Survey of Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Montgomery County,

Transcription

1 National Register: Possible Nominations 187 Survey of Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Montgomery County, POSSIBLE NOMINATIONS TO THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES All nominations to the National Register of Historic Places must possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. They must also: 1. be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history ; or 2. be associated with the lives of significant persons in the past ; or 3. embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction ; or 4. have yielded or be likely to yield information important in history or prehistory. (For more information, see In addition, sites relating to the Underground Railroad, abolitionism, or African American life, they may also be nominated with relationship to the Multiple Property Document draft Historic Resources Associated with the Freedom Trail in Central New York, Sites in Montgomery County do not fit within the geographic limits of central New York, and some of the sites suggested here are important after 1870, but the general guidelines offer a context for these nominations. (For more information, see 1. Town of Amsterdam First Presbyterian Church of Amsterdam Hagaman Significance: In 1836, Montgomery County s first antislavery society was organized in this church. Inspired by the antislavery energies of such people as Ellis Clizbe, Joseph Hagaman, and David Candee, this church passed an antislavery resolution in Historic Resources Associated with the Freedom Trail: Criterion II-2. Sites related to abolitionism and anti-slavery.

2 188 National Register: Possible Nominations 2. Amsterdam Home of Ellis and Eliza Clizbe Route 67 Significance: Ellis Clizbe was an active abolitionist lecturer, author, and organizer, member of the Presbyterian Church, and founding member of the Eastern New York Anti-Slavery Society. Basing his opposition to slavery on Christian principles, he lived among a small group of African Americans (including the Dennis and Parker families) and worked tirelessly against slavery through writing, lecturing, and organizing. The Clizbes also kept the bestdocumented Underground Railroad station in Montgomery County. The pre-civil War Clizbe home in Rock City burned. The Clizbe family moved to this house sometime in the 1860s. Historic Resources Associated with the Freedom Trail: Criterion II-2. Sites related to abolitionism and anti-slavery. 3. Canajoharie Ehle House Corner of Church Street and Canajoharie-Cherry Valley Turnpike Significance: Site of barbershop kept by Philip Skinner and the ice cream parlor kept by Eliza Skinner, whose parents had been born in slavery in Montgomery County. The Skinner family owned a house nearby on Cliff Street and became well known business people in Canajoharie.

3 National Register: Possible Nominations Canajoharie Bromley and Elizabeth Phillips Hoke 131 Mohawk Street (historically 45 Mohawk) Significance: Bromley Hoke and Elizabeth Phillips Hoke represent the integral part that African Americans, descendents of grandparents who had been locally enslaved, played in the economic and social development of the Mohawk Valley, as well as the close ties of family and neighborhood that sustained African American families as they moved from slavery into freedom. 5. Canajoharie Home of Philip and Eunice Van Horne Phillips Corner Otsego Street and Canajoharie-Cherry Valley Turnpike Significance: As the generation of African Americans who were once enslaved, Philip and Eunice Phillips represent the modest success that steady work and home ownership provided to people who spanned the experience of both slavery and freedom in the Mohawk Valley in the mid-nineteenth century.

4 190 National Register: Possible Nominations 6. Canajoharie Home of Peter and Eliza Skinner 34 Cliff Street Significance: Peter and Eliza Skinner represent the successful integration of many African Americans, born of enslaved parents, into the community life of these Mohawk Valley villages. Both Peter and Eliza became property owners and successful business people in Canajoharie. Their daughter Frances married African American Walter Denning, a prominent mason, and lived west of the Skinners on Cliff Street in the early twentieth century. 7. Canajoharie Home of James and Sarah Tebeot and John and Martha Cromwell 119 Mohawk Street (historically 39 Mohawk) Significance: James and Sarah Tebeot and John and Martha Cromwell, African Americans, lived with their families in the brown Italianate house in the center of this photo. James Tebeot was a barber who worked in the Shaper Block, just east of his home, while John Cromwell was a musician.

5 National Register: Possible Nominations Town of Minden Nicholas Van Alstine House Ford s Bush Significance: Under pastors J.W. Lawyer and Nicholas Van Alstine, the Fordsbush Evangelical Lutheran Church formed the only Luther antislavery synod in the U.S., the Franckean Synod. In 1839, they ordained African American Daniel Payne, who later became a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. (The church itself is demolished, but its site remains west of this home.) Historic Resources Associated with the Freedom Trail: Criterion II-2. Sites related to abolitionism and anti-slavery. 9. Fort Plain Susan Wilson Home Main Street (Pickle Hill Road) just north of village boundary, on west side of street Significance: African American Susan House Wilson was born in slavery with the Lipe family of Fort Plain. She lived in Fort Plain most of her life, married Thomas Wilson, and raised her family there until her death in 1898.

6 192 National Register: Possible Nominations 10. Mohawk Home of Michael and Elizabeth Wendell Route 334, last house on west before hamlet of Sammonsville Significance: This house represents that generation of people moved from slavery into freedom. Michael and Elizabeth Wendell were both born in slavery in Montgomery County and survived to raise their family in this house. Son and daughter-in-law Oliver and Ruth Wendell took over this house and later owned a home in the Town of Root.