Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City (58 page)

The farthest away, Henry Highland Garnet, found death in distant Liberia. Forgetting past political differences, the black elite hoped to erect a bronze statue in his honor and got the parks commissioners’ agreement to place it in Central Park. But Garnet was not Grant, and funding lagged. An exasperated reader wrote to the
Freeman
angrily complaining that “the race is devoid of public spirit. Education,” he continued, “should teach us to perpetuate in brass or bronze the memory of those men, who, by their noble achievements, have done much towards liberalizing public opinion.” “We must learn to honor our own,” he concluded, “if we desire to leave a legacy in the form of worthy examples to future generations” and encourage others to “be more disposed to honor us than they are at present.”
⁷

The writer’s judgments were perhaps somewhat harsh. It takes a lot of money to perpetuate in brass or bronze. The black elite did what it could. Newspaper obituaries commemorated the many who died in rapid succession throughout the 1880s. Although simply words on a page, they were comprehensive, wedding historical significance to character sketch. Peter Ray was remembered for his improbable rise from errand boy to general superintendent of the Jersey City Lorillard tobacco factory. Peter Vogelsang’s obituary extolled his service with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts and his elevation to the rank of lieutenant at war’s end. Whenever possible, commemoration went beyond the short obituary. After Charles Ray’s death, his daughters published a loving tribute to their father,
Sketch of the Life of Rev. Charles B. Ray
, in which they detailed his antislavery activity, work with the New York Vigilance Committee and the Underground Railroad, and, in conclusion, provided moving testimonies from friends; a copy of it is preserved in the manuscript room at the Schomburg Center. John Peterson was memorialized in print as “a prince among his people” and his long service to New York’s black community duly noted. Alexander Crummell officiated at an elaborate memorial service held in his honor at St. Philip’s.

Tributes to John Peterson had in fact started well before his death in the annual dinners celebrating his birthday, and continued for many years thereafter. As if material objects would ensure that he would not be forgotten, Peterson directed in his will that his most prized possessions be distributed to various members of the black community. He bequeathed Philip his copy of the American Encyclopedia.
⁸

My great-great-grandfather was among those who died in the 1880s. Unlike the others, Peter had not participated extensively in public events and left his mark on the course of history. But Crummell seized the occasion of his death to recall the early days of the Mulberry Street School, and noted the deep and lasting impression Peter had made on all those he had come in contact with from his boyhood years until the moment of his death:

Without ostentation, without any prominent position, he possessed such peculiar mingled and superior qualities that every one will say: ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again.’

How deep was the impress of those qualities; how this true and singular character was prized, was evident at the funeral which took place at his old home. There, in that large assemblage of friends could be seen one and another and another, nay very many of his schoolmates, now gray-haired men and women, who had known and loved and played with him in the old school house in Mulberry street; and who sought the satisfaction of dropping a tear upon the bier of a dear friend.
⁹

A decade younger than his father-in-law, Philip lived until 1891, when he died of phthisis, or what we now call tuberculosis. Although I knew how eminent he had become, I was astonished at the degree to which he was commemorated in print, ceremonies, and stone by both the black elite and the white community. The major Brooklyn newspapers all took note. Short obituary notices appeared in the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
, the
Standard
, and the
Daily Times.
The
New York Times
published an appreciative biographical sketch, while the
Brooklyn Citizen
gave an elaborate account of Philip’s funeral service and reprinted George Downing’s eulogy in its entirety.

No newspaper, however, could outdo the
New York Age
in the lengthy and heartfelt tributes it paid to my great-grandfather over the course of several months. On February 21, the paper published an account of Philip’s life and death followed on February 28 by coverage of his funeral at his home and internment at Cypress Hills Cemetery, attended en masse by members of the black elite—among them the Downings, Albro Lyons, T. McCants Stewart, T. Thomas Fortune, Charles Dorsey—as well as members of the Brooklyn Board of Education. On March 7, the
Age
took out a supplement, in which it printed resolutions by the three institutions to which Philip had been especially devoted, St. Philip’s, the New York and Newport Ugly Fishing Club, and the Brooklyn Board of Education; Alexander Crummell’s funeral sermon; and a special tribute by Horace Dresser, a white member of the Board of Education. But that was not all. On March 21, the
Age
published resolutions taken by one of Brooklyn’s most prominent black churches, the Concord Baptist Church of Christ, as well as an account of a commemorative ceremony held by teachers and students of Colored Public School 67. Still more memorial services were yet to come: on March 28, one at St. Philip’s; on April 4, another at the Concord Baptist Church held under the auspices of the Brooklyn Literary Union and attended by Brooklyn’s top officials, with Mayor Chapin presiding; and on April 11, yet another service organized by the Brooklyn Literary Union, this time exclusively for the black community. Finally, in a short piece in its May 11 issue, the
Age
took note of a tree-planting ceremony in Philip’s honor at Colored Public School 67.
¹⁰

Beyond print and ritual, Philip was commemorated in stone. The Brooklyn Board of Education named a school in his honor. St. Philip’s placed a plaque on a wall in recognition of his service, one of the very few accorded to a layman.

As I read through these accounts, I was struck by several facts. One was the interracial nature of the tributes paid to Philip. Both black and white newspapers gave extensive coverage to his death. Both blacks and whites gathered together to mourn him at his funeral and then
at the Concord Baptist Church memorial service. And almost all of the newspaper accounts emphasized the two events that underscored Philip’s successful negotiation of race relations: the saving of his property during the draft riots and his appointment to the Brooklyn Board of Education. For blacks and whites alike, his life stood as a singular model for the possibilities of racial cooperation.

I was also touched by the outpouring of admiration and respect extended to Philip by the black elite. However much they might have been dismayed by his early lack of progressive spirit, they now took full and appreciative measure of the man. Alexander Crummell put it most eloquently in his funeral oration, which he built around the concept of character. “We are here tonight,” he proclaimed, “to manifest our respect for the character of our departed friend—Philip A. White.” All the printed resolutions agreed on the three areas in which Philip had best exhibited his character. The St. Philip’s tribute laid them out neatly. First was Philip’s devotion to his church: “From early childhood to ripe manhood and through declining years, Dr. White was connected with our venerable parish. … To whatever position he was called he brought to it his best energy, his most lively interest, his most painstaking effort, and above all, the spirit of consecration to his work.” Second was his business acumen: “In his business relation he was eminently successful. By close application, untiring industry and exact business methods, he built up a standing in business circles which brought him the respect and confidence which only such qualities beget.” And third was his love of family: “In his home life he was an affectionate husband, and a devoted father; thoughtful always of those intrusted to his care.”
¹¹

I pulled out the scrapbook page that had started me on my quest. I now recognized that it was a perfect memorial in miniature. The obituary was a portrait of my great-grandfather’s life, from poverty and adversity to prosperity and giving back to the community; one poem pasted on the page underscored Philip’s commitment to education; another paid homage to St. Philip’s mother church, Trinity; and a third praised his love of home life. But as I read more closely, I realized that no amount of spilled ink would ever reveal the full story of Philip’s life. A fourth poem, “If Only We Understood,” hinted at secrets Philip took with him to the grave. The second stanza goes as follows:

Ah! We judge each other harshly,

Knowing not life’s hidden force;

Knowing not the fount of action

Is less turbid at its source;

Seeing not amid the evil

All the golden grains of good;

And we’d love each other better

If we only understood.
¹²

As Toni Morrison noted, the “unwritten interior lives” of nineteenth-century black Americans have been buried with them.

As the decades passed, time buried even the public lives of nineteenth-century black New Yorkers. Peter’s and Philip’s contemporaries, and even members of the black elite born one or two generations later, had desperately tried to preserve their nineteenth-century history; among them were members of my family, Albro Lyons, his daughter Maritcha, and her nephew Harry Albro Williamson. Yet this history was all but forgotten by those who came of age in the twentieth century. Perhaps this new generation could not understand the past in the same ways as those who had lived it. Perhaps they saw only degradation, humiliation, and shame rather than the dignity of struggle and resistance, and so the trauma of remembering became too much to bear. Or maybe with the entry into a new century and the proclamation of a new modernity, they were determined to leave behind what they deemed old-fashioned. Or maybe it was the geographic dispersal from Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn to Harlem and beyond that contributed to the weakening of their will to remember. Within my own family, it might have been generational conflicts too great to bind the younger generation to the older.

But forgetting is not the same as erasing, destroying, obliterating. The past has survived, if only in the form of scraps. The archives in their many guises became a place for safe keeping, for storing memories of the past that were simply waiting to be brought back to light and life in the ripeness of time.

1
. Freeman Collection, Box 7.

2
. Hodges,
Root and Branch
, 194.

3
. Du Bois,
Souls
, 86; Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 43–44.

4
. Cantwell and Wall,
Unearthing Gotham
, 281–88.

5
. Crummell, “New Ideas and New Aims,” 123.

6
. Early histories of black New Yorkers are James Weldon Johnson,
Black Manhattan
(1930); Kenneth Clark,
Dark Ghetto
(1965); and Roi Ottley,
The Negro in New York
(1967). More recent studies include George E. Walker,
The Afro-American in New York City, 1827–1860
(1993); Sherrill D. Wilson,
New York’s City’s African Slaveowners
(1994); Rhoda Golden Freeman,
The Free Negro in New York City in the Era Before the Civil War
(1994); Graham Hodges,
Root and Branch
(1999); Shane White,
Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770–1810
(1995) and
Stories of Freedom in Black New York
(2002); Craig Wilder,
A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn
(2000) and
In the Company of Black Men: The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City
(2001); Leslie Harris,
In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1623–1863
(2003); Leslie Alexander,
African or American? Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784–1861
(2008).

7
. Crummell, “New Ideas and New Aims,” 121–23.

8
. Heslin, “John Pintard,” 30–39; Burrows and Wallace,
Gotham
, 378;
New York Herald
, February 12, 1805.

9
. Johnson,
Black Manhattan
, xvii;
Along this Way
, 4–5.

10
. Johnson,
Black Manhattan
, xvii, xviii; Sinnette,
Arthur Alfonso Schomburg
, 43, 32, 134, 141.

11
. Williamson Papers, Genealogical Records, reel 1; “Folks in Old New York and Brooklyn,” 1.

12
. Lyons, “Memories of Yesterdays,” n.p.

13
. Morrison, “The Site of Memory,” 111.

14
. Hodges,
Root and Branch
, 279–80.

1
.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
, January 5, 1885.

2
. R.C. Church of St. Peter’s Marriage Records, April 22, 1811.

3
. A. Jones,
Pierre Toussaint
, 130–36.

4
.
Minutes of the Common Council
, 9:509; Manhattan Tax Assessment Records, Sixth Ward, reels 27 and 28; Lyons, “Memories of Yesterdays,” 1–3.