African Heritage

Hyde Park’s New Guinea community was a transient, two-to-three generation community of color in the period just before, during, and after the U.S. Civil War. The first Federal Census in 1790 shows that 80% of Dutchess County’s population of 2,200 persons of color were enslaved. About two-thirds lived along the Hudson River, and one-third lived in inland rural parts. After the 1827 abolition of slavery in New York State, New Guinea became home to formerly enslaved persons from around the area who banded together, in part, to provide safety during this period of transition. The continued enslavement of four million men, women and children in the U.S. South created a risk of kidnapping for local free persons of color. The passing of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law intensified the divisions in the country. New Guinea became a permanent home to self-emancipated freedom seekers on the so-called underground railroad from as far away as Virginia and Brazil, as well as a temporary stop on the way to Canada. The searing bright spark emerged from both the heat of confrontation, and the light of reason, education, and access to property and business ownership that illuminated a way forward. The passionate countervailing national arguments literally abutted the New Guinea community. Adjacent to the west were those who enslaved others like three generations of the Bard family, and those, like James K. Paulding, who became published national voices arguing for the permanent institution of slavery. Adjacent to the east was the outspoken and activist abolitionist Quaker community. The Crum Elbow Meeting House, which stands today with its ancient cemetery, was home to (and today is the resting place of) the leading national abolitionist voices of the DeGarmo family, including Elizabeth, “Lizzie” DeGarmo. Revealing the frequent seeming contradictions and subtleties of the issue, while some of the founders of Hyde Park’s St. James Church were slave owners, the church operated as an open community. Persons of color were invited to worship and attend Sunday school. The church offered paid employment. The St. James cemetery policy was unusual at the time in that it allowed the integrated burial of all races. The bright spark was searing. There was destitution, disease and death, among a community that grew by a factor of five between 1810 and 1830. Many lived in unhealthful conditions in shanties and lean-tos along the Crum Elbow Creek. At the same time, persons of color became successful property and business owners, and began to define individual paths in the pursuit of their personal happiness. In many instances those paths took them away from Hyde Park, and in some instances it did not. We are fortunate to be able to draw from insights from a 21st century archaeological investigation, the 20th century local historian Henry Hackett, the 19th century local historian, Edward Braman, and the resources of the Dutchess County Historical Society. ~ Bill Jeffway Watch the video: 50-minutes. For new window & full view click on Watch on Youtube.To view within the above window, click red play button. Take the trail: Put cursor over window to scroll down through the story and map.There are 29 “stops” in Chapter One, and 9 “stops” in Chapter Two. End of embedded trail window. Trail Overview: Maps: Photos: Above: We have enjoyed introducing Columbia University students and NYS Parks summer students to the site. Family photos of Henry Hackett and his family and home, and a contemporary map.

Our online story about the extraordinary Sadie Peterson Delaney caught the attention of a big fan in England: Natty Mark Samuels, head of the African School in England. He was prompted to write a ballad dedicated to her, which is here performed by Poughkeepsie’s Angela Henry. The profile of Mrs. Delaney is below as well. The Ballad of Sadie Delaney By Natty Mark Samuels, head of the African School in England. Read by (Grace) Angela Henry (13 minutes). Full program. Poughkeepsie’s Sadie Delaney: Healing the Trauma of War Through Reading This is an extract from an article published in the Northern/Southern Dutchess News on February 12, 2020, under the heading, African American Women’s Voices & Talents of a Century Ago by Bill Jeffway. Sadie (Johnson) Peterson Delaney (1889 to 1958) was both ambitious and successful in expanding a field of health and healing driven by books, called Bibliotherapy. We know from The Quill, the Parish newsletter of the the Smith Metropolitan AME Zion Church, that she was a prolific poet, and involved in many Church groups. From the October 21, 1915 issue: Mrs Peterson is one of Zion’s staunch supporters. She possesses considerable literary ability, is a willing worker, a splendid young woman and of a congenial personality. She is a born poet. Her productions are practically all spontaneous efforts and yet she has but few equals in the amateur poetic world. Each of her poems grip with a peculiar fascination, being clothed in beautiful language, the pathos so tender and the whole so original, varied and novel that one is carried along as in a delightful dream of admiration. Mrs. Peterson is serving our church as President of the J. W. Hood Literary Society, President of the General Claims Auxiliary No. 2, Leader of the Children’s Class, Sabbath School Teacher, and member of the Busy Bee Sewing Circle. She is one of the daughters of Zion of whom we are proud. New York State was having a referendum in the year 1915 on the question of women’s suffrage, of course only among male voters who were the only ones who could vote at the time. The question the ballot was whether the NY State constitution should be amended to allow women to vote. In an effort to drum up support among African-Americans the Equal Suffrage League of Poughkeepsie, led by Laura Wiley of Vassar College, held a meeting at the Smith AME Zion Church, the African-American Church on Smith Street in Poughkeepsie in 1914, a year before the referendum. Among the women of that Church who stepped up and spoke in support of women’s suffrage was Sadie Johnson Peterson. Interested in writing at the time, she read an original poem called, “A Suffrage Call.” Unfortunately we do not know exactly what she said. Peterson had moved to Poughkeepsie as a child in 1899 when her father took the job of Sexton at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Sadie Peterson, 1915, Poughkeepsie. Dr. Delaney. She attended Poughkeepsie High School, and Miss McGovern’s School of Social Work, abley pivoting out of a difficult first marriage to focus on studying to become a librarian. She was 30 years old when she left Poughkeepsie to study at the 135th Street Branch of the New York City library system, now New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. She was active there when the intellectual, musical and artistic activities of the Harlem Renaissance took place. Today, that library branch houses a collection of her letters, clippings and photographs. In 1924, the remarried Sadie Peterson Delaney took a position as librarian at Tuskegee Veterans Administration hospital. There she developed and evolved the practice of Bibliotherapy, working with doctors to use books to heal both mental and physical wounds. Imagine, a time before television, before the pervasive TV screen appeared in our hospital rooms to distract us, Bibliotherapy was a deeply thoughtful concept that looked at a very holistic approach to healing. Eleanor Roosevelt in her column “My Day” wrote in January 1957 applauding Mrs. Delaney and her practice of bibliotherapy. Roosevelt explained that Mrs. Delaney served 1,000 patients. She had added a library binding service to give patients vocational experience. She started a department for the blind, and classes in braille. At the Family Partnership building on North Hamilton Street you will find Poughkeepsie Public Library’s Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library.

“Emancipation Day.” This was the name of the holiday recognizing the date of August 1, 1834, as the date that the British Slavery Emancipation Act began the graduated process of freeing slaves in the British Empire. The greatest impact was in the Caribbean, or British West Indies, where the holiday is still celebrated in some parts. New York State had abolished slavery a few years earlier, in 1827. But it was not until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln, on January 1, 1863, that the graduated process of freeing millions enslaved in the US began. Consequently, there was a mix of celebration of what was achieved, and profound determination to “finish the job” in the United States. One of the largest gatherings for the holiday, was the Emancipation Day taking place on Monday, August 2, 1858 at Poughkeepsie’s College Hill. The main highlight was the nationally renowned thought leader, abolitionist, author, publisher and speaker, Frederick Douglass. People came from across the whole Hudson Valley. A formal procession from the AME Zion Church (then on Catharine Street) went to the dock to greet arriving guests at the Hudson River, and formed a group procession across Main, Catharine, Mill, Hamilton, Mansion, and Clinton Streets. Their destination was “College Grove,” on the west of College Hill at Clinton Street, where a platform had been raised for the speakers. Along with chairs, tables and non-alcoholic refreshment. Frederick Douglass gave a two-hour speech to a crowd of approximately 4,000 individuals. Although we do not have reports of exactly what Douglass said, we can get some idea by looking at earlier talks he gave. This was not Douglass’ first time in Poughkeepsie. Just six months earlier, in January, he spent several days giving a series of lectures. We get some very specific insight to Douglass’ thoughts through the diaries of Edmund Platt in the DCHS Collections. He would have been just 15 years old at the time when he sat in the audience and listened to Douglass on January of 1858 at the Universalist Church. Platt would go on to found what would become the retail giant Luckey, Platt & Co., which operated on Main St. until 1981. He authored a landmark history of Poughkeepsie in 1905. He was also involved in the business of his brother and father, who were publishers of the local newspaper, the Poughkeepsie Eagle. From the Platt diaries: Tuesday, January 12, 1858. “In the evening I went to hear a lecture by Frederick Douglass, it was very good.  He used to be a slave. He told how he learned to read and write and [do math]. In the first place he was given to a boy named Tomas Hall who was kind to him ,and when Tom’s mother [taught Tom] his letters, she forgot to put Fred out of the room. Until by and by, he knew all the letters , he learned to spell and read a little. He then went into the shipyard, and when the carpenters wrote on the timbers, he asked what that meant and they told him. And pretty soon he could write the letters in those words himself. Then on the street corners, he told the white boys he could write. He made a few letters. And as they wanted to show their skill, they wrote down the whole alphabet so he had a copy. He learned by picking up a little at a time. And at last he ran away and has not been back since.” Thursday, January 14, 1858. “In the evening I went to hear Mr. Douglas again. His subject was the effects of slavery. First, he said the same winter the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock another Landing was made in Virginia. It was a shipload of slaves.”  “He said they had gone on until they had stopped freedom of speech in the southern states. They tried to stop freedom of speech in the Senate when Brooks cained Sumner [On May 22, 1856, after anti-slavery Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner made a stinging verbal attack on pro-slavery Stephen Douglas and Andrew Butler, South Carolina’s congressional representative entered the Senate chamber and beat Sumner with a stick until he was unconscious and bleeding and had to be carried out]. And they want to stop free speech in the northern states and to establish the slave trade.”  “He said they had gone so far now as to make a lot against the law of God that in the fugitive slave law that says, ‘You must not feed the hungry, clothe the naked.’ He said when he was running away he would rather come in contact with a nest of rattlesnakes than a Democratic prayer meeting.”  “He preached a short sermon on the text ‘servants obey your masters.’ He said he had heard preaching on this subject till his head ached. I forgot the first of the sermon, but some of it was the white men have braved the perils of the ocean and snatched the Negroes from Africa like brands from the burning. The Negro should obey the white because they had soft skin, white hands, etc. I cannot remember all the lecture and cannot put down here all I remembered.” Platt did not attend the Wednesday, January 13 lecture. Newspapers reported that Douglass was speaking that night on the topic of “respecting the different races of man, showing that they had originally a common origin, that under like circumstances, and with the proper opportunities, the Africans had shown themselves equal to others as was proved by the history and character of the ancient Egyptians the Carthaginians, etc. In this he displayed great research and much skill in answering the argument against his position strengthening his own doctrines by facts and illustrations.”  Of course, a shift in emphasis happened after the Civil War. By 1868, an “Emancipation Celebration” took place on September 16. The route, from the AME Zion Church then at Catharine Street, to the river, and back was similar to the

In Dutchess County, burial of Persons of Color took place in separate, segregated cemeteries into the early 20th century. The last known such burial was Lemuel Jackson of Red Hook, buried in the Turkey Hill “Colored Cemetery” in the Town of Milan in 1927. In addition to segregated cemeteries, there were segregated sections of larger cemeteries, often disallowing permanent markers. There were homestead or farm burials, as was the tradition especially prior to the Civil War. There were some, but few instances where highly regarded servants were buried in a predominantly White cemetery.