Schenectady's Nineteenth-Century Black Barbers and the Anti-Slavery Movement

Tom Calarco, who has written many books about the Underground Railroad, writes in his book The Underground Railroad in the Adirondack Region that "census records generally show that the majority of free blacks in upstate New York who had attained some level of prosperity were barbers. But more significant to a study of the underground Railroad is the inordinate number who were agents or active in organizations that intersected with the Underground Railroad." This certainly seems to hold true in Schenectady, where at least three nineteenth-century black barbers appeared to have been connected to Underground Railroad activity or to the movement for the abolition of slavery. More information and research needs to be done in this area; for now, here are a few brief biographies of these men:

Newspaper advertisement for Francis Dana's barber shop

Francis Dana (ca. 1811–d. ca. 1875?)
Francis Dana was born in the British West Indies sometime between 1808 and 1811. There is a Francis Dana listed as a passenger on the ship George, which arrived in New York City from Frederickstaat, St. Croix, in 1826. Dana applied for naturalization in Schenectady in 1840. He is listed in the 1841 city directory as a barber working out of 146 State Street, on the canal. In 1842, Dana was listed as one of Stephen Myers’ North Star Association agents for the distribution of the Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate. He continued to live and work in Schenectady until about 1865. A Francis Dana last appeared in the 1870 Federal census in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County, and in Oriskany Falls, Oneida County (both locations show a man of similar age listed as being "mulatto" or "colored" and working as a barber).

Newspaper notice announcing the shop of John Wendell moving
from State Street to Ferry Street.

John Wendell (ca. 1801-d. 1875)
John Wendell (sometimes spelled Wendall, Wandell, or Wandle) was a barber. He was active in the Duryee Memorial AME Zion Church, serving as one of the church’s first trustees. He served as the first president of a local African-American temperance society in 1836. He was chosen to serve as secretary at a meeting of African-American citizens about the elective process (See The Colored American 28 December 1840). Articles in The Cabinet on March 18, 1845 and June 13, 1848 mention Wendell applying to the Common Council for aid to the school for African-American children in the city. Wendell died in 1875.

Advertisement for Stillman's razors endorsed by Richard P.G.
Wright. These types of advertisements were common in the
mid-nineteenth century.

Richard P.G. Wright (ca. 1778–1847)
Wright is perhaps the best known and most well-documented person in Schenectady connected to Underground Railroad and anti-slavery activity. He was born in Swansey, Massachusetts, and lived in Rhode Island for several years. In earlier years, he went by the name “Prince G. Wright.” By around 1811, Wright had moved to Schenectady, where he would continue to live until his death in 1847. Wright was a barber and both his business at 2 Canal Street and his home at 84 Ferry Street were close by the Erie Canal. Wright was deeply involved with local and regional anti-slavery activities; he was an early member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and a founding member of the Anti-Slavery Society of the City of Schenectady in 1838, and attended many anti-slavery conventions and gatherings in the region. Along with his son, the abolitionist and pastor Theodore Sedgwick Wright, he was a member of the New York Vigilance Committee. Wright and his son were also the only African-American members of the St. George’s Masonic Lodge in Schenectady. An Eastern New York Anti-Slavery Society 1843 annual report mentions 3 freedom seekers and notes that the agent who helped them “gave letter to Emp. Wright and Ellis Clizbe [of Montgomery County].” According to an article in the Emancipator and Weekly Chronicle (Boston) 16 April 1845, Wright assisted Charles Nelson in escaping slavery to freedom in Canada. Wright died in 1847; he is buried at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady.



Page from the 1841 Schenectady City
Directory. Black heads of household are
listed in italics.

 It is also worthwhile to investigate the lives of other free blacks who may have been active in anti-slavery efforts. Among other sources, the 1841 city directory is helpful here. The directory lists in italics all of the heads of households who are black, and in some cases professions are noted. Francis Thomas is another black barber listed at that time. The directory also includes names of prominent black citizens, such as Jacob Douw and Richard Sampson, who we find in a 1836 Schenectady Cabinet article as being involved in a black temperance society that had invited abolitionist Gerrit Smith to speak. Additionally, significant events, such as a national black conference held in Schenectady on September 16, 1844, deserve further inquiry. The library's collections of church records, cemetery records, family files, census records, newspapers on microfilm, clipping files, historic manuscripts, and other sources can help researchers learn about the lives of the city's black residents at that time period and about the contours of anti-slavery activity in the region.

Early Days of Union College

West College at corner of Union Street and College Street, looking north down College Street.
Photograph from the Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection.

This blog entry was written by Frank Taormina, one of the Society's trustees and a frequent researcher here in the library.

We learned recently that Liberty Street was named after a Liberty Pole which had been erected in 1771 at the point where it was destined to make its eastward trek in 1802. Union Street, parallel to Liberty, got its name 4 years earlier in 1798 when it was changed from the Road to Niskayuna to Union by Schenectady’s first mayor, Joseph C. Yates. Yates was among the several citizens of Schenectady at this time who played a role in obtaining a charter from the New York State Regents for what was to be the second college in New York State, following Kings College, which came into existence in 1754 (Kings College was renamed Columbia University after the American Revolution). The process of obtaining a charter from the New York State Regents to permit the erection of a college in Schenectady took from 1779 to 1795.

Union College seal, which
features an image of Minerva.  

In 1795, Union became the first college founded in the United States that did not have a link to a specific religious sect.  Its name signifies that it was the “union” of several different religious sects then in existence in Schenectady that shared an interest in the creation of an institution of higher learning. Its symbol, a depiction of the Roman Goddess Minerva (who is usually also designated as the Greek Goddess Athena) and its motto, in French, “Under the Laws of Minerva, we all become brothers” was not associated with any religious sect.

Union’s first domicile was at the northwest corner of Union Street and Ferry Street, in a building erected in 1785, which had served as the “Schenectady Academy” until until Union occupied thie building in 1795.
Nine years later, Union moved to a location one block west, at the corner of Union Street and what became College Street, into a structure built especially for it which was called “West College.” That site today is the parking lot for the Van Dyck Restaurant.

From 1804 to 1814, this site, before the Erie Canal was dug along its eastern edge, was the location of Union College. In 1814, the college moved again, eastward, following the street which bore its name, Union, to the top of a hill generally called “Prospect Heights.” There, after erecting the stone wall we have since called “the Terrace”, were erected the two buildings, still very much like they were in 1814, and still called “South College” and North College.” 

Postcard depicting North College on Union College campus. From Grems-Doolittle Library Postcard Collection.

These buildings formed the beginning of the first planned college campus in America, still bearing witness, after nearly two hundred years, to the imagination and architectural skill of Jacques Ramee, and to the wisdom of Eliphalet Nott, the President of Union from 1804 to 1866, in hiring Ramee to plan the campus. 

The purpose of this blog is to introduce you to your surroundings on Union Street and to provide a brief account of Union’s existence in this neighborhood. There is so much more history of Union College – and much of it, for any one interested, on the net, accessible through a Google search.  In the meantime, as we walk down Union Street, let us listen - can we can hear the voices of all those associated with Union College as they strolled up and down the street named after their college between Ferry Street and Nott Terrace during the last two hundred years and seventeen years?

The Love Letters of Joseph Clements, Jr. and Bertha Platt

Happy Valentine's Day! This valentine comes from the newly-acquired Mynderse Collection.

"Never have I been so perfectly contented as I have been in your society. You have even caused me to turn from the ever practicable and dream of seeing new faces and new sights to-gether . . . So often have I wished for your companionship when I have heard splendid things said or seen funny things occur when others were there to see but who could not see." - Joseph Clements, Jr. to Bertha Platt, January 2, 1906.

In an apartment building at 22 Washington Avenue in 2005, building owner Marty Colangelo found two black tin cash boxes full of letters. The letters - approximately 250 - were written during the courtship of Bertha Platt and Joseph Clements, Jr. The two met in October of 1905 and soon began corresponding by mail. The first letter, dated November 24, 1905 and written from Joseph to "Miss Platt," was warm and polite. A month later, his letters had become lightly and humorously flirtatious; he drafted a mock contract regarding their plans to attend a New Year's dance. Very quickly, Bertha and Joe began to write each other almost daily, and the content of the letters rapidly shifted from flirtation to earnest declarations of caring. By spring, the couple was engaged.

Bertha was from a wealthy family, and Joseph was concerned that he would be able to provide a lifestyle for her that was was accustomed to. Bertha, on her part, reassured Joe of her love and her desire to be with him above all else. "I think I have seen the serious and all possible bad signs to getting married quickly," Joe writes on November 4, 1906. "And now, I don't see that anything could make me look terribly serious again. You see what annoyed me was that I could not give you all you had. Now I know and have known ever since your declaration that you'd go South with me that it was just me you wanted." As the year 1906 began to draw to a close, the letters made more frequent mention of the couple's impending marriage. "You and I, together!" Bertha wrote in mid-November. "Can you realize how fine it will be? I do want to help you, I do want to be everything to you - I do want that you may never be disappointed when you look to me."

After over a year of long-distance courtship, Bertha and Joe were married on January 12, 1907, in New Britain, Connecticut. They went on to live in Schenectady, where they had a son, McMillan, in 1909, and a daughter, Diantha, in 1918. The couple moved into 22 Washington Avenue, a property that Clements had purchased in 1909, in 1937. Joe died there in 1945; Bertha sold the property to Nicolas Colangelo in 1956. Bertha continued to live in the apartment until her death in 1960. The couple is buried at Fairview Cemetery in Princetown, their graves marked by a single stone, linked for eternity.

The letters that are left behind from their courtship serve not only as a rich document of their developing romance and commitment to one another, but also record Bertha and Joe's thoughts about events, document their activities, record impressions of the people in their lives, and serve as a window into social life and customs in the area at the turn of the century. The original letters are in the possession of Marty Colangelo. Elinore Schumacher, who lives in the building where the letters were found, worked to transcribe the letters and to conduct research about the couple. The transcribed letters and supporting information are available in the library.

Working on the James Frost Papers

Map of Lot #2 in Currysbush Patent, surveyed by James Frost, file number P (Princetown) 168.
Many of the materials in the Frost Papers document Frost's work in Duanesburg, Princetown, and Montgomery County.

This entry is written by Robert J. Jones, a volunteer in our library.

I am a relatively new volunteer in the Grems-Doolittle Library, and a couple weeks ago, I finished my first big project.  For several months I worked on creating the electronic finding aid for the James Frost Papers.  James Frost was a surveyor and attorney living in western Schenectady County at the end of the eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth century.  Frost’s work was largely in Albany and Schenectady counties, but he also did much work in Montgomery County, and to a lesser extent in Schoharie.  The collection is in remarkably good condition considering its age.  Most of the documents date to the early decades of the nineteenth century, so we are dealing with two-centuries-old documents.  The quality of his work is very good; Frost has a careful hand, and many of his surveys include maps with very minute details.

Not all the surveys are of farms, as one might expect, but at times whole villages and also large tracts of territory in the northern areas of the state which had yet to be widely settled at the time of his life.  As I worked with the material, it was fun to imagine Frost setting off on horseback or on foot with a mule to carry his surveying equipment.  Travel to some of these locales must have been quite challenging as there were few roads and even fewer railroads, even toward the end of his life, and not all his jobs were in the four county region mentioned above; some of his jobs took him down river to North Jersey and to territory further west along the Susquehanna.  Beyond imagining Frost setting out across the relative wilderness of upstate New York, the names of some of the characters he worked for were also amusing; by far, my favorite is one Mr. Cornbury Clapp!

The last time anyone had seriously looked at the collection appears to be 1980.  Considering more than 30 years had passed since the collection was organized and first catalogued, relatively little was misplaced or missing (although sadly, a very few documents have gone missing).  At the time of the original catalog, several hundred documents were unidentified.  Over the years many of those documents found homes.  Thanks to other electronic finding aids, the library’s card catalog and the internet, I was able to identify several dozen other documents and move them to their proper places.  Considering how many times I did rely on electronic sources, I doubt that these particular documents could have been reasonably traced in the past; even searching the original print catalog would have been a daunting task as it comes to nearly 50 pages.

This collection includes copies of survey sketches, maps, leases, receipts, legal documents, and other materials related to Frost’s work.  The papers are not only useful in their documentation of Frost’s work as a surveyor; the papers are also very useful for genealogical and historical research in identifying where people lived in the area. Click here for a complete finding aid for the collection.

Railroad Beginnings in Schenectady

The Dewitt Clinton. Photograph from Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection.

This blog entry was written by Frank Taormina, one of the Society's trustees and a frequent researcher here in the library.

How great a role does transportation play in our lives? Think back for a moment to the times when our forebears had to walk to get from place to place – imagine how their individual lives and communities changed when they added horses or camels to the way they could move about – and then wheels and wagons – and various kinds of water borne craft – canoes – bateaux – and canals – and then railroads – and automobiles and airplanes – each change in transportation affected the lives of individuals and reorganized the way entire communities provided their livelihoods. Imagine the network of transportation we are a part of when we stand in one the aisles of the Price Chopper shopping for the articles that meet our desires and needs.


George Featherstonhaugh (1780-1866)



One of the great changes which occurred now a little less than two hundred years ago was the invention of the steam locomotive and, directly on its heels, the creation of the network of railroads. An event of singular importance in this change occurred here in Schenectady, prompted by a person who was, at the beginning of the 19th century, a member of this community. George W. Featherstonhaugh, an Englishman, living in Duanesburgh, the husband of Sara Duane, whom he had met while rescuing her and her mother, the widow of James Duane, Maria Livingston Duane, as they careened down a street in Philadelphia in a stage coach whose team of horses had “run away.” George married Sara on November 6, 1808 at Saint George’s Church in Schenectady. They went on to live in a home on a lake in Duanesburg, a lake which today bears George’s name, Featherstonhaugh Lake. George W. Featherstonhaugh was a person who possessed many gifts and used them well for the benefit of the community of which he was a part. One of his gifts was the vision to see and grasp the importance of steam locomotives and to begin, in 1812, campaigning for the construction of railroads. Apparently, there were many people who did not agree with his view of the possibilities of steam locomotion and it took a while for him through written and oral communication to gain acceptance of the idea.

Finally, on March 27, 1826, the New York State legislature granted a charter for the Mohawk-Hudson railroad, a railway proposed connecting Albany to Schenectady. The Directors of this railway were George W. Featherstonhaugh and the Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer. A stipulation included in the charter was that construction of the railroad would have to begin within six years after the date the charter was granted. On July 29, 1830, Van Rensselaer ceremoniously broke ground to begin the erection of the Mohawk-Hudson railroad. In the meantime, George W. Featherstonhaugh, about whose talents there was never any doubt, but whose luck did not match his talents, lost two of his children, his home in Duanesburg, which burned down, and his wife, who died while they were living in New York City. The Mohawk-Hudson Railroad, the product of Featherstonhaugh’s imagination was completed under the direction of John Jarvis, another extraordinarily talented person, by July 25, 1831.

After a series of test runs, a locomotive called the Dewitt Clinton established a regular railroad service between Albany and Schenectady before the end of September, 1831. Despite the fact that the legislature had granted the charter which made the railroad possible, there was, on the part of many members of the legislature, resistance to the railroad because it became quickly apparent that it was bound to be a very effective competitor with the state-owned Erie Canal.

Schenectady's first railroad station, constructed in 1831. The station was located opposite the intersection of Crane Street and Third Avenue. This photograph of the building in disrepair was likely taken soon before the building was torn down in 1921. Photograph from the Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection.

Nevertheless, the speed of railroad travel, so much greater that other forms of transportation at the time, led in the decade of 1830 to 1840 to a rapid expansion of railroads. Saratoga-Schenectady, Utica-Schenectady, and Troy-Schenectady were quickly added to the Mohawk-Hudson. By 1843 Schenectady was the “hub” of railroad travel in New York State! The impact of railroad travel was evident in the fact that on July 7, 1853, the New York Central Railroad was formed – in 22 years New York City had been linked by rail to the Great Lakes and railroads were being built everywhere in the United States! In the spring of 1926 a celebration was held commemorating the 100th anniversary of railroad travel and several people from Schenectady, including descendants of George W. Featherstonhaugh and the Mayor of Schenectady, were honored by being seated at the head table.


Site of the city's first railroad station today.
Photograph courtesy of Frank Taormina.


Take a ride (or a walk!) up Crane Street – up the hill once known as “Engine Hill.” As you travel upward, on your left, opposite the junction of Crane Street and Third Avenue, you will see a building marked “Fastenal Company.” On the building there is a plaque marking the place where the first railroad station in Schenectady once stood – and where – in 1831 – the state’s most prominent citizens gathered to celebrate the completion of the Mohawk-Hudson Railroad and to begin the railroad system which ultimately linked the eastern and western and northern and southern extremities of the entire continent.

Historic marker commemorating the Crane Street railroad station.
Photograph courtesy of Frank Taormina.

The dramatic impact of the change in which Schenectady played such a significant role is hardly as evident to us today in 2012 as it must have been when these changes began taking place nearly two hundred years ago, but, perhaps, for those of us who revel in history, the recollection of these events can still provide memories which are a source of interest and pleasure.

The Liberty Flag in Schenectady

Photograph of Liberty flag. From collection of Schenectady County Historical Society.

This blog entry was written by Frank Taormina, one of the Society's trustees and a frequent researcher here in the library.

Well over 200 years ago the Liberty Flag you see pictured above gained the attention of people living in this locality. The symbol of the “Sons of Liberty”, the flag was duplicated many times by American colonists from Georgia to Massachusetts expressing their disagreement with the treatment they were receiving at the hands of the King and Parliament of Great Britain.

Colonel Barré, c. 1765,
by Douglas Hamilton.
Image found online.

The “Sons of Liberty” became a focal point of American resistance to British rule early in 1765 when the British government instituted the Stamp Act. This part of American history began when Isaac Barré, a veteran of the French and Indian War and, at this time, a member of Parliament protested against the passage of this act, referring to the colonists whom he had gotten to know as a result of his service in the war as “Sons of Liberty” and pointed out to his audience:
"They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated, inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe and actuated by principles of true English liberties, they met all hardships with pleasure compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those who should be their friends."

When the language used by Barre made its way to America, it resulted almost immediately in the creation of a host of “semi-secret societies of colonial resistance” to what an overwhelming number of people felt was unfair taxation.

One of the “semi-secret societies” which literally sprang into existence was the Albany Sons of Liberty responding with alacrity to an invitation from the Sons of Liberty in New York City. Albany’s newly created chapter immediately extended an invitation to Schenectady and Schenectady, so we are informed by two notable local historians, John Warren Joyce and William Efner, simply ignored the invitation!
The protest on the part of the Sons of Liberty was so great that the British repealed the Stamp Act, replacing it, as historians tell us, with a host of other forms of equally objectionable taxation whose ultimate effect was the American Revolution and American Independence.

In the meantime, the Liberty Flag did not make its appearance in Schenectady until January 26, 1771, when, so we are informed in a letter written by John Sanders and John Baptist Van Eps to Sir William Johnson, “The inhabitants and freeholders have also put up a Liberty pole well bound with iron bars, twenty foot above the ground in about the center of our town and spiked it with a great many iron nails with the flag at the top.”  The location of this pole was at Ferry Street at the approximate junction of what is now Ferry Street and Liberty Street, near the tavern of a “Major Snell”.  The letter in addressing thanks to Sir William also refers to “this weighty dispute of our unlucky town”. We should notice as well that the reference to people putting up the flag is to “inhabitants and freeholders”.  In a publication called “Pathways of Time,” in a chapter written by William Efner, we learn that it was customary to refer to the more recently arrived English speakers as “inhabitants” and to the earlier and original Dutch settlers as “descendants”. In Efner’s discourse we learn about “the bitter struggle between the descendants of the original Dutch pioneers and the Yankee and 'English' newcomers for control of the common lands”, an argument which apparently went on for over 100 years, from 1684 until its settlement in 1798. The point as part of this discussion is that the people raising the “Liberty Flag” on their newly erected “Liberty Pole” in 1771 were protesting not taxation without representation, but rather the insistence of the “Descendants” that the “Inhabitants” did not have the right to property within the bounds of the Schenectady Patent! That was the “weighty dispute of our unlucky town” referred to by Sanders and Van Eps.

A second “Liberty Pole” was erected in Schenectady on January 12, 1774 near the southwest corner of Church and what was to become Union Street. On this occasion, the flag raising stimulated a gathering of fifty men whose names are listed for us, in their own handwriting, in the records about this event at the Schenectady County Historical Society. There was some suggestion made at the time this event occurred that local authorities were going to charge the participants with “rioting”, but there were no acts of violence and no damage was done, so the charge was never carried out against the participants.

Nicholas Veeder of Glenville poses with the Liberty flag.
Photograph from Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection.

Now as we look back at the flag we recognize it, apparently, as the same one in the possession of Nicholas Veeder, Schenectady’s longest lived veteran of the Revolutionary. In the photograph posted here, we see him seated in front of his hone in Glenville, in uniform, beneath the Liberty Flag which was then in his possession. Veeder, who lived until he was 101 years old, was supposed to have carried this flag at the Battle of Saratoga. We know for sure that he did carry it for years afterward in the Fourth of July parades in Schenectady of which he, after his friends have given him his annual bath, was a regular participant. When Veeder made his way to his ultimate reward, the flag came into the possession of the Sanders family who kept it for twenty years, making a gift of it, at last, to the Historical Society where it rests today.

Besides the flag to remind us of the glories of the past, we have one other constant reminder which I learned of recently. Liberty Street came into existence in 1802, running from west to east and beginning at Ferry Street, at that time, and was given its name to commemorate the Liberty Pole which once stood where it began.

Research in the Library: Identifying a Diary's Writer

Sadie Levi's diary entries for August 20-25, 1886.
The entries on these pages mention socializing, working at the family's store, and a trip to the "electric light works."

Last month, the Library received a diary that was found in a barn in Cherry Valley, New York. The donor of the diary contacted us after finding several references to Schenectady in the diary. The diarist's name was not indicated, and most people are referred to in the diary only by first names. The challenge we faced was to identify the writer of the diary.

First, we went through the daily entries in the diary to pick out clues. The diary charts the activities of a young woman in her late teens or early twenties; she often writes about visiting with friends and family, shopping, taking care of younger siblings, and going out with a suitor. We gathered that she was a daughter of a merchant -- the diary includes frequent references to the family's store. The diary also frequently mentions Jewish holidays and religious services.

From the context of the diary, we understood that the diary writer lived with her parents, along with a few younger siblings. She also mentions several other family members who could have been older siblings not living at home or cousins. Phrases in the diary such as "Ma and I went to Barney's to get Laura a dress" or "I was home all afternoon with Ruth as she has a sore throat" helped us to identify names of siblings who likely lived with her at home at the time. We were able to identify a younger brother, Sidney. An entry on January 7, 1886 lists that day as his birthday.

Knowing that Congregation Gates of Heaven was the only Jewish congregation in Schenectady until the late 1880s, we thought that it might be possible that the family stayed with the congregation and might be buried in the Gates of Heaven cemetery. We acted on this hunch and checked through the Gates of Heaven cemetery records in our collection in search of any Sidney buried there with the birthdate of January 7. We found a Sidney Levi with a matching birthdate -- now we had a last name!

After we had a possible surname, a search of census records, family files, obituaries, city directories, cemetery records, and wills yielded much more contextual information and built information about the diary's author and her family tree. We believe the diary was written by Sarah "Sadie" Levi (1865-1939), daughter of Jonathan Levi, a prosperous wholesale grocer and a prominent member of the community in Schenectady. Jonathan Levi arrived in Schenectady in 1848 and headed one of the city’s oldest Jewish families. He and his wife Eliza (Susholz) had eleven children: Fannie, Esther, Susan, Pauline, Sophie, Sadie, Minnie, Ruth, Albert, Laura, and Sidney. These names matched names mentioned in the diary, as did the name of Sadie's boyfriend, Ed, who she often mentions as visiting "after the store closed" -- Sadie went on to marry Edward Cohen, a partner in her father’s business.