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Guinea:
An African American Settlement in the Town of Wallkill
Reprinted with permission of the author and the Orange County Historical Society The first Slaves from Guinea arrived as workers for the Dutch West India Company in 1625. Although these twenty-four Guinea men were skilled as bricklayers, navigators, and laborers, they remained as slaves. With growing conflicts between the Dutch and British for the control of Manhattan, many of these slaves migrated with their owners to provide labor for the rich farmlands of the Hudson Valley region. Orange County remained the second largest slave holding county outside New York City until slavery was finally abolished in New York State in 1827. Between the villages of Scotchtown and Circleville in the Town of Wallkill are the remnants of some of Orange County’s forgotten history. A 490 acre settlement and farm owned by a prominent Orange County family attest to the African presence in the region. In 1795, many years before slavery was abolished, a Black family of farmers named McClaughry purchased this settlement as freemen, voted in elections, and paid taxes. As Guinea in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a common term for the McClaughry’s ancestral African homeland, they were inspired to use the same name for their new home. Here is the story of Guinea in the Town of Wallkill, Orange County. William McClaughry was still a teenager during the American Revolution. Born into slavery in 1759, William would certainly have appreciated the prospects of freedom and independence that the American Revolution would bring. As a slave to Colonel James McClaughry, William certainly heard, and most likely discussed the new nation that was to be formed. Colonel James McClaughry, a well-known resident of Little Britain in the Town of New Windsor, served in the 2nd Ulster Regiment. Born in Ireland in 1723, he voyaged to America with the famous Clinton family. In 1749, Colonel McClaughry married Catherine, the daughter of the family patriarch, Charles Clinton, and the sister of George Clinton, the first Governor of New York State. “His farm (McClaughry’s) was a part of the Low patent and adjoined the farm of Charles Clinton on the south. He was a man of considerable activity and prominence in the neighborhood.” [1] One year after the death of Catherine from smallpox in 1762, the Colonel married Agnes, the daughter of John Humphries. Neither wife bore him an heir. Despite the principles of freedom and the writings of Thomas Jefferson, “that all men are created equal,” William would remain a slave after the Revolutionary War. Yet, an event on October 7, 1777, would bring hope into the lives of William and the other slaves belonging to Colonel McClaughry. The reports and correspondence of the Clinton brothers, George and James, provide a descriptive account of that perilous autumn. [2] On September 29, 1777, George Clinton directed Colonel James McClaughry:
But no preparation on the part of Colonel McClaughry and his men could have anticipated the British attacks on Forts Clinton and Montgomery on Monday, October 6, 1777. In his letter dated October 9, 1777, George Clinton informed General Washington that “the army who attacked us, by lowest accounts, consisted of 3,000, chiefly British and Hessian troops. The garrison of both our posts did not exceed six hundred men and many of these unarmed militia.” [4] Editor’s Note: At this point in the article there seems to be a portion of the text missing. Col. McClaughry and many of the men under his command were captured by the British when the forts were taken. The prisoners were transported by ship down the Hudson to British occupied New York City. The author’s fifth endnote is included here as it seems to have referred to the missing text. [5] While imprisoned in the dark and dank walls of the provost, the Colonel realized the extent of his own personal breech of freedom and how miserable his condition had become. It was said that as a result of this maltreatment, Colonel McClaughry empathized with the plight of William and other slaves within his household. In a society where the ownership of slaves was both a privilege and an economic benefit, McClaughry decided to free his slaves. Upon his death on August 18, 1790, Colonel McClaughry’s will provided that seven of his nine slaves be freed. Two female slaves were ordered to provide and care for his wife Agnes in her old age.
Two of the other male slaves who inherited their freedom and money were Thomas and John. Both of them received the sum of £190 and £180 respectively in Bankers Notes as well as oxen, a cart, and other farming implements. These two patriarchs of the McClaughrys of African descent, who were reportedly brothers to William, joined their resources and purchased the large 490 acre tract of land in the Town of Wallkill for £735. It is difficult to determine their kinship due to the absence of records identifying the fathers of the young men. It is possible that the three young men were the sons of Nan, an old woman mentioned in McClaughry’s will believed to be the same female slave recorded in the slave census of 1755 as belonging to the Colonel. Nan was also given her freedom, and all cows and cattle that were known to belong to her, and advised to live with her daughter Rebecca. [7] This issue of the patriarchs’ kinship leads to an important question: Is Colonel James McClaughry the father of any of the Black McClaughrys? Certainly miscegenation was a commom practice among slaveowners in New York State. The case for the Colonel’s being the father of his slaves grows stronger when one considers that he had no children from his marriages to either Catherine Clinton or Agnes Humphries. On the other hand, this miscegenation theory may be invalid if Colonel McClaughry had been sterile. In any event, it is very unlikely that any of the McClaughry “brothers” were of mixed African and European heritage. In the U.S. census records each family living in the settlement of Guinea is described with the letter “b” for black, as opposed to “m” for mulatto. The McClaughrys of Guinea are believed to be of solely African lineage. The McClaughry patriarchs used their inheritance to purchase their land from John Taylor, a New York City merchant. The original deed mentions that “all houses, outhouses, buildings, orchards, gardens, etc.” were included in the sale of the land.
Honey Pot Farm to Guinea The origin of the name “Honey Pot” has baffled both historians and journalists. Some believed the name derived from a grove of trees that provided abundant honey, while others referred to it as a hole in the ground shaped like a honey pot. [8] Despite the mystery of the name’s origin, “honey pot” was a recognizable reference point for the area outside of Circleville. In his journal, surveyor Peter E. Gumaer records “honey pot” as a marker during his survey of the region:
Bull’s
Hack, also a well-known landmark, was named by the early
Bull families of the Circleville area who “hacked”
the rugged and thorny lands to clear it for farm use.
The original deed, signed by three McClaughrys on November 15, 1795, mentions “a stake in the honey pot meadow” as a property marker for the 490 acre tract of land. The three patriarchs divided the land among themselves; Thomas received a smaller parcel of 150 acres, while William and John acquired 170 acres each. In the subsequent title deeds dividing the land, the same landmark was changed to “a stake in the bog meadow.” Historian Samuel Eager writes:
The area called “honey pot”about which Eager wrote is the farm established by the McClaughrys and would be later referred to as Guinea. The mention of the “honey pot meadow” that was changed to “bog meadow” supports the idea that the area was named sardonically for what was actually a swamp. By 1800, the McClaughry clan had settled and were farming their new land. William was forty-one and lived with his wife Hannah and their three children. Even though Blacks are rarely mentioned in the history of Orange County, their populations were quite large. In the Town of Wallkill there was a total of 147 persons who were enslaved, while there were 60 free persons of African descent. The McClaughry families comprised a third of the freedmen living in the Town. The land which the McClaughrys had acquired was by no means good farmland. In fact, Eager mentions the location of Guinea was “rough and stony and the land poor.” Despite these conditions, the McClaughrys’ efforts made the land arable and then profitable. As a result, the family acquired wealth. By 1825, William McClaughry obtained additional land near Guinea. The farm inventory for the three patriarchs and their landholding sons was fifty-three beef cattle, eight horses, seventy-two sheep, thirty-nine hogs and hundreds of yards of wool, linen and cotton. Of the many other freedmen in the Town of Wallkill, only the McClaughry patriarchs, William, John and Thomas, and two other Black landowners, John Warner and Peter Broadhead who both owned two acres of land each, were allowed the privilege of voting. With this land ownership and the right to vote came the responsibility of paying property taxes. The McClaughrys are listed in the 1803 Assessment Roll with the pecuniary value of their property as follows: [10] Real Estate . . . . Personal Property . . . . Total William McClaughry . . . . . . . 400 . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . 501 Thomas McClaughry . . . . . .. 223 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 John McClaughry . . . . . . .. .. 221.5 . . . . . . . . . . .. 85 . . . . . . . . . . . . 306.5 Robert McClaughry
. . . . . . . .100
. ... . . .. . . . ..
. . 16
. . . .
. . . .
. . . . 116 The wealth and prominence of the McClaughry family could not be overlooked by the historians of the day. Eager writes: “The old families, we believe, not only maintained themselves, but became well off in a pecuniary point of view, and were much respected by the white neighbors . . . ” [11] The McClaughrys’ white neighbors included the Bulls, the Phillipses, the Wickhams, the Vails, and other prominent families of the nineteenth century Town of Wallkill. “Apparently, the name (McClaughry) was kept by several ‘colored’ families in this district. They were considered the better class – generally thrifty and well-to-do.” [12] Unfortunately, historians Ruttenber & Clark provided some incorrect information regarding Guinea in their History of Orange County:
First the McClaughrys were not freed between 1825 and 1828, even though that would have been the norm for the manumission of slaves at the time as slavery was abolished by the State of New York on July 4, 1827. The will of Colonel McClaughry manumitted all but two of his slaves upon his death in 1790. The Black McClaughrys had already owned the settlement in 1795. Second, the land was not given to the settlers by Colonel McClaughry. On the contrary, money was given to the former slaves by the colonel with no mention of how it should be used. The McClaughry patriarchs decided to buy the land with their inheritance. McClaughry Burial Ground “There is an old colored cemetery back in the woods,” said one elderly resident of what was then Guinea Road (now Midland Lake Road). How did he know they were “colored”? “Because they buried a child up there in the 1940s.” Through a field of thickets and briars and a small apple orchard is the last testament of Guinea: the McClaughry family cemetery. The stone fence constructed by the McClaughry children holds the remains of the three family patriarchs. An 1862 map confirms the properties and location of the McClaughry cemetery. William McClaughry died on April 17, 1842, at the age of eighty-three. His wife Hannah died at the age of fifty-eight in 1835. Both of their tombstones, though covered with green lichens, are upright and leaning towards each other. The tombstone of Thomas McClaughry is no longer legible. The dates of his birth and death are not discernable at this writing. John McClaughry was born in 1769 and acquired his freedom at the age of twenty-one. He died on November 9, 1855, at the age of eighty-six. After 130 years his marker has fallen down. His wife Catherine was buried next to him, but where her body should be is now an open hole. Someone has desecrated the grave leaving freshly overturned ground, thus separating her from her husband. Yet, the deaths of William, John and Thomas were not the final chapter of the story of Guinea. The farming continued but did not reap the profits as had the methods of the patriarchs. Joseph McClaughry, born 1801, was sixty years old when he incorporated the AME Zion Church which is presently situated on the corner of Genung Street and East Avenue. The church has always been the center of social activism and unity for Blacks. Even before the founding of a physical church in Middletown, the AME Zion Church had thirty communicants from Goshen and Middletown and 100 from Newburgh. While Joseph established himself in the City of Middletown, John and Jacob McClaughry continued to run the farm and properties of Guinea. [14]
The Loss of Guinea The landholdings
of John McClaughry were much larger than the property
of Jacob. Yet only Jacob’s thirty-two acre farm
is reported in the Orange County agricultural statistics
of the New York State Census of 1875. According
to this source, Jacob, who was forty-nine at the time,
cultivated four acres of land producing eight tons of
hay, two tons of winter wheat, and twenty-five bushels
of oats in 1874. He lived with his wife Sarah and their
four children, Ellen, Amy, Fanny and Edgar.
[15]
In 1870, John was sixty-four years old and seemingly unable to run a farm alone. There were no children in his household and his wife had died years before. According to the census, he hired himself out as a farm laborer even though his personal properties were valued at $1,000. On May 2, 1875, John McClaughry was found dead in his bed at the age of sixty-eight. Samuel Eater wrote, “In later years the children have not done as well as their fathers, and are fast degenerating to the level of others of their race, spending their property and selling out. [16] At the time Eager published this observation, the three patriarchs were still alive. Hence, him comments had somewhat of a prophetic tone. It seems that the younger generations did lose their inherited land, but it is unclear how this loss occurred. Jacob, still a young man, continued to farm after the death of his relative John McClaughry in 1875. The decline of Guinea and the McClaughry family could possibly be the result of negligence and shortsighted priorities of the younger generations. Then again, the decline could be the result of limited interest by the descendants in farming and living in the countryside. After slavery ended in 1827, many former slaves moved to the urban areas of Newburgh, Middletown and Port Jervis to work in industry. This trend of urban migration continued throughout the nineteenth century. Yet the changing climate of racial intolerance by the general society could also have been a contributing factor. Throughout the nineteenth century, European immigrants flooded into the Orange County area replacing the Black labor force which was previously used. Even though living in cities was beneficial, Blacks were now the last hired at many of the factories in the three major Orange County cities. The change in racial attitudes is also seen in newspaper reports. Middletown’s local paper, The Whig Press, openly described Blacks as “darkies,” and entertained their readers with tales of “savage Africa.” Minstrel shows, by whites, depicted African people with distorted facial features at local theaters in Middletown even before the Civil War. Racial intolerance had reached its peak by the time of the Civil War. The infamous draft riots of New York City left many innocent Black men and women hanging from lampposts in the Irish immigrant section of Manhattan. The AME Zion Church on Washington Street in Newburgh was attacked by a large number of white rioters while worshipers gathered for watch meeting services on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1860. The rioters broke several windows and ripped the front door off the hinges. The church was attacked again in 1862. [17] From 1840 until 1880, most of the males with the surname McClaughry in the Town of Wallkill were working as day laborers or farm laborers, while the female McClaughrys were recorded as washwomen or domestics living in the households of whites. Other Blacks, without the once-respected name of McClaughry, were living in rented houses or as servants in white households. Possibly disinterested in farming, the sons and daughters of the founding fathers made their own marks on society in the Town of Wallkill. Joseph McClaughry is recorded as one of the founders of the oldest Black church in the City of Middletown. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Middletown executed a certificate of incorporation on November 2, 1861, which was signed by Henry Johnson and Joseph McClaughry. The trustees named were Henry Waterford, Peter Bowman, George Millspaugh, Joseph Johnson and Joseph McClaughry. [18] Church trustee Henry Waterford, who worked as a carman on the railroad, may have also been related to the McClaughry family by marriage. His oldest son is named Charles McClaughry Waterford, suggesting the possibility that his wife, Mary, came from the McClaughry clan. Waterford and his family lived in the City of Middletown. According to Middletown historian Franklin B. Williams,
After 1900
the McClaughry name disappears as the landowning Black
family in the area. The Atlas of Orange County,
N.Y. for 1875 shows both the properties of Jacob
and John McClaughry;
[20]
The last McClaughry family listed in the 1959 Directory of the City of Middletown was Edward McClaughry and his wife Margaret who lived at 52 Watkins Avenue. He predeceased her on February 25, 1959, at the age of eighty-two. [22] Current research has not uncovered any living descendant of the McClaughrys and their land called Guinea. Presently, the Warner, DeGroat and Hasbrouck families are known as some of the oldest Black families in the City of Middletown and the Town of Wallkill. But as has been shown in this brief story, the McClaughrys were also known as a prominent part of Orange County history. Copyright ©
1992 Orange County Historical Society [1] Edward M. Ruttenber, History of the Town of New Windsor, Orange County, New York (Newburgh: Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands, 1912), 127. Hereafter cited as: Ruttenber: HTNW. [2] Janet Dempsey, Washington’s Last Cantonment (Monroe, N.Y.: Library Research Associates, 1998), 12. [3] George Clinton to Col.s Allison, McClaughry, and Hasbrouck, Sept. 29, 1777, in George Clinton, Public Papers of George Clinton, First Governor of New York 1777-1795, 1801-1804. Edited by Hugh Hastings and J. A. Holden, 10 vols. (New York and Albany: State of New York, 1899-1914), II, 350. [4] Ibid. [5] Ruttenber: HTNW, 128. [6] Gustave Anjou, Probate Records of Ulster County, N.Y. Abstract of will of James McClaughry of Little Britain, New York (1909), Will Book A, 61. [7] Ibid. [8] Edward M. Ruttenber and L. H. Clark, History of Orange County, New York (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1881), 450. Hereafter cited as: Ruttenber & Clark, HOC. [9] Lucile G. Ogden, The Journal of the Records of Peter E. Gumaer, 1771-1869 (Lucile G. Ogden, Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., 1983), 45. [10] Ruttenber & Clark, HOC, 439. [11] Samuel W. Eager, An Outline History of Orange County, New York (Newburgh, N.Y.: S. T. Callahan, 1846-1847), 351 [12] Ruttenber: HTNW, 128. [13] Ruttenber & Clark, HOC, 450. [14] Middletown Whig Press, Middletown, New York, December 1, 1853. [15] Census of the State of New York for 1875 (Weed, Parsons & Co.: Albany, 1877). [16] Eager, 351. [17] William J. Wells, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Charlotte, NC: African Methodist Episcopal Church, n.d.), 112. [18] Franklin B. Williams, Middletown: A Biography (Middletown, N.Y.: Lawrence A. Toepp, 1928), 160. [19] Ibid. [20] F. W. Beers, County Atlas of Orange, New York (Chicago, IL: Andreas, Baskin & Burr, 1875), Plate No. 42. [21] New York, Ontario and Western Railroad from Cornwall to Sydney for the Year 1910 (Newburgh, N.Y.: Breed Publishing Co., 1910).
[22]
The Middletown, New York, Wallkill-Goshen
Directory 1959 (New Haven, CT: Price & Lee
Co., 1959). |
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