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Home My WebLink Aboutugrr (1)IL Friends of Freedom: Context 17 —lax I Auburn, north and west of Genesee Street; from P.A. Cunnngham, Map ofAuburn (Philadelphia: W.W. Richie, 1871). In the 1850s, many working class people, both black and white, also began to settle on the east side of Owasco Outlet, buying land from William Henry Seward. Lizette Miller Worden, Seward's sister-in-law, also built a house in this area in 1856. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 18 11. Friends of Freedom: Context In 1857, William Henry Seward sold a seven -acre farm to Harriet Tubman on the south edge of Auburn, and, beginning in the 1860s, Tubman brought her family and many of her Maryland neighbors to Auburn, where they purchased property in newly -opened suburbs along Union (now Richardson) Avenue, Chapman Avenue, Garrow Street, Fitch Avenue, and Parker Street. Other freedom seekers, along with many Irish and American -born families, also bought homes in this area, and many of their descendants live here today. These have been remarkably stable neighborhoods for 150 years. r i r .5 a A �f i all j ± f ' k ♦ $ jjf� Clark, John S., "Plot of the Lands as Conveyed by Abijah Fitch on Garrow and Richardson - -- Farms, Auburn, N.Y." A.C. Taber, Surveyor, September 1868. Cayuga County Clerk's Office, Auburn, New York. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 IL Friends of Freedom: Context 19 7lzd r """Y'—t` s' a ��-,'-=•...:,. �� f -`- 1 Cornell and Thornton (Chapman and Garrow), P.A. Cunnngham Map ofAuburn (Philadelphia: W.W. Richie, 1871). ,.`. 8"MM' I f T �r E a. . a � ice.. Q _ i oN Efl�i .__ PsT MMW alai I LI - 3 rt _ Union (Richardson), from P.A. Cunningham, Map of the City ofAuburn, New York (Philadelphia: W.W. Richie, 1871) Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 20 Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Beard Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 Ll S Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Auburn Base Map: CityAtlas ofAuburn, New York (Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins, 1882) Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Beard Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 II. Friends of Freedom: Context 21 These buildings, and the people who built them and lived in them, carry their own stories. But to _ understand their context, let us look at some basic background about the Underground Railroad, abolitionism, and African American life in Auburn, and Cayuga County. What was the Underground Railroad? The term "Underground Railroad" became common in the 1830s, referring to a secret and effective system of moving people from slavery to freedom. Although many people associated the Underground Railroad with tunnels, no documented use of a tunnel has yet been found. "Underground" refers the hidden character of much of this work, not to any physical underground space. In the past, many people emphasized the importance of safe houses as links on the _. Underground Railroad. Today, the focus is often on freedom seekers themselves, and the Underground Railroad is most often defined as the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program defines it, as "the effort of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage."' This allows us to focus on individuals and their life stories, including where they escaped from, the routes they took, the people who helped them, the places they stayed on their journeys, and the homes, churches, and workplaces they formed in their ultimate destinations. In this project, we have surveyed sites related to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life, because we think that all three of these themes are intimately intertwined. In upstate New York, it is often impossible to sort out one from the others, and it would certainly be impossible to understand how the Underground Railroad operated, without the context of the abolitionist movement and African American community life. Auburn and Cayuga County as crossroads of the Underground Railroad. Cayuga County played such an important role in the Underground Railroad primarily because of the county's geography. Like a wedge driven into the heart of New York State, Cayuga County funneled freedom seekers from Ithaca and points south (including Owego, NewYork, Montrose, Pennsylvania, and Friendsville, Pennsylvania) up through Cayuga Lake or overland (usually " along what is now 34B through Sherwood) to Auburn. At Auburn, freedom seekers had three choices. They could go: 1. west along the Seneca Turnpike, Auburn -Rochester railroad, or other roads, often to Farmington and then to Rochester; 2. north to meet the Erie Canal at Weedsport or Port Byron or to connect with -the spider's web of roads leading into Wayne County (especially Pultneyville) or northern Cayuga County through Cato, Ira, and Sterling to Fairhaven and the shores of Lake Ontario and then east to Oswego or west to Charlotte; 3. east to Skaneateles, Elbridge, Jordan and Baldwinsville to Fulton and Oswego. -- The crossing of these main routes at Auburn, combined with the complexity of trails leading out of the city, made Auburn an ideal Underground Railroad node.2 INetwork to Freedom, "What Was the Underground Railroad? http://209.10.16.21 /TEMPLATE/FrontEnd/leam.CFM. 2 See interview with James R -Cox, Document No. 5, Elbert Wixom, "The Under Ground Railway of the - Lake Country of Western New York," B.A. Thesis, Cornell, 1903, 30; Pass from John Mann to Slocum Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York. Research Associates 2004-05 22 F ZU ANA, Qom✓, S. AWA .e n�� s+o+a�,rr � ...r , � lairau F � • t A 4 NE W' 'FORK ! 3; Z trr�rn,om istrrere,.araaa:. � ,�mF.�f 1� r+': al aurae .. �!�*+M9 5cm nr. ab¢isaS iYsSt mals bt daa+Jaan Skeapaad ibri.+ik�, AbbpnY..TeX 1T,""KL II. Friends of Freedom: Context 9a'arPark � 1 1 - �l/7J.7tli _ Q: C SS CN Eris Id �Rw 1 ut 0 , Ecric ..IQ Howland, April 9, 1840, Howland Stone Store Museum; S.C. Cuyler to Emily Howland, October 31, 1851, Howland Papers, Cornell University. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 II. Friends of Freedom: Context 23 From Cayuga County GenWebsite Before the Revolution, Cayugas had many settlements in the rich lands east of Cayuga Lake. Ironically, given later Quaker support for Indian land rights, all Cayuga villages were destroyed during the Revolutionary War in 1779 by a contingent of five hundred men led Colonel William Butler as part of the Sullivan -Clinton campaign. European Americans and African Americans came to Cayuga County after 1789, when New York State purchased this land from the Cayugas. In what is now Auburn, John Hardenburgh_and his family, which included people in slavery, built a house and mill along the Owasco outlet. In _ central Cayuga County, Aurora attracted some of the earliest settlers, who intended to make this village the county seat and the center of learning and government. Some of these central Cayuga County families the Cuylers and the Woods, for example --brought people in slavery with them when they settled here. Many families in Cayuga County were Quakers from eastern New York or from seacoast villages of New England. Some of them made their money from whaling voyages, sent out from New Bedford, Massachusetts. In central Cayuga County, they settled on former Cayuga lands, and they built their first meetinghouse for Scipio Monthly Meeting in 1810, which eventually had several preparative meetings. Two of these—North Street Friends Meeting (Orthodox), which met in the -- brick meetinghouse on the Sherwood -Aurora Road, and Skaneateles Preparative Meeting Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life - Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 24 II. Friends of Freedom: Context (Orthodox) --became particularly important supporters of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad. After 1800, European American and a few African American settlers filtered into the northern part of the county, creating farms and mill villages in the rolling hills among the drumlins and along the Ontario lakeshore. Except for the Cayuga Reservation lands, all other lands in Cayuga County were part of the — Military Tract, set aside after the Revolution by the new federal government to give to those who had served in the Revolutionary War. Most town names still reflect the classical names given to these military tract towns. Cayuga County had 53 people living in slavery in 1800, 75 in 1810, 54 in 1814, and 48-m- 1820. Many of these were manumitted in the 1820s or earlier. When freedom came for all of them'in 1827, they formed the core of free black communities in Auburn, Aurora, Port Byron, and elsewhere. After 1830, these communities would be a key component of the network that provided a haven for people on their way from southern slavery to independence in the northern U.S. or Canada.3 The county's population grew rapidly in the early nineteenth century, expanding more than five- fold, from 10,817 people in 1800 to 38,897 people in 1820 to 47,948 in 1.830 to 55,458 in 1850. By 1855, Cayuga County had 53,571 people, of whom 400 were African American. 3 The 1855 census summarized the number of people living in slavery in each of these years. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 II. Friends of Freedom: Context 25 r' r Cayuga County Towns, showing Military Townships and Cayuga Reservation Map from Cayuga County GenWeb Site When did the Underground Railroad start in Auburn and Cayuga County? It was certainly in operation by the mid -1830s. In Auburn, Morgan "Luke" Freeman, a barber, was born in slavery in 1803 to Harry, and KateFreeman. His obituary in 1863 noted that he had kept an Underground Railroad station for twenty-nine years, presumably since 1834. In Cayuga County, Jerome Griger was the earliest known freedom seeker to purchase land. He bought -land in Levanna, Town of Ledyard, in 1837. This was consistent with its beginnings elsewhere in central New York. African Americans from Esopus, near Kingston, were living among the Onondaga in the late 1770s, and several well-known African Americans escaped slavery in New York State in the early nineteenth century (including Austin Steward and Thomas James), but, freedom seekers began to move northward in large numbers in the early 1830s. James R. Cox, one of Seward's law associates, dated beginnings of the Underground Railroad in Auburn to 1832. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 26 H. Friends of Freedom: Context What kinds ofpeople supported the Underground Railroad in Auburn and Cayuga County? Four distinctly different types of people supported the Underground Railroad in Auburn and Cayuga. To some extent, they lived in different parts of the county, but they were interlinked: 1. African Americans. Both the City of Auburn, the Town of Ledyard (including the Village of Aurora), and the Town of Mentz (including the village of Port Byron) had relatively large African American communities, made up of people who had been born in slavery in New York State and also those who chose to settle in Cayuga County from the South. In 1855, 183 African Americans lived in Auburn, almost half the total of 400 in the county. Fifty-one lived in Ledyard; 48 lived in Mentz/Port Byron, and 28 lived in Brutus/Weedsport. Small numbers of African Americans also lived in Owasco (24), Springport (18), Aurelius (15), Sennett (9), Venice (8), Ira (6), Genoa (4), Moravia (3), Scipio (2), and Conquest (1)• In case, these African American communities received support from local European Americans, included a group of lawyers and professionals in Auburn, Quakers and the Cuyler family in Ledyard/Aurora; and Nathan Marble, Ardchibald Green, Cassandra Hamlin, and William O. Duvall in -Port Byron. This became particularly important when freedom seekers bought land, beginning -in 1837, when Jerome Griger bought a homesite in Levanna, and continuing when freedom seekers bought more than twenty pieces of land on the south side of Auburn, near Harriet Tubman's home, from Abijah Fitch and others in the 1860s. Several descendants of these families still live in Auburn. This relationship extended into the second generation, when the children of Martha and David Wright, particularly David Osborne (who owned a large agricultural implement factory in Auburn) and Eliza Wright Osborne continued to look out for the welfare of Harriet Tubman and others. 2. Quakers. In central Cayuga County, abolitionist sentiment centered in the North Street Friends Meetinghouse (Brick Meetinghouse), and Underground Railroad- work was anchored in the home of Slcoum and Hannah Howland in Sherwood; New York. This group had ties to Underground Railroad network of Friends and free African Americans in Philadelphia and Delaware, including William Still, Dr. Bartholomew Fusell and his niece Graceanna. Lewis, and Thomas Garrett in Wihnington, Delaware). The Howland Stone Store Museum owns an extremely rare pass, written by Quaker John Mann in Friendsville, Pennsylvania, to Quaker Slocum Howland in Sherwood, New York, carried by two freedom seekers from Maryland, brothers Thomas and James Hart, dated April 9, 1840, documenting their travel from Owego through Ithaca to Sherwood. 3. Auburn -based lawyers and professionals. These Quakers were linked to a small group of influential Whig -Republican lawyers, politicians, and professionals in Auburn associated with William Henry Seward, Frances Seward, and Frances Seward's sister Lizette Miller Worden. They included Abijah Fitch,"real'estate. developer; Theodore Pomeroy; David Wright, and George Underwood, Auburn Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 Il. Friends of Freedom: Context 27 _. lawyers who worked with Seward in his law practice; John Austin, Unitarian minister; and William Hosmer, Methodist newspaper editor. All of the lawyers owned large homes along South Street or Genesee Street. Both Frances Seward and Lizette Worden had ties to Martha Wright, sister of noted Quaker minister, Lucretia Mott. Both Frances Seward and Lizette Worden had been educated at a Quaker school in Aurora, where Martha. Wright later taught. All three women maintained a strong friendship during their years in Auburn, a friendship that extended to Harriet Tubman and her family after Tubman arrived in Auburn. In the county, Seward's associates included two men from Port Byron, William"O. Duvall, a radical abolitionist, and Archibald Green, a merchant and local politician, sister of Cassandra. Hamlin, who organized the most important public _ women's antislavery work in Cayuga County. As Seward rose fust to statewide and then national prominence, first as Governor of New York State and then as Senator and Secretary of State under both Lincoln and Johnson, the influence of this group helped Seward maintain his abolitionist commitment. 4. Religiously -motivated abolitionists. Several churches throughout Cayuga County became hotspots of abolitionism. Congregationalists and Presbyterians, who often joined in one group in this period (in Sennett, Northville, Sterling, and Moravia), Baptists (in Sennett and Sterling), Unitarians (in Auburn), and Methodists and African Methodist. Episcopal Zion (in Auburn), as well as students at Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, were most active in this organized religious commitment to the Underground Railroad. Other church congregations, as yet unidentified, may also have participated. How many freedom seekers came through Auburn and Cayuga County? Without better data, we have no accurate estimates of the number of freedom seekers who actually came through Auburn and Cayuga County. In 1903, James R. Cox, a law associate of William Henry Seward, and himself an Underground Railroad activist in Auburn, in an interview to Elbert Wixom, a Cornell student, estimated that five hundred freedom seekers came through Auburn between 1832 and 1861. This is probably a conservative estimate. This survey allows us several other ways of counting the number of freedom seekers who actually -. came through Auburn and Cayuga County. One way is to count the number of African Americans listed in census records who recorded heir birthplaces as a southern state, unknown, or Canada.'Some of these, of course, may have been legally, manumitted, either in the South or after they were brought _ to New York State in slavery. We know from other sources that this was the case with Whittington Armwood. Thanks to the work of Donna Green of Texas, who saw the Armwood name on the database of African Americans in Cayuga County on the Cayuga County GenWeb site, we know that Whittington Armwood, born in Somerset Maryland in 1795, came to Cayuga County in slavery. Whittington Armwood almost certainly came to Scipio, with the Fleming family, from Maryland between 1805 and 1807. Armwood remained in the area of Scipio that later become the town of Ledyard for the rest of his Iife. His children, including his son, Timothy Armwood, continued to live _- and own property in the area. Limiting our count to African Americans listed in the census between 1850 and 1870 (including state census years for 1855 and 1865), 487 African; Americans in Cayuga County listed their Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 28 I1. Friends of Freedom: Context birthplaces as a southern state, Canada, or unknown. Of these, twenty-three are known from other sources (either Kate Larson's work with Harriet Tubman, Emily Howland's letters, Martha Wright letters, or William Still, Underground Railroad, 1872) to have been freedom seekers. These included: 1. Listed in three or four census records: Herman and Hannah Phillips and their four childrenScipio, 1850-1870 --- (Howland) Thomas Hart-Ledyard, 1850-1860 (Howland) 2. Listed in two census records: John and Milla Stewart, 1865-1870 Thornton Newton—i 865-1870 — Benjamin and Ritta Stewart (Harriet Tubman's parents)—A865-1870 Henry Lemmons (Lemon) -1860-1865? Thomas Elliott and Anna Stewart Elliott, 1865-1870 3. Listed in one census record: Harriet Tubman Davis, 1870 Plymouth, Alice, John, William_ Cannon -1870 (identified in Still) Thomas Stoop, 1865 (Larson) — Richard Eastup, 1860 (identified in Martha Wright letter) Catharine Stewart, 1865 (Larson) We also know of several others not found in the census records, including Nat Ambie and family= Auburn (Still); Harriet Eglin, Charlotte Gildes—Sennet (Still); James Harris and wife, Auburn (Still); Unnamed man in 1843, Auburn (Wright), and Jane Clark (biography in Cayuga Museum): We also know that at least two African Americans born in NYS Morgan "Luke" Freeman and P.R. Freeman—were active as helpers on the Underground Railroad. Luke Freeman was born in 1803 of parents who were enslaved by Hardenburgh. According to his 1863 obituary, Luke Freeman kept a station on the UGRR at his home at 3 Court Street in Auburn for 29 years. Nat Ambie noted, in a letter printed in Wm. Still that he was staying with P.R. Freeman in Auburn. -- Of the 464 African Americans listed in the census who were born in a southern state, Canada, or an unknown place and who have not been definitely identified from other sources as freedom seekers, only 63 (14 percent) were listed in more than one census (compared to fifteen of the twenty-three known freedom seekers listed in the census, or 65 percent). This suggests that the other 401 were here for only a short time. The most logical assumption would be that they were traveling through on their way to Canada. This ,number is not inconsistent with James Cox's estimate of 500 people who came through Auburn. Recognizing, however, that these census records take snapshots at five-year intervals, we also must assume that many freedom seekers stayed here only a few days, weeks, or months. So that it would reasonable to suggest that this figure of 401 people who were in the county only during" Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources review Board _ Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 II. Friends of Freedom: Context 29 census years must be multiplied many times over. If someone were here in 1851, 1852, 1853, or 1854 (or in any year that was not a census year), they would not have been counted at all. By this reasoning, a figure of several thousand would not be an unrealistic estimate for the number of freedom seekers who came through Auburn and Cayuga County. Ultimately, however, we will probably never know the true number. This project is part of a dialogue among all of us, past, present, and future. If you do not see here a person or site that you think may be associated with the Underground Railroad, abolitionism, or. _ African American life, check the larger project database on the Cayuga County GenWeb site, which contains more than 600 names of people who had some relationship to these movements, or the materials on the Cayuga County Historian's Website, which will contains updates. We invite everyone to join this research network and to share the results of your work. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life r Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 30 Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 III. Sites and Stories: Auburn—East 31 III. Sites and Stories Auburn: East Side Mechanic Street Historic District: 'New Guinea" Bogart House Cromwell House Worden House Wise House Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates - 2004-05 32 111. sites anti stones: AuDurri--hast Mechanic Street (Osborne Street) Historic District Earliest African American Settlement in Auburn ("New Guinea") North of former Mill Street Bridge, west bank of Owasco Outlet Auburn, New York Significance: Earliest area of African American community development Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 III. Sites and Stories: Auburn --East House just north of former Mill Street bridge East side of Osborne Street, looking east June 2005 Looking north from west end of former Mill Street bridge along Osborne Street June 2005 Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 34 III. Sites and Stories: Auburn --East Looking north along Osborne Street June 2005 House on west side of Osborne Street, across from Mill Street bridge Occupied by African American in 1850s Looking west; June 2005 Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 III. Sites and Stories: Auburn --East Osborne Street, looking southeast, toward former Mill St. bridge June 2005 The first clue to the existence of this settlement is its location, clearly indicated on the Map of the Village ofAuburn, drawn by Hagaman & Markham and published by M.M. Peabody in 1837. Toward the east , side of the village, between Mechanic Street (now Osborne) and the bank of the Owasco Outlet, Hagaman " and Markham clearly labeled "New Guinea," Negro Settlement, and indicated seven houses. Sean Connery researched this settlement, using local histories and census records. He noted the possibility that Cate and Harry Freeman, parents of Morgan "Luke" Freeman, were among the first settlers ofNew Guinea. The 1820 census listed several African American families living in close proximity in Auburn, including the Freemans, Fields, Browns, Williams, and Smiths. By 1830, the Freemans lived near the families of Solomon and Aaron Demun and Prentice Brown. Nearby lived the families of Mary Ann Counter, Adam Gray, Samuel Kunard, Elijah Rose, John Swarts, Thomas Venoe, Livingston Williams, Nathan Williams. Some of these families occupied the same household. The 1840 census listed sixteen African American families living in Auburn, including those of George Allen, David Bloomfield, Francis DeBoice, John M. DePuy, William Dunkenson, Lewis Freeman (Morgan "Luke" Freeman), Adam Gray, " Sebio Horbeck, Catherine Johnson, Mary A. Newark, Betsy Smith, Thomas Tenoy (?), William Turner George Williams, and Isaac Williams. Many of these probably lived in New Guinea. By 1850, the New Guinea settlement was clearly beginning to lose its distinct identity, as European Americans began to move into the area and as African Americans began to move into newer residential areas on Auburn's north side. In 1839, the new African American school had just opened on Washington Street, and in 1847, the AME Zion Church would occupy the same building. People such as Sebeo Hornbeck and Thomas Stoop would buy property on the north side in the 1850s, while many working class white families moved into houses along the outlet. 1 From database produced by Survey of Historic Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African Life, Tanya Warren, Database Coordinator. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05 36 III. Sites and Stories: Aubum--East Today, houses that appear to date from the second quarter of the nineteenth century occupy the area once M called New Guinea. Across the street and also farther north on Osborne Street, about four houses have been identified through city directories and census records as belonging to or having been occupied by African Americans. Further work (especially in census records, deeds, and assessment records) on the specific houses just north of what used to be the Mill Street bridge might help identify dates -of construction and possible connection with African American residence for these buildings 2 2 For an excellent overview of the New Guinea settlement and of the importance of the Freeman family, see, Sean Connery, ["New Guinea Settlement: Auburn," Unpublished student paper, 2004. Copy at Seward House, Auburn. Sites Relating to the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, African American Life Sponsored by Auburn Historic Resources Review Board Cayuga County Historian's Office Funded by Preserve New York (Preservation League of NYS and NYS Council on the Arts) Coordinated by Historical New York Research Associates 2004-05