and 86th Streets. York Hill was mostly owned by the city, but {{Convert|5|acres|ha|abbr=}} were purchased by William Matthews, a young African American, in the late 1830s. Matthews's African Union Church also bought land in Seneca Village around that imes<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=66}}</ref>
Blacks first came to the area in September 1825, when John Whitehead, a white real estate prospector, began selling off parcels of his farm; at the time it was far from the core of New York City, which was centered in what is now [[Lower Manhattan]]. A young black man named Andrew Williams was the first person to purchase parcels, obtaining three lots for $125.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 65">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=65}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016">{{cite web|url=https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/seneca-village-black-town-razed-central-park-article-1.2639611|title=A look at Seneca Village, the early black settlement obliterated by the creation of Central Park|last=Blakinger|first=Keri|date=May 17, 2016|website=New York Daily News|access-date=March 31, 2019}}</ref> The same day, Epiphany Davis, a laborer and trustee of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, bought twelve lots for $578.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 65" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> The AME bought six additional lots the same week, and by 1832, at least 24 lots had been sold to African Americans.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 65" /><ref name="maap.columbia.edu">"[http://maap.columbia.edu/place/32.html Seneca Village]". ''MAAP: Mapping the African American Past''. Columbia University.</ref><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> Between 1825 and 1832, real estate records show, the Whiteheads sold at least 24 land parcels to black families.<ref name="nyt-1995-04-07"/> Additional development was centered around "York Hill", a plot bounded by imaginary Sixth and Seventh Avenues between 79th and 86th Streets. York Hill was mostly owned by the city, but {{Convert|5|acres|ha|abbr=}} were purchased by William Matthews, a young African American, in the late 1830s. Matthews's African Union Church also bought land in Seneca Village around that time.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=66}}</ref>


⚫
More African Americans began moving to Seneca Village after slavery in New York state was outlawed in 1827.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> Seneca Village grew in the 1830s when people from York Hill were forced to move after a government-enforced eviction, and York Hill was used to build a basin for the [[Croton Distributing Reservoir]].<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /> Later, during the [[Great Potato Famine|potato famine]] in Ireland, many Irish residents came to live in Seneca Village, swelling the village by 30 percent during this time.<ref name="harlemlive.org" /> Both African Americans and Irish immigrants were marginalized and faced discrimination throughout the city. Despite their social and racial conflicts elsewhere, the African Americans and Irish in Seneca Village chose to live close to each other.<ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City">{{cite journal|last=Wall|first=Diana|first2=Diana|last2=Wall |first3=Nan A. |last3=Rothschild |first4=Cynthia |last4=Copeland |title=Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City|journal=Historical Archaeology|year=2008|volume=42|issue=Living in Cities Revisited: Trends in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Urban Archaeology (2008)|pages=97–107|jstor=25617485}}</ref> By 1855, one-third of the village's population was Irish.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /> [[George Washington Plunkitt]], who later became a [[Tammany Hall]] politician, was born in 1842 to one of the first Irish settlers in the village, Pat and Sara Plunkitt.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref name="gotham">{{harvnb|Burrows|Wallace|1999|pages=747-748}}</ref> [[Richard Croker]], who later became the leader of Tammany, was born in Ireland, but he came with his family to Seneca Village in 1846, and lived there until his father got a job that enabled them to move.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref>{{harvnb|Burrows|Wallace|1999|page=1104}}</ref>
More African Americans began moving to Seneca Village after slavery in New York state was outlawed in 1827.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> In addition to the disproportionate number of landowning African Americans in Seneca Village, many residents boarded in homes they did not own, demonstrating that even within the innovative activist community of Seneca Village, there was significant class stratification. Seneca Village grew in the 1830s when people from York Hill were forced to move after a government-enforced eviction, and York Hill was used to build a basin for the [[Croton Distributing Reservoir]].<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" />


⚫
The one-story frame-and-board houses in Seneca Village were referred to as "shanties", which reflected their roughshod outward appearance, though some of the houses resembled log cabins. While the houses were not professionally constructed, their interiors were better off than the cramped tenements of lower Manhattan.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 68-69">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=68-69}}</ref><ref name="Berman p. 19">{{harvnb|Berman|2003|page=19}}</ref> Landownership among black residents was much higher than in the city as a whole: more than half of blacks owned property in 1850, five times as much as the property ownership rate of New Yorkers.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> Furthermore, one-fifth of Seneca Village's inhabitants actually possessed their own residences.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 76-77">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=76&ndash;77}}</ref> Many of Seneca Village's black residents were landowners and relatively economically secure compared to their downtown counterparts. At least one property owner lived in Lower Manhattan.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=70-71}}</ref>
⚫
Later, during the [[Great Potato Famine|potato famine]] in Ireland, many Irish residents came to live in Seneca Village, swelling the village by 30 percent during this time.<ref name="harlemlive.org"/> Both African Americans and Irish immigrants were marginalized and faced discrimination throughout the city. Despite their social and racial conflicts elsewhere, the African Americans and Irish in Seneca Village chose to live close to each other.<ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City">{{cite journal|last=Wall|first=Diana|first2=Diana|last2=Wall |first3=Nan A. |last3=Rothschild |first4=Cynthia |last4=Copeland |title=Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City|journal=Historical Archaeology|year=2008|volume=42|issue=Living in Cities Revisited: Trends in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Urban Archaeology (2008)|pages=97–107|jstor=25617485}}</ref> By 1855, one-third of the village's population was Irish.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /> [[George Washington Plunkitt]], who later became a [[Tammany Hall]] politician, was born in 1842 to one of the first Irish settlers in the village, Pat and Sara Plunkitt.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref name="gotham">{{harvnb|Burrows|Wallace|1999|pages=747-748}}</ref> [[Richard Croker]], who later became the leader of Tammany, was born in Ireland, but he came with his family to Seneca Village in 1846, and lived there until his father got a job that enabled them to move.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref>{{harvnb|Burrows|Wallace|1999|page=1104}}</ref>


Nevertheless, many of the residents were still poor, since they worked in service industries such as construction, day labor, or food service, and only three residents (two grocers and an innkeeper) could be considered middle class. In addition, many black women worked as domestic servants.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 68-69" /> Many residents "[[Squatting|squatted]]", boarding in homes they did not own, demonstrating that there was significant class stratification even with Seneca Village's abnormally high landownership rate.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 76-77" />
⚫
The one-story frame-and-board houses in Seneca Village were referred to as "shanties", which reflected their roughshod outward appearance, though some of the houses resembled log cabins. While the houses were not professionally constructed, their interiors were better off than the cramped tenements of lower Manhattan.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 68-69">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=68-69}}</ref> Landownership among black residents was much higher than in the city as a whole: more than half of blacks owned property in 1850, five times as much as the property ownership rate of New Yorkers. Many of Seneca Village's black residents were landowners and relatively economically secure compared to their downtown counterparts. At least one property owner lived in Lower Manhattan.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=70-71}}</ref> However, many of the residents were still poor, since they worked in service industries such as construction, day labor, or food service, and only three residents (two grocers and an innkeeper) could be considered middle class. In addition, many black women worked as domestic servants.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 68-69" />


The residents subsisted on the abundant natural resources nearby, such as the fish of the nearby East and Hudson Rivers, and the firewood from nearby forests. Some residents also had gardens and barns, and many residents obtained animal feed from two nearby bone disposal plants at 66th and 75th Streets.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" />
The residents subsisted on the abundant natural resources nearby, such as the fish of the nearby East and Hudson Rivers, and the firewood from nearby forests. Some residents also had gardens and barns, and many residents obtained animal feed from two nearby bone disposal plants at 66th and 75th Streets.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" />


===Inhabitants===
===Inhabitants===
In 1855, a New York state [[census]] found that Seneca Village had 264 residents.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/frame.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206200921/http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/frame.html |dead-url=yes |archive-date=1998-12-06 |title=Seneca Village |publisher=The New York Historical Society |accessdate=2006-05-15 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=The Price of Progress: Eminent domain can lead to pain as well as advancement | date=August 21, 2005 | author=Shipp, E.R. | newspaper=[[Daily News (New York)|Daily News]] | location=New York | authorlink=E.R. Shipp}}</ref> On average, the residents had lived there for 22 years. Three-quarters of the 264 residents recorded in 1855 had lived in Seneca Village since at least 1840, and nearly all had lived there since 1850.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 672">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=67}}</ref> At this time in New York City's history, most of the city's population lived below 14th Street, and the region above 59th Street was only sporadically developed, and was semi-rural or rural in character. No one knows where the residents of Seneca Village resettled. To date, no living descendants of Seneca Villagers have been identified.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/31/arts/a-village-dies-a-park-is-born.html | work=The New York Times | title=A Village Dies, A Park Is Born | first=Douglas | last=Martin | date=January 31, 1997}}</ref>
In 1855, a New York state [[census]] found that Seneca Village had 264 residents.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/numbers/census.html|title=1855 NYS Census Page|website=historymatters.gmu.edu|access-date=2019-03-31}}</ref><ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/frame.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206200921/http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/frame.html |dead-url=yes |archive-date=1998-12-06 |title=Seneca Village |publisher=The New York Historical Society |accessdate=2006-05-15 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=The Price of Progress: Eminent domain can lead to pain as well as advancement | date=August 21, 2005 | author=Shipp, E.R. | newspaper=[[Daily News (New York)|Daily News]] | location=New York | authorlink=E.R. Shipp}}</ref> On average, the residents had lived there for 22 years. Three-quarters of the 264 residents recorded in 1855 had lived in Seneca Village since at least 1840, and nearly all had lived there since 1850.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 672">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=67}}</ref> At this time in New York City's history, most of the city's population lived below 14th Street, and the region above 59th Street was only sporadically developed, and was semi-rural or rural in character.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/31/arts/a-village-dies-a-park-is-born.html | work=The New York Times | title=A Village Dies, A Park Is Born | first=Douglas | last=Martin | date=January 31, 1997}}</ref>


After slavery in New York was outlawed, African American men in the state could vote as long as they had $250 worth of property, as well as lived in the state for three years.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=72}}</ref><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> Of the 13,000 black New Yorkers, 91 were qualified to vote, and of the voting-eligible black population, 10 lived in Seneca Village. The purchase of land by blacks came to play out significantly in their political engagement. Blacks in Seneca Village were extremely politically engaged in proportion to the rest of New York.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/nyregion/uncovering-the-ruins-of-new-yorks-first-free-black-settlement.html|title=Uncovering the Ruins of an Early Black Settlement in New York|last=Williams|first=Keith|date=2018-02-07|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-31|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
After slavery in New York was outlawed, African American men in the state could vote as long as they had $250 worth of property, as well as lived in the state for three years.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=72}}</ref><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> Of the 13,000 black New Yorkers, 91 were qualified to vote, and of the voting-eligible black population, 10 lived in Seneca Village. The purchase of land by blacks came to play out significantly in their political engagement. Blacks in Seneca Village were extremely politically engaged in proportion to the rest of New York.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /><ref name=":0" />


===Institutional buildings===
===Community institutions===
The economic and cultural stability of Seneca Village enabled the growth of several community institutions. The Village had three churches, two schools, and two cemeteries;<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> by 1855, two-thirds of the inhabitants (180 of 264 total) were regular churchgoers.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /> Two of them, First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Yorkville and African Union Church, were all-black churches, while All Angel's Church was racially mixed.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" />
The economic and cultural stability of Seneca Village enabled the growth of several community institutions. The Village had three churches, two schools, and two cemeteries;<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> by 1855, two-thirds of the inhabitants (180 of 264 total) were regular churchgoers.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /> Two of them, First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Yorkville and African Union Church, were all-black churches, while All Angel's Church was racially mixed.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" />


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African Union Church purchased lots in Seneca Village in 1837, a few hundred feet from AME Zion Church.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> It had 50 congregants.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /> The church contained one of the city's few black schools at the time, Colored School 3, founded in the mid-1840s.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> One of the teachers in the school was 17-year-old Catherine Thompson.<ref name="nyp-2007-08-13" />
African Union Church purchased lots in Seneca Village in 1837, a few hundred feet from AME Zion Church.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> It had 50 congregants.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /> The church contained one of the city's few black schools at the time, Colored School 3, founded in the mid-1840s.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /><ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> One of the teachers in the school was 17-year-old Catherine Thompson.<ref name="nyp-2007-08-13" />


All Angel's Church was founded in 1846 as an affiliate of [[St. Michael's Episcopal Church (Manhattan)|St. Michael's Church]], the main campus of which was located at Amsterdam Avenue and 99th Street.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> All Angel's was intended to be a mission to Seneca Village's and other nearby residents. At first, the church was hosted in a white policeman's home, but a wooden church at 84th Street was built in 1849. The congregation was racially diverse, with black parishioners from Seneca Village and Irish and German parishioners from other nearby areas. It only had 30 parishioners from Seneca Village<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /> When the community was razed, the church relocated to the corner of 81st Street and West End Avenue.
All Angel's Church was founded in 1846 as an affiliate of [[St. Michael's Episcopal Church (Manhattan)|St. Michael's Church]], the main campus of which was located at Amsterdam Avenue and 99th Street.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 70-71" /> All Angel's was intended to be a mission to Seneca Village's and other nearby residents. At first, the church was hosted in a white policeman's home, but a wooden church at 84th Street was built in 1849. The congregation was racially diverse, with black parishioners from Seneca Village and Irish and German parishioners from other nearby areas. It only had 30 parishioners from Seneca Village<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 722" /> When the community was razed, the church relocated to the corner of 81st Street and West End Avenue.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=88&ndash;89}}</ref>


== Other nearby settlements ==
== Other nearby settlements ==
While Seneca Village was the largest former settlement in what is now Central Park, it was also surrounded by smaller areas.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=73&ndash;74}}</ref> One of these areas, called "Pigtown", was a settlement of 14 mostly Irish families located in the modern park's southeastern corner, and was so named because the residents kept hogs and goats. Pigtown was originally located further south, in what is now considered 50th through 59th Streets from Sixth to Seventh Avenues, but was forced further north because of complaints from the pungent animal smells.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nypost.com/2015/02/01/one-of-the-first-gentrification-movements-the-great-piggery-war/|title=One of the first gentrification movements — the Great Piggery War|last=McNeur|first=Catherine|date=2015-02-01|website=New York Post|language=en|access-date=2019-03-31}}</ref> An additional 34 families, mainly Irish, lived in an area bounded by 68th and 72nd Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74" /> Nearby, on the current site of [[Tavern on the Green]], were a collection of bone-boiling plants, which employed people both from Seneca Village and from nearby settlements.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 75-76">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=75}}</ref>
While Seneca Village was the largest former settlement in what is now Central Park, it was also surrounded by smaller areas that were occupied mainly by Irish and German immigrants.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=73&ndash;74}}</ref><ref name="Berman p. 18">{{harvnb|Berman|2003|page=18}}</ref> One of these areas, called "Pigtown", was a settlement of 14 mostly Irish families located in the modern park's southeastern corner, and was so named because the residents kept hogs and goats. Pigtown was originally located further south, in what is now considered 50th through 59th Streets from Sixth to Seventh Avenues, but was forced further north because of complaints from the pungent animal smells.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nypost.com/2015/02/01/one-of-the-first-gentrification-movements-the-great-piggery-war/|title=One of the first gentrification movements — the Great Piggery War|last=McNeur|first=Catherine|date=2015-02-01|website=New York Post|language=en|access-date=2019-03-31}}</ref> An additional 34 families, mainly Irish, lived in an area bounded by 68th and 72nd Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74" /> Nearby, on the current site of [[Tavern on the Green]], were a collection of bone-boiling plants, which employed people both from Seneca Village and from nearby settlements.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 75-76">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=75}}</ref> To the southwest of Seneca Village was the settlement of Harsenville, which is now part of the Upper West Side between 66th and 81st Streets.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/nyregion/thecity/17fyi.html|title=Knowing the Distance|last=Pollak|first=Michael|date=2006-09-17|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-31|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
[[File:New_York_City_Blockhouse.JPG|alt=|thumb|[[Blockhouse No. 1 (Central Park)|Blockhouse No. 1]], another structure that predated Central Park]]
[[File:New_York_City_Blockhouse.JPG|alt=|thumb|[[Blockhouse No. 1 (Central Park)|Blockhouse No. 1]], another structure that predated Central Park]]
There were also two German settlements: one at the modern-day park's northern end and one south of the current [[Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir]]. Many of the Irish and German residents were also farmers with their own gardens.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74" /> An additional settlement in the northeast corner of Central Park carried the former [[Boston Post Road]]. That corner contains [[McGowan's Pass]], a topological feature that was used during the [[American Revolutionary War]], and [[Blockhouse No. 1 (Central Park)|Blockhouse No. 1]], a still-extant fortification built during the [[War of 1812]].<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 75-76" />
There were also two German settlements: one at the modern-day park's northern end and one south of the current [[Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir]]. Many of the Irish and German residents were also farmers with their own gardens.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 73-74" /> An additional settlement in the northeast corner of Central Park carried the former [[Boston Post Road]]. That corner contains [[McGowan's Pass]], a topological feature that was used during the [[American Revolutionary War]], and [[Blockhouse No. 1 (Central Park)|Blockhouse No. 1]], a still-extant fortification built during the [[War of 1812]].<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 75-76" /> [[College of Mount Saint Vincent|Mount St. Vincent's Academy]] was also sited near McGowan's Pass until 1881.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 90">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=90&ndash;91}}</ref>


==Razing==
==Demise==

=== Planning of Central Park ===
By the 1840s, members of the city's elite were publicly calling for the construction of a new large park in Manhattan. Two of the largest proponents were [[William Cullen Bryant]], the editor of the ''[[New York Post|New York Evening Post]],'' as well as [[Andrew Jackson Downing]], one of the first American landscape designers.<ref name="Heckscher p. 11">{{harvnb|Heckscher|2008|pages=11&ndash;12}}</ref><ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 15">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pp=15, 29&ndash;30}}</ref> The Special Committee on Parks was formed to survey possible sites for the proposed large park. One of the first sites considered was [[Jones's Wood]], a {{Convert|160|acre|ha|abbr=|adj=on}} tract of land between 66th and 75th Streets on the [[Upper East Side]]. The area was occupied by multiple wealthy families who objected to the taking of their land, particularly the Jones and Schermerhorn families.<ref name="New York (State). Legislature. Assembly 1911">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0AbAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA458|title=Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York|author=New York (State). Legislature. Assembly|year=1911|pages=451-458|access-date=March 28, 2019|issue=v. 29}}</ref>{{Rp|451}} Downing stated that he would prefer a park of at least {{convert|500|acre|ha|abbr=}} at any location from 39th Street to the [[Harlem River]].<ref name="New York (State). Legislature. Assembly 1911" />{{Rp|452&ndash;453}}<ref name="Berman p. 17">{{harvnb|Berman|2003|p=17}}</ref> Following the passage of the 1851 bill to acquire Jones's Wood, the Schermerhorns and Joneses successfully obtained an [[injunction]] to block the acquisition, and the transaction was invalidated as unconstitutional.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 45">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=45}}</ref><ref name="Taylor p. 2602">{{harvnb|Taylor|2009|p=260}}</ref>
By the 1840s, members of the city's elite were publicly calling for the construction of a new large park in Manhattan. Two of the largest proponents were [[William Cullen Bryant]], the editor of the ''[[New York Post|New York Evening Post]],'' as well as [[Andrew Jackson Downing]], one of the first American landscape designers.<ref name="Heckscher p. 11">{{harvnb|Heckscher|2008|pages=11&ndash;12}}</ref><ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 15">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pp=15, 29&ndash;30}}</ref> The Special Committee on Parks was formed to survey possible sites for the proposed large park. One of the first sites considered was [[Jones's Wood]], a {{Convert|160|acre|ha|abbr=|adj=on}} tract of land between 66th and 75th Streets on the [[Upper East Side]]. The area was occupied by multiple wealthy families who objected to the taking of their land, particularly the Jones and Schermerhorn families.<ref name="New York (State). Legislature. Assembly 1911">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0AbAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA458|title=Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York|author=New York (State). Legislature. Assembly|year=1911|pages=451-458|access-date=March 28, 2019|issue=v. 29}}</ref>{{Rp|451}} Downing stated that he would prefer a park of at least {{convert|500|acre|ha|abbr=}} at any location from 39th Street to the [[Harlem River]].<ref name="New York (State). Legislature. Assembly 1911" />{{Rp|452&ndash;453}}<ref name="Berman p. 17">{{harvnb|Berman|2003|p=17}}</ref> Following the passage of the 1851 bill to acquire Jones's Wood, the Schermerhorns and Joneses successfully obtained an [[injunction]] to block the acquisition, and the transaction was invalidated as unconstitutional.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 45">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=45}}</ref><ref name="Taylor p. 2602">{{harvnb|Taylor|2009|p=260}}</ref>


The second site proposed for a large public park was a {{convert|750|acre|ha|adj=on}} area labeled "Central Park", bounded by 59th and 106th Streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 452">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=45}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|work=Board of Commissioners of Central Park|date=1851|title=First Annual Report}}</ref> The Central Park plan gradually gained support from a variety of groups.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 492">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=49&ndash;50}}</ref> After a second bill to acquire Jones's Wood was nullified,<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 51-532">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=51&ndash;53}}</ref><ref name="Taylor p. 2602" /> the New York State Legislature passed the Central Park Act in July 1853, which authorized a board of five commissioners to start purchasing land for a park, as well as create a Central Park Fund to raise money.<ref name="New York (State). Legislature. Assembly 19112">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0AbAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA458|title=Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York|author=New York (State). Legislature. Assembly|year=1911|pages=451-458|access-date=March 28, 2019|issue=v. 29}}</ref>{{Rp|458}}<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1853/09/19/archives/the-central-park.html|title=The Central Park.|date=1853-09-19|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-28|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name="Heckscher pp. 15-16">{{harvnb|Heckscher|2008|pages=15&ndash;16}}</ref> As the campaign to create Central Park moved forward, the community was referred to in pejorative terms, and the Irish and black residents were often described as "wretched" and "debased".<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 67">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=67}}</ref> Seneca Village itself was referred to using racial slurs.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref name=":1" /> Park advocates and the media began to describe Seneca Village and other communities in this area as "[[shantytown]]s" and the residents there as "[[squatter]]s" and "vagabonds and scoundrels". This included [[Egbert Ludovicus Viele]], the park's first engineer, who wrote a report about the "refuge of five thousand squatters" living on the future site of Central Park, and criticized them as having "very little knowledge of the English language, and with very little respect for the law."<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 63">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=63&ndash;64}}</ref> The residents of Seneca Village were also accused of <ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 76-77">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=76&ndash;77}}</ref>
The second site proposed for a large public park was a {{convert|750|acre|ha|adj=on}} area labeled "Central Park", bounded by 59th and 106th Streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 452">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=45}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|work=Board of Commissioners of Central Park|date=1851|title=First Annual Report}}</ref> The Central Park plan gradually gained support from a variety of groups.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 492">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=49&ndash;50}}</ref> After a second bill to acquire Jones's Wood was nullified,<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 51-532">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=51&ndash;53}}</ref><ref name="Taylor p. 2602" /> the New York State Legislature passed the Central Park Act in July 1853, which authorized a board of five commissioners to start purchasing land for a park, as well as create a Central Park Fund to raise money.<ref name="New York (State). Legislature. Assembly 19112">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0AbAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA458|title=Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York|author=New York (State). Legislature. Assembly|year=1911|pages=451-458|access-date=March 28, 2019|issue=v. 29}}</ref>{{Rp|458}}<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1853/09/19/archives/the-central-park.html|title=The Central Park.|date=1853-09-19|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-28|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name="Heckscher pp. 15-16">{{harvnb|Heckscher|2008|pages=15&ndash;16}}</ref> As the campaign to create Central Park moved forward, the community was referred to in pejorative terms, and the Irish and black residents were often described as "wretched" and "debased".<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 67">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|page=67}}</ref> Seneca Village itself was referred to using racial slurs.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 66" /><ref name=":0" /> The residents of Seneca Village were also accused of stealing food and operating illegal bars.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 76-77" />
Park advocates and the media began to describe Seneca Village and other communities in this area as "[[shantytown]]s" and the residents there as "squatters" and "vagabonds and scoundrels". This included [[Egbert Ludovicus Viele]], the park's first engineer, who wrote a report about the "refuge of five thousand squatters" living on the future site of Central Park, and criticized them as having "very little knowledge of the English language, and with very little respect for the law."<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 63">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=63&ndash;64}}</ref> While a minority of Seneca Village's residents were landowners, most residents had formal or informal agreements with landlords, and there were only a few residents who were squatting in the legal sense of not having permission from the landlord.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 76-77" /><ref name="Berman p. 19" />
=== Razing ===
In 1853, the Central Park commissioners started conducting property assessments on more than 34,000 lots in and near Central Park.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 82-83">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=82&ndash;83}}</ref> The Central Park commissioners had completed their assessments by July 1855, and the state supreme court confirmed this work the following February.<ref name="Heckscher p. 17">{{harvnb|Heckscher|2008|page=17}}</ref> As part of the tax assessment, residents were offered an average of $700 for their property.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 82-83" /><ref name="Berman p. 19" /> The minority of Seneca Village residents who owned land were well-compensated. For instance, Andrew Williams was paid $2,335 for his house and three lots, and even though he had originally asked for $3,500, the final compensation still represented a significant increase over the $125 that he had paid for the property in 1825.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31" /><ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89" />

⚫
Clearing occurred as soon as the Central Park commission's report was released in October 1855.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 82-832">{{harvnb|Rosenzweig|Blackmar|1992|pages=81&ndash;83}}</ref> The city began enforcing little-known regulations and forcing Seneca Village residents to pay rent.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 90" /> For two years, residents resisted the police as they petitioned the courts to save their homes, churches, and schools.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31" /><ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89" /> Members of the community fought to retain their land.<ref>{{{harvnb|Burrows|Wallace|1999|page=792}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/affidavit3.html|title=William's Affidavit|publisher=The New York Historical Society|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010919101219/http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/affidavit3.html|archive-date=2001-09-19|dead-url=yes|accessdate=2006-05-15}}</ref> However, in the summer of 1856, Mayor [[Fernando Wood]] prevailed, and residents of Seneca Village were given final notice. In 1857, the city government acquired all private property within Seneca Village through [[eminent domain]], and on October 1, city officials in New York reported that the last holdouts living on land that was to become Central Park had been removed.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 90" /><ref>"[http://www.irishecho.com/newspaper/story.cfm?id=17187 Story in Irish Echo]". Retrieved November 4, 2009.{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}</ref> A newspaper account at the time suggested that Seneca Village would “not be forgotten…[as] many a brilliant and stirring fight was had during the campaign. But the supremacy of the law was upheld by the policeman’s bludgeons.”<ref name="maap.columbia.edu" />


All of the inhabitants of the village were evicted by 1857, and all of the properties within Central Park were razed.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31" /> The only institution from Seneca Village to survive was All Angels' Church, which relocated a couple of blocks away, albeit with an entirely new congregation.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89" /> There are few records of where residents went after their eviction, as the community was entirely destroyed.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 63" /><ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City" /> To date, no living descendants of Seneca Villagers have been identified.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31" /> Elsewhere in Central Park, the impact of eviction was less intense. Some residents, such as foundry owner Edward Snowden, simply relocated elsewhere; however, squatters and hog farmers were the most affected, as they were never compensated.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 90" />
⚫
All of the inhabitants of the village were evicted by 1857, and the village was razed. Residents were offered $2,335 for their property.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31" /> Members of the community fought to retain their land.<ref>{{{harvnb|Burrows|Wallace|1999|page=792}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/affidavit3.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010919101219/http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/affidavit3.html |dead-url=yes |archive-date=2001-09-19 |title=William's Affidavit |publisher=The New York Historical Society |accessdate=2006-05-15 }}</ref> For two years, residents resisted the police as they petitioned the courts to save their homes, churches, and schools. Some villagers were violently evicted in 1855.<ref name="nyt-1997-01-31" /> However, in the summer of 1856, Mayor [[Fernando Wood]] prevailed, and residents of Seneca Village were given final notice. In 1857, the city government acquired all private property within Seneca Village through [[eminent domain]], and on October 1, city officials in New York reported that the last holdouts living on land that was to become Central Park had been removed.<ref>"[http://www.irishecho.com/newspaper/story.cfm?id=17187 Story in Irish Echo]". Retrieved November 4, 2009.{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}</ref> A newspaper account at the time suggested that Seneca Village would “not be forgotten…[as] many a brilliant and stirring fight was had during the campaign. But the supremacy of the law was upheld by the policeman’s bludgeons.”<ref name="maap.columbia.edu" /> There are few records of where residents went after their eviction, as the community was entirely destroyed.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar p. 63" /><ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City" />


As workers were uprooting trees at the new entrance of Central Park in 1871, on the corner of 85th Street and Central Park West, they came upon two coffins, both containing Black people from Seneca Village.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=August 11, 1871|title=Yesterday Afternoon|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1871-08-11/ed-1/seq-4/#|journal=New-York Herald|volume=|pages=4|doi=|pmid=|via=}}</ref>
Some traces of Seneca Village persisted in later years.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89" /> As workers were uprooting trees at the corner of 85th Street and Central Park West in 1871, they came upon two coffins, both containing black people from Seneca Village.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=August 11, 1871|title=Yesterday Afternoon|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1871-08-11/ed-1/seq-4/#|journal=New-York Herald|volume=|pages=4|doi=|pmid=|via=}}</ref> A half-century later, a gardener named Gilhooley inadvertently found a graveyard from Seneca Village while turning soil at the same site. The site was named "Gilhooley's Burial Plot" in honor of his discovery.<ref name="Rosenzweig Blackmar pp. 88-89" /><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tIXZvYmOBGIC&pg=PA3|title=The Graveyard Shift: A Family Historian's Guide to New York City Cemeteries|last=Inskeep|first=C.R.|publisher=Ancestry|year=2000|isbn=978-0-916489-89-2|page=3|access-date=March 31, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1959/01/10/paddys-walk|title=Paddy's Walk|date=January 10, 1959|website=The New Yorker|access-date=March 31, 2019}}</ref>


==Rediscovery==
==Rediscovery==
The settlement was largely forgotten for more than a century after its demolition. Public attention to Seneca Village was invigorated after the publication of [[Roy Rosenzweig]] and Elizabeth Blackmar's 1992 book "The Park and the People: A History of Central Park".<ref name="Blakinger 2016" />
The settlement was largely forgotten for more than a century after its demolition. Public attention to Seneca Village was invigorated after the publication of [[Roy Rosenzweig]] and Elizabeth Blackmar's 1992 book "The Park and the People: A History of Central Park".<ref name="Blakinger 2016" />


===Memorialization===
===Memorials===
The Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 as a collaboration between Cynthia Copeland of the [[New-York Historical Society]]; Nan Rothschild of [[Barnard College]]; and Diana Wall of [[City College of New York]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/about/news/the-seneca-village-collection-is-now-at-the-repository/page/1/view_as/grid|title=The Seneca Village Collection is now at the Repository!|website=NYC Landmark Preservation Commission|access-date=March 31, 2019}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/htm/people.htm|title=Seneca Village - People|website=projects.mcah.columbia.edu|access-date=2019-03-31}}</ref> It is dedicated to raising awareness about Seneca Village's significance as a free, middle-class black community in 19th century New York City. The project facilitates educational programs, which engage school children, teachers and the general public, and bring Seneca Village into public knowledge.<ref name=":3" />
The Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 as a collaboration between Cynthia Copeland of the [[New-York Historical Society]]; Nan Rothschild of [[Barnard College]]; and Diana Wall of [[City College of New York]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/about/news/the-seneca-village-collection-is-now-at-the-repository/page/1/view_as/grid|title=The Seneca Village Collection is now at the Repository!|website=NYC Landmark Preservation Commission|access-date=March 31, 2019}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/htm/people.htm|title=Seneca Village - People|website=projects.mcah.columbia.edu|access-date=2019-03-31}}</ref> It is dedicated to raising awareness about Seneca Village's significance as a free, middle-class black community in 19th century New York City. The project facilitates educational programs, which engage school children, teachers and the general public, and bring Seneca Village into public knowledge.<ref name=":3" />


In February 2001, Parks Commissioner [[Henry Stern]], State Senator [[David Paterson]], Borough President [[C. Virginia Fields]], and New York Historical Society Executive Director [[Betsy Gotbaum]] unveiled the Historical Sign commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood.<ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City"/><ref>"[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/media_advisories/media_advisories.php?id=8572 Remembering a Lost Village in Central Park]". ''New York City Department of Parks & Recreation''. February 6, 2001.</ref><ref name=":0" />
In February 2001, Parks Commissioner [[Henry Stern]], State Senator [[David Paterson]], Borough President [[C. Virginia Fields]], and New York Historical Society Executive Director [[Betsy Gotbaum]] unveiled the Historical Sign commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood.<ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City"/><ref>"[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/media_advisories/media_advisories.php?id=8572 Remembering a Lost Village in Central Park]". ''New York City Department of Parks & Recreation''. February 6, 2001.</ref><ref name=":0" />


===Archeological excavations===
===Archaeological excavations===
Following a 1997 exhibition on the community at the [[New-York Historical Society]], Wall, Rothschild, and Copeland, as well as Herbert Seignoret, decided to see if any archaeological traces of the village remained. They worked with local historians, churches and community groups to shape the direction of their research project on the site.<ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> With student participation, the project conducted exhaustive archival research and preliminary remote sensing. Researchers used soil borings to identify promising areas with undisturbed soil. In 2005 the team performed ground-penetrating radar tests, successfully locating traces of Seneca Village. After extended discussions with the [[New York City Department of Parks]] and the [[Central Park Conservancy]], officials granted permission for test [[excavations]] in the regions of the village most likely to contain intact archaeological deposits.<ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City" />
Following a 1997 exhibition on the community at the [[New-York Historical Society]], Wall, Rothschild, and Copeland, as well as Herbert Seignoret, decided to see if any archaeological traces of the village remained. They worked with local historians, churches and community groups to shape the direction of their research project on the site.<ref name="Blakinger 2016" /> With student participation, the project conducted exhaustive archival research and preliminary remote sensing. Researchers used soil borings to identify promising areas with undisturbed soil. In 2005 the team performed ground-penetrating radar tests, successfully locating traces of Seneca Village. After extended discussions with the [[New York City Department of Parks]] and the [[Central Park Conservancy]], officials granted permission for test [[excavations]] in the regions of the village most likely to contain intact archaeological deposits.<ref name="Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City" />


Line 87: Line 96:


==External links==
==External links==
*
*[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/numbers/census.html Copy of the 1855 Census]
*[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/numbers/map2.html Central Park Condemnation Map, 1856]
*[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/numbers/map2.html Central Park Condemnation Map, 1856]
*[http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/htm/archaeology.htm Seneca Village Project History and Archaeology]
*[http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/htm/archaeology.htm Seneca Village Project History and Archaeology]

Revision as of 20:23, 31 March 2019

Not to be confused with Seneca, New York.

40°46′52″N 73°57′58″W / 40.781°N 73.966°W / 40.781; -73.966

Map showing the former location of Seneca Village (Egbert Viele, ca. 1857)

Seneca Village was a small settlement of mostly African American landowners in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1825 by free black people – the first such community in the city – although it also came to be inhabited by several other minorities, including Irish and German immigrants, and possibly some Native Americans.

The settlement was located on about 5 acres (2.0 ha) approximately bounded by where 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues would be now, if Central Park had not been built. A stone outcropping near the 85th Street entrance to Central Park is believed to be part of a foundation of the African Methodist Church.

At its peak, the community numbered more than 350 people, and had three churches, two schools, and two cemeteries. It existed until 1857, when it was torn down for the construction of Central Park.

Etymology

The origin of Seneca Village's name is not exactly known; however, a number of theories have been advanced.[1][2][3]

  1. One theory suggests the word “Seneca” came from a Roman philosopher named Lucius Annaeus Seneca, whose book was often read by African American activists.[2][1]
  2. In Upstate New York, the Hamlet of "Seneca Falls" was established in the 17th century. Notable strides in Women's Rights and civil rights were made in this area. In New York, many major names were repeated in naming new provinces and villages. Seneca Falls was connected to the Erie Canal in 1828. Many names, such as Seneca and Bedford, can be found throughout Manhattan and other areas of New York state.[2]
  3. Another theory is that the village was named after a group of Native Americans, the Seneca nation.[4][1]
  4. Sara Cedar Miller, the Central Park Conservancy's historian suggests "It must have been an ethnic slur", a way to simultaneously denigrate Indians and blacks.[3]
  5. Some suggest it is a derivative of Senegal, a country in West Africa, where many of the people who lived in the village were from.[5][2][1]
  6. Yet other theories suggest the name could also have been used as a code for the Underground Railroad.[5][1]

Existence

Seneca Village was bounded by what would have been Eighth Avenue on the west, 89th Street on the north, Seventh Avenue on the east, and 82nd Street on the south.[6][7][8]

Development

Blacks first came to the area in September 1825, when John Whitehead, a white real estate prospector, began selling off parcels of his farm; at the time it was far from the core of New York City, which was centered in what is now Lower Manhattan. A young black man named Andrew Williams was the first person to purchase parcels, obtaining three lots for $125.[9][8][10] The same day, Epiphany Davis, a laborer and trustee of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, bought twelve lots for $578.[9][10] The AME bought six additional lots the same week, and by 1832, at least 24 lots had been sold to African Americans.[9][11][10] Between 1825 and 1832, real estate records show, the Whiteheads sold at least 24 land parcels to black families.[3] Additional development was centered around "York Hill", a plot bounded by imaginary Sixth and Seventh Avenues between 79th and 86th Streets. York Hill was mostly owned by the city, but 5 acres (2.0 ha) were purchased by William Matthews, a young African American, in the late 1830s. Matthews's African Union Church also bought land in Seneca Village around that time.[12]

More African Americans began moving to Seneca Village after slavery in New York state was outlawed in 1827.[8][10] Seneca Village grew in the 1830s when people from York Hill were forced to move after a government-enforced eviction, and York Hill was used to build a basin for the Croton Distributing Reservoir.[12] Later, during the potato famine in Ireland, many Irish residents came to live in Seneca Village, swelling the village by 30 percent during this time.[4] Both African Americans and Irish immigrants were marginalized and faced discrimination throughout the city. Despite their social and racial conflicts elsewhere, the African Americans and Irish in Seneca Village chose to live close to each other.[13] By 1855, one-third of the village's population was Irish.[12] George Washington Plunkitt, who later became a Tammany Hall politician, was born in 1842 to one of the first Irish settlers in the village, Pat and Sara Plunkitt.[12][14] Richard Croker, who later became the leader of Tammany, was born in Ireland, but he came with his family to Seneca Village in 1846, and lived there until his father got a job that enabled them to move.[12][15]

The one-story frame-and-board houses in Seneca Village were referred to as "shanties", which reflected their roughshod outward appearance, though some of the houses resembled log cabins. While the houses were not professionally constructed, their interiors were better off than the cramped tenements of lower Manhattan.[16][17] Landownership among black residents was much higher than in the city as a whole: more than half of blacks owned property in 1850, five times as much as the property ownership rate of New Yorkers.[18] Furthermore, one-fifth of Seneca Village's inhabitants actually possessed their own residences.[19] Many of Seneca Village's black residents were landowners and relatively economically secure compared to their downtown counterparts. At least one property owner lived in Lower Manhattan.[18]

Nevertheless, many of the residents were still poor, since they worked in service industries such as construction, day labor, or food service, and only three residents (two grocers and an innkeeper) could be considered middle class. In addition, many black women worked as domestic servants.[16] Many residents "squatted", boarding in homes they did not own, demonstrating that there was significant class stratification even with Seneca Village's abnormally high landownership rate.[19]

The residents subsisted on the abundant natural resources nearby, such as the fish of the nearby East and Hudson Rivers, and the firewood from nearby forests. Some residents also had gardens and barns, and many residents obtained animal feed from two nearby bone disposal plants at 66th and 75th Streets.[18]

Inhabitants

In 1855, a New York state census found that Seneca Village had 264 residents.[20][12][21][22] On average, the residents had lived there for 22 years. Three-quarters of the 264 residents recorded in 1855 had lived in Seneca Village since at least 1840, and nearly all had lived there since 1850.[20][23] At this time in New York City's history, most of the city's population lived below 14th Street, and the region above 59th Street was only sporadically developed, and was semi-rural or rural in character.[24]

After slavery in New York was outlawed, African American men in the state could vote as long as they had $250 worth of property, as well as lived in the state for three years.[25][10] Of the 13,000 black New Yorkers, 91 were qualified to vote, and of the voting-eligible black population, 10 lived in Seneca Village. The purchase of land by blacks came to play out significantly in their political engagement. Blacks in Seneca Village were extremely politically engaged in proportion to the rest of New York.[25][8]

Community institutions

The economic and cultural stability of Seneca Village enabled the growth of several community institutions. The Village had three churches, two schools, and two cemeteries;[18] by 1855, two-thirds of the inhabitants (180 of 264 total) were regular churchgoers.[25] Two of them, First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Yorkville and African Union Church, were all-black churches, while All Angel's Church was racially mixed.[18]

AME Zion had owned land in Seneca Village since 1827, but until the late 1840s, used the land mostly as a cemetery. The church had a congregation of 100, and it laid its cornerstone in Seneca Village in 1853.[7][18] A box put into the cornerstone contained a Bible, a hymn book, the church's rules, a letter with the names of its five trustees, and copies of the Tribune and The Sun newspapers. Following the razing of Seneca Village, AME Zion Church disappeared.[7]

African Union Church purchased lots in Seneca Village in 1837, a few hundred feet from AME Zion Church.[18] It had 50 congregants.[25] The church contained one of the city's few black schools at the time, Colored School 3, founded in the mid-1840s.[18][10] One of the teachers in the school was 17-year-old Catherine Thompson.[5]

All Angel's Church was founded in 1846 as an affiliate of St. Michael's Church, the main campus of which was located at Amsterdam Avenue and 99th Street.[18] All Angel's was intended to be a mission to Seneca Village's and other nearby residents. At first, the church was hosted in a white policeman's home, but a wooden church at 84th Street was built in 1849. The congregation was racially diverse, with black parishioners from Seneca Village and Irish and German parishioners from other nearby areas. It only had 30 parishioners from Seneca Village[25] When the community was razed, the church relocated to the corner of 81st Street and West End Avenue.[26]

Other nearby settlements

While Seneca Village was the largest former settlement in what is now Central Park, it was also surrounded by smaller areas that were occupied mainly by Irish and German immigrants.[27][28] One of these areas, called "Pigtown", was a settlement of 14 mostly Irish families located in the modern park's southeastern corner, and was so named because the residents kept hogs and goats. Pigtown was originally located further south, in what is now considered 50th through 59th Streets from Sixth to Seventh Avenues, but was forced further north because of complaints from the pungent animal smells.[27][29] An additional 34 families, mainly Irish, lived in an area bounded by 68th and 72nd Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.[27] Nearby, on the current site of Tavern on the Green, were a collection of bone-boiling plants, which employed people both from Seneca Village and from nearby settlements.[30] To the southwest of Seneca Village was the settlement of Harsenville, which is now part of the Upper West Side between 66th and 81st Streets.[31]

Blockhouse No. 1, another structure that predated Central Park

There were also two German settlements: one at the modern-day park's northern end and one south of the current Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. Many of the Irish and German residents were also farmers with their own gardens.[27] An additional settlement in the northeast corner of Central Park carried the former Boston Post Road. That corner contains McGowan's Pass, a topological feature that was used during the American Revolutionary War, and Blockhouse No. 1, a still-extant fortification built during the War of 1812.[30] Mount St. Vincent's Academy was also sited near McGowan's Pass until 1881.[32]

Demise

Planning of Central Park

By the 1840s, members of the city's elite were publicly calling for the construction of a new large park in Manhattan. Two of the largest proponents were William Cullen Bryant, the editor of the New York Evening Post, as well as Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the first American landscape designers.[33][34] The Special Committee on Parks was formed to survey possible sites for the proposed large park. One of the first sites considered was Jones's Wood, a 160-acre (65 ha) tract of land between 66th and 75th Streets on the Upper East Side. The area was occupied by multiple wealthy families who objected to the taking of their land, particularly the Jones and Schermerhorn families.[35]: 451  Downing stated that he would prefer a park of at least 500 acres (200 ha) at any location from 39th Street to the Harlem River.[35]: 452–453 [36] Following the passage of the 1851 bill to acquire Jones's Wood, the Schermerhorns and Joneses successfully obtained an injunction to block the acquisition, and the transaction was invalidated as unconstitutional.[37][38]

The second site proposed for a large public park was a 750-acre (300 ha) area labeled "Central Park", bounded by 59th and 106th Streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.[39][40] The Central Park plan gradually gained support from a variety of groups.[41] After a second bill to acquire Jones's Wood was nullified,[42][38] the New York State Legislature passed the Central Park Act in July 1853, which authorized a board of five commissioners to start purchasing land for a park, as well as create a Central Park Fund to raise money.[43]: 458 [44][45] As the campaign to create Central Park moved forward, the community was referred to in pejorative terms, and the Irish and black residents were often described as "wretched" and "debased".[46] Seneca Village itself was referred to using racial slurs.[12][8] The residents of Seneca Village were also accused of stealing food and operating illegal bars.[19]

Park advocates and the media began to describe Seneca Village and other communities in this area as "shantytowns" and the residents there as "squatters" and "vagabonds and scoundrels". This included Egbert Ludovicus Viele, the park's first engineer, who wrote a report about the "refuge of five thousand squatters" living on the future site of Central Park, and criticized them as having "very little knowledge of the English language, and with very little respect for the law."[47] While a minority of Seneca Village's residents were landowners, most residents had formal or informal agreements with landlords, and there were only a few residents who were squatting in the legal sense of not having permission from the landlord.[19][17]

Razing

In 1853, the Central Park commissioners started conducting property assessments on more than 34,000 lots in and near Central Park.[48] The Central Park commissioners had completed their assessments by July 1855, and the state supreme court confirmed this work the following February.[49] As part of the tax assessment, residents were offered an average of $700 for their property.[48][17] The minority of Seneca Village residents who owned land were well-compensated. For instance, Andrew Williams was paid $2,335 for his house and three lots, and even though he had originally asked for $3,500, the final compensation still represented a significant increase over the $125 that he had paid for the property in 1825.[24][26]

Clearing occurred as soon as the Central Park commission's report was released in October 1855.[50] The city began enforcing little-known regulations and forcing Seneca Village residents to pay rent.[32] For two years, residents resisted the police as they petitioned the courts to save their homes, churches, and schools.[24][26] Members of the community fought to retain their land.[51][52] However, in the summer of 1856, Mayor Fernando Wood prevailed, and residents of Seneca Village were given final notice. In 1857, the city government acquired all private property within Seneca Village through eminent domain, and on October 1, city officials in New York reported that the last holdouts living on land that was to become Central Park had been removed.[32][53] A newspaper account at the time suggested that Seneca Village would “not be forgotten…[as] many a brilliant and stirring fight was had during the campaign. But the supremacy of the law was upheld by the policeman’s bludgeons.”[11]

All of the inhabitants of the village were evicted by 1857, and all of the properties within Central Park were razed.[24] The only institution from Seneca Village to survive was All Angels' Church, which relocated a couple of blocks away, albeit with an entirely new congregation.[26] There are few records of where residents went after their eviction, as the community was entirely destroyed.[47][13] To date, no living descendants of Seneca Villagers have been identified.[24] Elsewhere in Central Park, the impact of eviction was less intense. Some residents, such as foundry owner Edward Snowden, simply relocated elsewhere; however, squatters and hog farmers were the most affected, as they were never compensated.[32]

Some traces of Seneca Village persisted in later years.[26] As workers were uprooting trees at the corner of 85th Street and Central Park West in 1871, they came upon two coffins, both containing black people from Seneca Village.[26][54] A half-century later, a gardener named Gilhooley inadvertently found a graveyard from Seneca Village while turning soil at the same site. The site was named "Gilhooley's Burial Plot" in honor of his discovery.[26][55][56]

Rediscovery

The settlement was largely forgotten for more than a century after its demolition. Public attention to Seneca Village was invigorated after the publication of Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar's 1992 book "The Park and the People: A History of Central Park".[10]

Memorials

The Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 as a collaboration between Cynthia Copeland of the New-York Historical Society; Nan Rothschild of Barnard College; and Diana Wall of City College of New York.[57][58] It is dedicated to raising awareness about Seneca Village's significance as a free, middle-class black community in 19th century New York City. The project facilitates educational programs, which engage school children, teachers and the general public, and bring Seneca Village into public knowledge.[58]

In February 2001, Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, State Senator David Paterson, Borough President C. Virginia Fields, and New York Historical Society Executive Director Betsy Gotbaum unveiled the Historical Sign commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood.[13][59][8]

Archaeological excavations

Following a 1997 exhibition on the community at the New-York Historical Society, Wall, Rothschild, and Copeland, as well as Herbert Seignoret, decided to see if any archaeological traces of the village remained. They worked with local historians, churches and community groups to shape the direction of their research project on the site.[10] With student participation, the project conducted exhaustive archival research and preliminary remote sensing. Researchers used soil borings to identify promising areas with undisturbed soil. In 2005 the team performed ground-penetrating radar tests, successfully locating traces of Seneca Village. After extended discussions with the New York City Department of Parks and the Central Park Conservancy, officials granted permission for test excavations in the regions of the village most likely to contain intact archaeological deposits.[13]

Digs took place in 2004, August 2005,[60] and summer 2011[61][10] the buried remains of the village were the subject of archaeological investigation.[61][62] The 2011 excavation uncovered the homestead of William Godfrey Wilson, a sexton for All Angels' Church, and another important deposit from the backyard of two other Seneca Village residents. Archaeologists found over 250 bags of artifacts, including the bone handle of a toothbrush and the leather sole of a child’s shoe. The public location of the site in Central Park meant that excavators had to back-fill incomplete units each weekend and could not cut any root thicker than half an inch. Nighttime guards also monitored the site to ensure that it was undisturbed. Following the excavation, more than 300 people attended an open house at the project site.[62]

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e "The Daily Plant : NYC Parks". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. June 26, 1939. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d "The Resurrection of Seneca Village". HuffPost. August 25, 2011. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c Martin, Douglas (April 7, 1995). "Before Park, Black Village: Students Look Into a Community's History". The New York Times. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  4. ^ a b Mullins, Antoinette. "A Village Vanished: Seneca Village". Harlem Live. Archived from the original on September 21, 2009.
  5. ^ a b c Williams, Jasmin K. (August 13, 2007). "The Village In The Park". New York Post.
  6. ^ "History" Seneca Village Project
  7. ^ a b c Wilkins, Randall Sharon "Seneca Village" in Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. (2010). The Encyclopedia of New York City (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11465-2.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Williams, Keith (2018-02-07). "Uncovering the Ruins of an Early Black Settlement in New York". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  9. ^ a b c Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 65
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Blakinger, Keri (May 17, 2016). "A look at Seneca Village, the early black settlement obliterated by the creation of Central Park". New York Daily News. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  11. ^ a b "Seneca Village". MAAP: Mapping the African American Past. Columbia University.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 66
  13. ^ a b c d Wall, Diana; Wall, Diana; Rothschild, Nan A.; Copeland, Cynthia (2008). "Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City". Historical Archaeology. 42 (Living in Cities Revisited: Trends in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Urban Archaeology (2008)): 97–107. JSTOR 25617485.
  14. ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, pp. 747–748
  15. ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 1104
  16. ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 68–69
  17. ^ a b c Berman 2003, p. 19
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 70–71
  19. ^ a b c d Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 76–77
  20. ^ a b "1855 NYS Census Page". historymatters.gmu.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  21. ^ "Seneca Village". The New York Historical Society. Archived from the original on 1998-12-06. Retrieved 2006-05-15. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Shipp, E.R. (August 21, 2005). "The Price of Progress: Eminent domain can lead to pain as well as advancement". Daily News. New York.
  23. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 67
  24. ^ a b c d e Martin, Douglas (January 31, 1997). "A Village Dies, A Park Is Born". The New York Times.
  25. ^ a b c d e Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 72
  26. ^ a b c d e f g Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 88–89
  27. ^ a b c d Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 73–74
  28. ^ Berman 2003, p. 18
  29. ^ McNeur, Catherine (2015-02-01). "One of the first gentrification movements — the Great Piggery War". New York Post. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  30. ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 75
  31. ^ Pollak, Michael (2006-09-17). "Knowing the Distance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  32. ^ a b c d Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 90–91
  33. ^ Heckscher 2008, pp. 11–12
  34. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 15, 29–30
  35. ^ a b New York (State). Legislature. Assembly (1911). Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York. pp. 451–458. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
  36. ^ Berman 2003, p. 17
  37. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 45
  38. ^ a b Taylor 2009, p. 260
  39. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 45
  40. ^ "First Annual Report". Board of Commissioners of Central Park. 1851.
  41. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 49–50
  42. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 51–53
  43. ^ New York (State). Legislature. Assembly (1911). Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York. pp. 451–458. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
  44. ^ "The Central Park". The New York Times. 1853-09-19. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
  45. ^ Heckscher 2008, pp. 15–16
  46. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 67
  47. ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 63–64
  48. ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 82–83
  49. ^ Heckscher 2008, p. 17
  50. ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 81–83
  51. ^ {Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 792
  52. ^ "William's Affidavit". The New York Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2001-09-19. Retrieved 2006-05-15. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  53. ^ "Story in Irish Echo". Retrieved November 4, 2009.[dead link]
  54. ^ "Yesterday Afternoon". New-York Herald: 4. August 11, 1871.
  55. ^ Inskeep, C.R. (2000). The Graveyard Shift: A Family Historian's Guide to New York City Cemeteries. Ancestry. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-916489-89-2. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  56. ^ "Paddy's Walk". The New Yorker. January 10, 1959. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  57. ^ "The Seneca Village Collection is now at the Repository!". NYC Landmark Preservation Commission. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  58. ^ a b "Seneca Village - People". projects.mcah.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  59. ^ "Remembering a Lost Village in Central Park". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. February 6, 2001.
  60. ^ "Archaeology". Seneca Village Project. Columbia University.
  61. ^ a b "Summer 2011 Excavation". Seneca Village Project. Columbia University. Retrieved September 2, 2012.
  62. ^ a b Foderaro, Lisa W. (July 27, 2011). "Unearthing an African-American Village Displaced by Central Park". The New York Times.

Bibliography

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