Historic African-American Burials

An essay from gardenalley.net

A Brief Look At Historic African-American Burials In Albany

Ann Eliza Bleecker

The headstone of Ann Eliza Bleecker in the Dutch Reformed section of the Church Grounds is nearly illegible.  One can just make out the name carved in the worn marble and it gives little detail about the life of this early American poet and novelist.

The daughter of Brandt and Margaretta Schuyler, Ann Eliza was born in 1752.  She grew up in a wealthy family and was well educated.  From an early age, she showed a very strong interest in literature and frequently wrote verses.  She did not write for publication, but would often send her verses to family and close friends.

In 1769, she married John James Bleecker, Esq. of New Rochelle and moved to Poughkeepsie.  A few years later, the couple settled on a farm near the Tomhannock Creek in Schaghticoke.  At "Tomhanick," Bleecker had built a comfortable house on a "little eminence" with a "pleasing prospect."  The house had a beautiful garden with a view of the Creek, an orchard at the edge of the forest, and was surrounded by meadows and cultivated fields.  Beyond the house was, as Ann Eliza described it, "the ample shadow of that solemn ridge of pine."  Young Mrs. Bleecker loved her garden and would gather seeds from her plants to scatter along the brook and in the woods.

The Bleeckers had two young daughters, Margaretta and Abella, and what seems to have been an almost idyllic life until the summer of 1777 when the Revolutionary War came dangerously close to home.  With rumors of British soldiers and their Loyalist and Native allies advancing towards the area and the memory of the 1711 Schaghticoke Massacre still reasonably fresh in the minds of their neighbors, John Bleecker went to Albany to arrange the evacuation of his family.

Not long after her husband left, frightened by an inaccurate report that a raiding party was within two miles of the village, Ann Eliza took her two young daughters and a mulatto servant girl and fled (on foot and by wagon) south to Lansingburgh. Her husband met her there and took her to Red Hook in Dutchess Coutny where she joined her mother and sister.  Unfortunately, her infant daughter Abella died of illness during the flight and, not long after, Ann Eliza's mother and sister also died.

After the British were defeated at Saratoga, the Bleeckers returned to Tomhanick.  In 1781, John Bleecker was abducted by what may have been a Loyalist party.  He was realized a week later at Bennington, but Ann Eliza, pregnant and still devastated by the death of her mother, sister, and daughter, suffered a miscarriage.  She never truly recovered from the trauma of the war and her personal losses; her daughter, Margaretta, would later describe her as often alternating between gaiety and good humor and bouts of melancholy during which she would burns writings that did not reflect her dark mood. 

Ann Eliza Bleecker's health failed and she died at the age of thirty-two on November 23, 1783.  She was buried in the Dutch Reformed Church's graveyard, then located on Beaver Street just east of South Pearl Street.  Eventually, her grave was moved to the State Street Burying Grounds and, ultimately, the Church Grounds at the Rural Cemetery.  The headstone does not mark her exact grave site;  over the years, the old markers have been moved, stacked, and rearranged so that they do not actually correspond to individual graves.

Ann Eliza Bleecker never published her writings during her life time.  After her death, her daughter, Margaretta Van Wyck Faugeres, collected and published the surviving manuscripts. 

Her works included The History of Maria Kittle, an early Gothic novel and captivity narrative.  It is a graphic story, based in part of the 1711 Schaghticoke Massacre and her own fears during the war, which was told in the form of letters.  In a similar vein, she also wrote a story based on a gruesome murder near Pittstown in which James Yates murder his wife, four children (from inant to 6) along with all of his livestock).  The disoriented Yates then appeared naked at his parents home saying he believed he had been killing hostile Indians.  In a posthumously published article attributed to Ann Eliza, it was reported that Yates was interrogated in the Bleecker's Schaghticoke home before being transported to the Albany jail. 

The published works also included a number of poems, many describing her pleasant pre-war life at Tomhanick as well as the more tragic and frightening experiences of the Revolution (such as Written in retreat from Burgoyne)  These poems were published along with various essays and miscellaneous works.  The complete volume can be found online here.

Jeremiah Field - A Mystery Solved

Look closely; can you see the vague outlines of a winged skull?  Ever since I came across this weathered slab of sandstone in the Church Grounds, it has intrigued and frustrated me.  I was certain there had been a soul effigy carved on it, but identifying the inscription was difficult.  The letters had eroded and distorted.  I tried photographing it from every possible angle, I tried photographing each letter individually.  I knelt in the grass in awkward positions on a stiff  knee. I enlarged images in Photoshop, tweaked the brightness and the contract, and even experimented with Instragram filters.  Still, I just didn't have enough to form a full name or date.

In many cases, I can match a fragment of an inscription from the Church Grounds to the Cemetery's burial records or to an inventory of graves moved from the State Street Burying Grounds to the Albany Rural Cemetery.  Unfortunately, there are certain stones - a cache of very old ones in the Dutch Reformed section - which are simply not documented in those records for various reasons.

A couple of months ago, an 1888 newspaper article caught my attention.  It recounted the discovery of old remains and gravestones on the site of the former Dutch Reformed graveyard on Beaver Street just off South Pearl Street. 

The description of one stone was especially interesting - a sandstone slab carved with a grinning skull.  It belonged to one Jeremiah Field.

And that's when the connection was made.

Jeremiah Field and The Headstone That Was Believed To Be Lost

A mystery was solved and it turned out to be even more interesting than I'd expected.

Documenting The Potter's Field

 Tucked between the plots for St. Peter's Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Church within Section 49 of the Albany Rural Cemetery is the Potter's Field which contains remains moved from the previous Potter's Field at the State Street Burying Grounds and new burials during the late 1800s.

The Potter's Field at the Church Grounds blog

List of known burials in the Potter's Field

Church Grounds Pieces

Fragments of broken stones in the Church Grounds section.  If you aren't following it already, please see my companion blog focusing on this historic area of the Rural Cemetery and the people buried there.

The Albany Church Grounds

The Western Lodge

This antique photo shows the small lodge which once marked the Rural Cemetery's western limit.  When established in the 1840s, the Cemetery was less than two hundred acres and this lodge was built some years later.  It overlooked the historic Church Grounds just past the western end of the Middle Ridge. There is nothing left of it today, though the Cemetery's two remaining lodges are still in use at the Main and South Gates.

The Church Grounds Project

John Lamb Clark

John Lamb Clarke (or Clark) has two gravestones, one in New Jersey's Rahway Cemetery where his wife, Mary Brown, lies buried and one in the Church Grounds of the Albany Rural Cemetery. 

 Born in New Jersey in 1786, Clarke evidently moved to Albany some time after his 1806 marriage to Mary as census records show him as a resident of the city by 1810. Clarke evidently maintained strong ties to his native state as he served as a captain with the New Jersey Militia during the War of 1812. 

He died in Albany at the age of thirty-four and was buried in the tiny Garretson Station Methodist Episcopal churchyard. His grave was moved from its original resting place at Garreston Station (just south of Albany) to the State Street Burying Grounds and was included in the Common Council's 1866 inventory of graves to be moved to the Rural Cemetery. His widow Mary returned to New Jersey with their children. She died in 1869 and was buried at the Rahway Cemetery. Some years after her death, a small marble stone in honor of Captain Clarke was placed beside her headstone, though his actual resting place is in the Church Grounds. 

The inscription on his now weathered and broken headstone reads:

In memory of John Lamb Clarke

who departed this life

March 18, 1820

in the 34^th year of his age.

Come unto Me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest

The Church Grounds Project

Elizabeth Ann's Roses

In recent months, I've been attempting to document gravestones in the Church Grounds section of the Rural Cemetery. There are some, unfortunately, that are very difficult to identify due to badly eroded inscriptions or serious breakage to the stone.

The lower half of this headstone is broken and missing. The stone seen in the lower half of the photo is part of a completely different monument. All that is legible is part of the name Elizabeth Ann.

The Common Council's 1868 inventory of graves to be transferred from the old State Street Burying Grounds to the Albany Rural Cemetery lists dozens of Elizabeths and many with the middle initial A, but so far, I have not been able to match any of them with this stone.

Still, this sadly damaged bit of marble holds my attention, perhaps because of the beautifully carved roses in the tympanum.

Weeping Willows

Above and below: Two ornate examples of the willow and urn motif from the Church Grounds section

As soul effigies passed out of fashion for gravestones, two motifs replaced the solemn winged faces - willow trees and urns. Often, these two were combined in carvings with an urn depicted beneath the branches of a willow. Sometimes, the urn was replaced with a tiny carved monument in the willow's shade. Willows might also appears in pairs on headstones, especially those of married couples.

A matching pair in the Church Grounds

This is one of a set of small gravestones in the Hitchcock family lot on the slope of the South Ridge overlooking the Cemetery's main gate and office. Each stone in this set has a slightly different variation on the willow and urn motif.

Numerous examples of these willows can be found at the Albany Rural Cemetery, both in the Church Grounds and in private family plots. They most commonly appear on headstones from the early 1800s with far fewer examples appearing post-Civil War.

With its low, drooping branches, the willow was a simple, elegant symbol of mourning.

Late example of a willow motif on the South Ridge

The Church Grounds Project

Reburial of Schuyler Slaves

The A.M.E. Lot at the Church Grounds

The Times Union has a very interesting article on the reburial of the remains of slaves found close to the Schuyler Flatts. The Flatts, once a large farm belonging to the Schuyler family, is now a park and lies just across Broadway from the main entrance to the Rural Cemetery.

Input Sought On Schuyler Slaves Reburial

One of the sites proposed in the article for the reburial of these remains is the Church Grounds section of the Albany Rural Cemetery which is, as previously posted, the focus of my latest blog. As part of Africa-American History Month, I have been featuring gravestones from the African Methodist Episcopal lot in the Church Grounds. There are at two identified slaves in the A.M.E. lot and several other known slaves or former slaves buried in other areas of the Rural Cemetery, including Nancy (a slave buried with the Quackenbush family) and Adam Blake (a former slave at the Van Rensselaer Manor whose son founded the Kenmore Hotel).

I'll definitely be following this story with interest.

The Church Grounds Project

A number of posts here in recent months have featured gravestones found in the Church Grounds section. The more I explore and research this section, the more I am impressed by its historic significance and I have decided to create a blog focusing on the Church Ground burials.

Many of the Church Grounds stones are broken or badly eroded so I know going into this project that I will not be able to transcribe every one, but I want to document as many as I can before time completely erases them.

The new blog can be found at:

The Albany Church Grounds

The Samuel Richards Headstone

The marble headstone of one Samuel Richards of Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York. Richards, a clerk in a mercantile company in Canandaigua, died in Albany on August 2, 1804. He was only twenty-eight and remembered as "a talented young man."

Richards was first buried in the Presbyterian section of the municipal burial ground near Eagle Street and State Street (just south of the modern East Capitol Park). It's likely that his grave was moved further uptown to the State Street Burying Ground when that replaced the old downtown graveyards and, finally, his remains and headstone were moved to the Rural Cemetery in 1868.

Richards' white marble stone is beautifully carved with two urns, a symbol of mortality that replaced the winged skulls and cherubic soul effigies popular on headstones in previous generations.

The covered upper urn is framed by an elegant arch. A stylized flower and delicately carved vines which spread out over the monument rise from the lower urn. The surface of the stone is also carved with a cross-hatched pattern giving it an almost woven texture. It's difficult to tell if this stone was signed by its carver as the lower portion is embedded in the earth, but it's one of the finest markers in the Church Grounds and shows a great deal of skill and care.

Elsie Cuyler Ten Eyck

One of the loveliest soul effigies I've encountered in the Church Grounds. This simple, serene face does not feature the wings commonly found on such carvings, but is fully enclosed in what resembles a sort of halo (or even an old-fashioned ladies cap) and surrounded by delicate flowers.

This sandstone slab marked the grave of Elsie Cuyler, wife of Barent Ten Eyck. Elsie was born in 1728 to merchant Johannes Cuyler, Jr. and his wife, Catharine Glen. Her husband, whom she married in 1756, was an Albany silversmith. Elsie died in 1791. Barent outlived her by four years. I have not yet located or identified his headstone.

Violet

Located in the Church Grounds, this simple stone was moved from the African Methodist Episcopal Church's section of the State Street Burying Grounds. Violet was born in 1745 and died at the age of 100 in 1845. She is believed to have spent large part of her life as a slave before slavery was abolished in New York State in 1827. She is one of at least three slaves known to be buried at the Rural Cemetery.

The Church Grounds Project

Zerubbabel Collins

Among the many monuments in the quiet field of the Church Grounds is a white marble marker signed Z. Collins.

This stone features a winged, moon-like face - one of several soul effigies found in this section - surrounded by a stylized floral design. The inscription notes that this stone was erected in memory of Femmitie Snyder, wife of Nicholas Snyder and daughter of the Reverend Ulpianus Van Sinderen. Femmitie died at the age of 37 on October 14, 1789. Her father, Reverend Van Sinderen, had come from Holland in 1746 to preach in Dutch Reformed Churches in what is now Brooklyn.


Zerubbabel Collins was one of his era's most respected stonecarvers. Like his father, Benjamin Collins, he specialized in gravestones embellished with soul effigies. Examples of his work can be found in Vermont and Connecticut graveyards.

Several rows away from Femmitie Snyder's stone, the stone of William Woods bears a very similar soul effigy, but with very different downswept wings and less ornate designs around the face. This monument, which is not signed, is dated two years after Collins' death.


More on Zerubbabel Collins
The Church Grounds Project

The Church Grounds

A row of ancient headstones in the Church Grounds section. Most of the graves in this lot were moved to the Albany Rural Cemetery from the State Street Burying Grounds (now Washington Park).

More on the State Street Burying Grounds

The Church Grounds Project

Philip Hooker, Architect

Grave of noted architect Philip Hooker. When I first found this monument in a section known as The Church Grounds, it was in poor condition. Several of the broken pieces were propped against a nearby tree. I was happy to see that it has since been assembled and placed upright.

Hooker was one of Albany's leading architects of the early 19th-century whose surviving designs include the former Albany Academy building between Lafayette and Academy Parks and a wonderful facade on State Street just below North Pearl Street (currently Bank of America).

The Church Grounds section in the Rural Cemetery has become one of my favorites. Expect more about this fascinating and very historic part in the near future.

The Church Grounds Project