Black Communities in the Adirondacks
Exploring Black culture in the places I visit when traveling is something I love to do, so when I decided to visit Lake Placid, NY I assumed I wouldn’t be able to do that. After researching things to do in Lake Placid I came across the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. Unbeknownst to me, John Brown was an abolitionist who is most known for leading the raid at Harper’s Ferry. This piqued my curiosity so I added it to my list of things to do when I visited Lake Placid. What I didn’t know is that the farm offered more than I expected and I would spend 2 hours learning about the Black communities that once existed in the Adirondacks.
Memorial Field For Black Lives
The first thing I saw as I drove up were signs with the names of Black people who had been killed by police. They were placed in the lawn of a roundabout across the street from the John Brown Farm. I immediately parked my car and walked over to it. The signs were part of a memorial for the many black men, women and children who had died at the hands of police violence.
As I was leaving I was fortunate to meet the creator of the memorial, Karen Davidson. Karen’s mission for the memorial is to highlight unarmed Black people killed by police who’s legal cases would result in a wrongful death verdict. She recently got permission from the NY State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to keep the memorial up until November. I thanked her for the work she is doing. I also told her it was fitting to have the memorial at the John Brown Farm due to his history of fighting for justice for Black people.
Just beyond the roundabout with the Memorial for Black Lives stood the entrance to the John Brown Farm. The property consists of the grave site of John Brown and twelve of his followers including two Black men. It also contains the farmhouse where John Brown’s family lived, a pond, a visitor’s center, and a barn with a beautiful exhibit on the Black communities that existed in the Adirondacks. Lastly, trails for hiking and walking are also found on the property and actively used by the community.
Dreaming of Timbuctoo
Outside of the Memorial for Black Lives the highlight of the farm for me was the exhibit “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” in the barn. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Timbuctoo was the intellectual and commercial capital of West Africa. For this reason, the Black community in North Elba was named after the ancient city in present day Mali. Dreaming of Timbuctoo beautifully showcases how and why the Black communities were started in the Adirondacks and the stories of those involved to help make it happen. A synopsis of the history is below.
Gerrit Smith, a wealthy White reformer, was the reason the Black communities in the Adirondacks were able to exist. He owned 750,000 acres of land and gave away 120,000 acres in the Adirondack to 3000 Black New Yorkers. The land was divided in mostly 40 acre lots and granted for two main reasons. Firstly, to help fulfill the law requiring Blacks to own $250 in real property in order to vote. This law was in effect between 1821 and 1870. Secondly, owning the land would facilitate Black political empowerment and economic self sufficiency.
Moving to the Adirondacks
Getting Blacks to move to the Adirondacks was not an easy task. Gerrit Smith enlisted the help of the first degree holding Black physician in New York City, Dr. James McCune Smith and his friend Charles Bennett Ray, the owner of The Colored American. They signed up well over one thousand people for the land grants. At first the land grants were only open to New York City Blacks, but they were eventually available to Blacks across New York state. The rules of eligibility were: Black male New Yorkers of good character who didn’t have the ability to obtain property easily on their own.
Geritt had eight Black and five White prominent civil rights activists choose the 3000 land grantees. The land grants were completed between 1846 – 1848. These land grants gave rise to the Black communities of Timbuctoo (Tiimbucto), Blacksville, Bloomingdale (Vermontville), Ray Brook, Freeman’s Home, Township 9, St Armand, Negrow Brook and Negro Hill.
In 1849 with the assistance of Gerrit Smith, John Brown moved his family to North Elba. His sole purpose for moving was to help the Black land grantees in the area. He befriended his Black neighbors and had barrels of pork and flour shipped to Blacksville and Timbuctoo. He also hired them to complete jobs on the farm and preach the Gospel. In order to make a lasting difference in the war against slavery John realized he had to be closer to where the enslaved lived. This would end up taking him far away from the Adirondacks, however his family stayed behind.
Black Communities in the Adirondacks Disappear
In 1852 the government started coming after the land grantees for taxes. Outside of the taxes being unaffordable for some, others hadn’t received the bill or didn’t know how to read. Because of these hardships thousands of the granted land titles ended up reverting to the auction block. They now make up part of the six million acre Adirondack Park.
Since the Black communities of the Adirondacks were never mapped there is no public record that they existed. The only record of them exists in local memory. In the 1900s regional historians declared that the Black land grantees, except for one family, had all disappeared. The historians were incorrect. Black families connected to Geritt Smith’s land grants had been in the region for 150 years. Due to renewed interest, the story of the Black communities in the Adirondacks is now being told with the John Brown Farm playing a pivotal role.
Know Before You Go
- Admissions is Free
- The grounds are open all year
- The visitor’s center, historic farm house and barn may not be open all the time. Check the hours of operation at https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/johnbrownfarm/