Just north of Atlanta, Georgia lies Lake Lanier. It’s the largest lake in Georgia with clear, calm water that glistens as it gently laps against tree lined banks. It’s serene, peaceful, picturesque, a natural beauty nestled in the lush forests of the deep south. But did you know, there’s nothing natural about Lake Lanier? Nothing peaceful either. Did you know that just below the water, nestled forgotten at the bottom of the lake lies the ruins of Oscarville, Georgia, a mostly Black community that flourished after the Civil War until 1912 when it was destroyed by angry mobs who killed or displaced over a thousand residents? Did you know that even today Lake Lanier is one of the deadliest bodies of water in the United States, claiming the lives of over 700 people since its creation and that its tragic origins have led to legends of a curse? And did you know that Oscarville isn’t even the only historically Black town now underwater, that there are other “drowned towns” all over the United States? Let’s fix that. 

 

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. Drowned towns. Someone recommended this topic on Instagram and I’m so sorry I don’t remember who it was or I would give you a shout out. I think it was in a comment on one of my posts but going back through all of the comments on all of the posts at this point just ain’t happening. So, I’m sorry. But I absolutely love this topic suggestion. I have to admit, I didn’t know drowned towns were even a thing until I read that comment. But that’s what makes it a good History Fix topic. Because if I didn’t know about it, chances are most of you don’t either. 

 

We’re going to start with Oscarville, Georgia but there are other examples of drowned towns across the US that we’ll get to later. Oscarville was a small farming community in Forsyth County, Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta. It was established just after the Civil War during the Reconstruction period by formerly enslaved Black people, many of whom had fought for that freedom in the Civil War. And I know I keep dancing all around the American Civil War. I will dive in some day, I promise. Anyway, according to Dr. Dave Tell, professor of rhetoric and political communications who specializes in race issues at the University of Kansas, by 1910, Oscarville was a thriving community of nearly 1,100 African Americans, descendants of those formerly enslaved people who established the town. Many of the families in Oscarville owned their own land and businesses which as a Black American in 1910, was quite an accomplishment. Our country at that time was not set up to facilitate or allow Black people, or women for that matter, to own land or businesses. It wasn’t illegal but it was made extremely difficult, on purpose. 

 

But let’s go back even farther for a minute because it’s only right to mention that before Oscarville was established in Forsyth County, that land belonged to the Cherokee Nation who had inhabited the area for thousands of years? Who knows how long. The Cherokee were forced off that land during what we now refer to as the Trail of Tears after the signing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 thanks to Andrew Jackson, my least favorite president of all time. Please go back and listen to episode 5 if you want to know why. So that was Cherokee land originally and then was stolen from them by the US government and then later, after the end of slavery, it was settled by newly liberated, formerly enslaved African Americans. And that’s where we are now. 

 

In 1906 there were horrific race riots in Atlanta, which is just an hour south of Oscarville. It was honestly more of a massacre than a riot and now I have to do an episode on that. But just to brief you, according to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights quote “in September 1906, a mob of roughly 5,000 white men descended on several [Atlanta] neighborhoods and waged an unprovoked massacre of black men and women. Black people were murdered in shops, on trolley cars, in the streets, and in their homes. In the days that followed, the city minimized the tragedy, seeking to move on. Just days after the massacre, a headline in The Atlanta Journal proclaimed: “Atlanta is Herself Again; Business Activity Restored and the Riot is Forgotten.” The Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906 is largely unknown today, even though it is a defining moment in Atlanta’s history and the nation’s history of racial terror.” end quote. 

 

So let’s go to 1912 in Oscarville, just 6 years out from that massacre in Atlanta to the south. The racial tensions are sky high. Oscarville bordered the Chattahoochee River as did a neighboring all white town called Cummings, Georgia. On September 5th, 1912, a 22 year old white woman in Cummings named Ellen Grice reported that she had awakened to a Black male intruder in her bed and that he had attempted to rape her but she had escaped the attack. A couple days later, 5 black men from nearby Oscarville were arrested in connection to the crime: Tony Howell, Isaiah Pirkle, Johnny Bates, Fate Chester, and Joe Rogers. Tony Howell was the one actually accused of the crime, but the other 4 men provided an alibi for him which the Sheriff obviously didn’t buy and so all 5 men were arrested and put in jail in the Cummings town square. 

 

By September 7th, a black pastor named Grant Smith tried to intervene on the men’s behalf, probably fearing for their lives while they sat in jail awaiting trial. For this, Grant Smith, the pastor, was beaten by an angry white mob which was calling that he be hanged or burned alive. Which, what is this 16th century Germany? Was he a witch? Please with that. That did not happen, thankfully, someone had some sense. The governor of Georgia, Joseph Mackay Brown sent in the National Guard to prevent riots from breaking out in Cummings slash Oscarville over this. They transferred the men to multiple different jails in Atlanta to avoid white dudes busting them out of the jail in Cummings and lynching them before the trial.  

 

So that crisis was somewhat averted. But then, on September 9th, just a couple days after all this drama, an 18 year old white woman named Mae Crow was found dead and presumably raped on the banks of the Chattahoochee River. This is not good. We have no idea who murdered Mae Crow but it doesn’t really matter, four black men from Oscarville are arrested for the crime based solely on speculation. There is no substantial evidence to suggest that these men did this. The first to be arrested was a sixteen year old boy, a sixteen year old child named Earnest Knox. He was coerced into confessing to the murder. How, you might ask? Well, apparently a prominent Cummings resident mock-lynched him using a rope from a nearby well. As if to say, confess to this crime, or we’ll kill you. Which I’m pretty sure is not standard practice when conducting a murder investigation. But, hey, it worked. He got the child suspect to confess. Which to me, considering the circumstances under which it was given, is a completely worthless confession. But they obviously didn’t see it that way. 

 

Three more suspects were arrested soon after in connection to the case. Earnest Knox’s 18 year old cousin Oscar Daniel,  22 year old Trussie Jane Daniel, and 24 year old Robert Edwards. So this is like the Ellen Grice thing all over again, just a few days after that. Earnest Knox was snuck out the back door of the jail in Cummings and transferred to Atlanta for his safety, thankfully. However, they made the mistake of leaving the other three in there. On September 10th, so just the day after Mae’s body was found, this like just happened. A mob of around 2000 people formed, a lynch mob, determined to avenge Mae Crow’s murder. They stormed the jail where the remaining three suspects were still being kept. They dragged Robert Edwards out into the town square where they beat him and then shot him several times. As if that wasn’t enough already, they then hung his body from a telephone pole and people took turns shooting at it like some sick sport. Let me just take a minute to remind you that there is absolutely no evidence that this man did anything to Mae Crow. Is it possible that he was involved? Yes. Should he still get a fair trial to determine that as guaranteed by our Constitutional Rights? Um, yeah. But alas, he did not. He was brutally and publicly murdered and not one single person was held accountable for it despite thousands of eye witnesses. Bit of a double standard there. 

 

But the violence did not stop with the murder of Robert Edwards. The mob, known as “night riders” descended on the town of Oscarville. They raided and burnt down their churches, their farms, their businesses, all of this that these people had worked so hard for, fought for, died for, innocent men, women, and children who had nothing at all to do with the murder of Mae Crow. They just destroyed everything. Most of them fled Oscarville. Those who refused to flee were killed by the mob. 

 

George Rucker, a direct descendant of an Oscarville resident, tells his story in an article for 11alive by La’Tasha Givens, Makayla Richards, and Daris Schneider-Bray. His great grandfather, Byrd Oliver was forced to abandon his 100 acre farm in Oscarville when the night riders attacked. With the mob gaining on them, they headed for the Chattahoochee River but the mob beat them to the bridge. According to Rucker quote “they either had to swim or drown. Most of them didn’t make it. My grandfather is one of them that did make it. He lost some brothers and sisters.” end quote. 

 

Many displaced Oscarville residents settled in nearby Gainesville, Georgia, including Byrd Oliver where they brought with them their knowledge of poultry farming. To this day, Gainesville, Georgia is the self proclaimed “poultry capital of the world” with a one billion dollar a year poultry industry and that’s thanks in part to the folks from Oscarville. 

 

But, so what happened to Oscarville? Well the white folks just sort of took it. They just took over the land and eventually a lot of it was sold to the US government. We’ll come back to that, but first let me fill you in on what happened to Earnest Knox and the others still sitting in jail awaiting their murder trial. Earnest and his cousin Oscar Daniel were both found guilty of the rape and murder of Mae Crow when they were tried by an all white jury that took a little over an hour to convict them based on speculation alone. Trussie Daniel was released, charges dismissed, after both the prosecutor and the judge visited her in her jail cell and coerced her into testifying against Earnest and Oscar. Which, Oscar and Trussie both have the same last name, Daniel. I just want to point that out. I don’t know if they were related, like brother or sister or what. My sources mentioned Oscar and Earnest were cousins. I don’t know how Trussie fits into the puzzle. But I do know she testified against them and was let go. Earnest and Oscar were executed. They were hanged. Now, even at the time, public execution is illegal in Georgia. So they had hung some tarps up around the hanging area so that people couldn’t watch. But someone had burned down the tarps. And rather than, I don’t know, putting up new tarps or like a blanket, or anything, they just went ahead and publicly hanged Earnest Knox, who was only 16 years old BTdubs, and Oscar Daniel in front of a crowd of around 5,000 onlookers. Once again, I don’t know if they were guilty or not. They may have been. But, there was little to no evidence. Many still believe Earnest and Oscar were innocent which is just, I mean for their sake obviously horrific but also for Mae Crow. She was raped and murdered and possibly never got justice for that. There’s a good chance her killer walked free. There’s a good chance he was, god forbid, possibly maybe even a white man. I don’t know that. But I also don’t know that it was Earnest Knox and Oscar Daniel. It could have been anyone. And without a legit investigation, by jumping to emotionally driven conclusions, now we’ll never know. 

 

By the 1950s, the US government owned a lot of the land that used to be Oscarville and made plans to flood it, intentionally, using the Buford Dam which was built in 1956. They wanted to create a man made lake to increase the growing demand for a fresh water supply to nearby cities. Another source mentioned that the dam was built to generate hydroelectric power and that the lake which would come to be called Lake Lanier would aid in navigation and flood control of the Chattahoochee River. So they built this dam on the river and used it to flood tens of thousands of acres of land, including what used to be Oscarville. This displaced around 250 families, not including the 1000 some people that already fled Oscarville back in 1912. They also had to relocate 20 cemeteries but many of those graves ended up submerged beneath Lake Lanier. 

 

Today the lake is a weirdly deadly body of water having claimed more than 700 lives since it was first created in the mid 50s and 200 of those just since 1994 according to the Miami Herald. They’ve actually prohibited swimming on some of the more popular beaches because there have been so many drownings. And because of the violence at Oscarville and all the mess with the cemeteries and the graves down there, legends have sprung up about a curse to explain why so many people have died there. 

 

The first deaths happened in 1958 when a car carrying two women named Delia and Susie went over the edge of a bridge and plummeted into the lake. Both women were presumed dead. A year later, a fisherman found a woman’s body in the lake with no hands. She couldn’t be identified. I mean she had no fingerprints. There was no DNA anything at this point. So all these urban legends sprung up and she started to be called the “Lady of the Lake.” People believed that she lured victims into the water and drowned them. Then, in 1990, workers building a new bridge found a 1958 Ford sedan 30 meters deep in the lake and inside that car was a body that was later identified as Susie, one of the women who died in that accident in 1958. So that led people to believe that that other handless body, the Lady of the Lake, was probably the other woman who had been with Susie in the car - Delia. But I don’t know you guys, the no hands thing is weird to me. Doesn’t it kind of seem like she was murdered and someone cut off her hands to prevent an identification? That’s a thing right? It seems weird that fish or vultures or whatever would have only eaten her hands. I don’t know. But between that whole Lady of the Lake business and, I don’t know the violent mob and racial cleansing that destroyed an entire town in 1912, people often attribute the high number of accidental deaths in the lake to a curse. 

 

However, there’s another, more realistic explanation but it still has to do with Oscarville. There’s a bunch of stuff down there under the lake. Remains of old buildings and structures from Oscarville, barns and bridges, plus trees. There are whole trees up to 60 feet tall or more under the water at Lake Lanier. All this hidden stuff under the water poses a threat to swimmers who get tangled up in it and drown. So, you know, don’t mess with nature. Maybe we shouldn’t be making lakes where lakes weren’t supposed to be. 

 

But the racial cleansing that happened at Oscarville was so extreme, so complete that during the Jim Crow era, there was no official segregation in Forsyth County. No “Whites only” signs at lunch counters and water fountains because they didn’t need them. There were no black people in Forsyth County. They had forced them all out and then turned the remnants of their once thriving town into a lake. Drowned it. 

 

What happened in Oscarville in 1912 was not well known about for a long time. It didn’t make national news until 1987. That year up to 20,000 civil rights activists marched to the courthouse square in Forsyth County which was still completely white, no black people lived in Forsyth County for 75 years since the destruction of Oscarville. The march was led by Coretta Scott King, who was the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and Hosea Williams who was a civil rights activist and part of King’s inner circle as well. Once there, they were met with violence. Forsyth County residents waved confederate flags, threw rocks at them and yelled racial slurs… in 1987. Marchers responded with peace signs, clenched fists, and friendly waves. 

 

Despite the violence, Hosea Williams bravely spoke, saying quote “We've come back to Forsyth County today to prove that truth crushed to earth shall rise again. Please understand, Forsyth County. Before we'll be your slaves, we'd rather be buried in our graves and go home to our God and be free." end quote.

 

According to a 1987 article in the St. Petersburg Times by Larry King, quote “Despite the passions at hand, police reported no injuries or serious violent acts. There were, however, about 55 arrests on charges ranging from inciting to riot to weapons possession. Those who were arrested included at least four Ku Klux Klan members and David Duke, leader of the National Association for the Advancement of White People.” end quote. So at least they arrested the right people. 

 

Today, Forsyth County is the wealthiest county in Georgia with a Black population comprising only 4.4%. When you compare that to the 33.1% Black population in the rest of Georgia according to the US Census, Forsyth County remains overwhelmingly white. Which isn’t surprising, they went to great lengths to ensure that back in 1912. 

 

Oscarville isn’t the only drowned town though. Let’s go to Kowaliga, Alabama. Or, I guess I should say let’s go to Lake Martin in Alabama because Kowaliga isn’t there anymore. Kowaliga, which is also called Benson, was established by a formerly enslaved African American man named John Benson in 1890. John was born around 1850 on a plantation in Alabama near Kowaliga Creek enslaved to a man named James Benson. Not much is known about John’s parents. Some speculate that his enslaver, James Benson, may have been his father. It was not uncommon for enslavers to have children with enslaved females. We know his mother was enslaved, for sure, which is why he was born enslaved. We also know he had a sister who was sold to a plantation in Florida. According to a Newsone article by Bilal G. Morris, quote “In the 1850s it was not uncommon for slave owners to birth children with the Black women they kept in bondage, then sell them to other plantations. We don’t know if James was John’s father, but it wouldn’t be far-fetched.”

 

After James Benson died, his estate was divided up amongst his family and John was sent to Talladega, Alabama, now enslaved by “belonging to,” one of James Benson’s heirs. And I just want to point out, if John was in fact James’ son, this is just disgusting to me. To think that the man’s son was part of the inheritance, the property he left to some other distant heir. The injustice is hard to stomach. Although, I guess that would mean he sold his daughter to some stranger in Florida. So I guess that’s even worse. I don’t know. There’s no making sense of any of it. 

 

Anyway, after the Civil War ended in 1865, John Benson was a free man. He was given a mule thanks to the Confiscation Act of 1861 which said Union generals could take property from Confederate rebels after a battle and give it to formerly enslaved people. The first thing he did with his newfound freedom and his mule was head to Florida to find his sister and bring her home. A black man, traveling alone through the American south right after the Civil War is a death wish. But that’s what he did. He just wanted to go rescue his sister. And he searched plantation after plantation in Florida until he finally found her and brought her back to Alabama with him. And if it’s me, I’m not stopping in Alabama, I’m hightailing it way farther north than that. But they went back to Alabama. That was their home. He wanted to return to the Benson Plantation on the banks of Kowaliga (Caliga) Creek where he had grown up but he needed money in order to purchase the land so he headed over to the coal mines in Shelby County, Alabama. John worked the coal mines for 60 cents per ton of coal until he had saved up $100 which today is more like $2,400. He then returned to the Benson Plantation and was able to purchase a small plot of land that had previously belonged to his enslaver and possibly father and begin farming it. As the years went by, John purchased more and more land until he owned around 3,000 acres that included the Benson Plantation and surrounding land. You see, after the war, slavery wasn’t a thing anymore. So all of these white planters have no one to work their fields. They just sold the land for cheap and moved on to something else. And here was John Benson, buying up the land of former enslavers. 

 

So let me just recap real quick. John Benson was born enslaved on the Benson Plantation to a man who may have been his biological father although he received none of his inheritance and was actually given away as part of that inheritance, property of his own father. A free man after the Civil War, he risked his life to save his sister from Florida and bring her home where he began to gradually purchase the property on which he was enslaved and then some. He hired Black and White workers, paid them money, to work the land. According to Morris in that Newsone article quote “he built a massive farmhouse, a brickyard, a sawmill, a cotton gin, and a compression mill. The community produced corn, cotton, sugar, and well as different types of wood, and over 40 families were housed on the land. John’s new fortunes allowed him to become the local bank. He began bankrolling mortgages for white and Black buyers as well as lending money to white neighbors. Once a slave, now a rich and powerful man with generational wealth. All three of his children would receive a college education, which was rare for a Black family in the late 1800s.” end quote. 

 

John’s son William was such a believer in education, he returned home after college to establish a school in the little community they had built. He wanted to quote “raise the standard of living for his community by teaching them to read, training industrial skills, as well building moral character in children.” end quote. His father gave him 10 acres where he established the Kowaliga Academic and Industrial Institute in 1898. This school educated Black children for over 40 years with a board of trustees that included Booker T. Washington and Oscar Garrison Villard. 

 

But William didn’t stop there. In 1900 he established the Dixie Industrial Company which produced lumber and processed cotton. This company built the Dixie Line in 1914 which was what some of my sources are calling the first Black owned railroad but I’m not sure that’s true. Maybe it was the first in Alabama? I’m not sure. It was a Black owned railroad though and, whether or not it was the first, that’s still significant. 

 

William died in 1915 and his father John died in 1925. The following year, in 1926, the Alabama Power Company completed construction of the Martin Dam on the Tallapoosa River which completely flooded the Kowaliga (Caliga) Creek area, sinking the town of Kowaliga, or Benson, under lake Martin. This man-made lake also destroyed the nearby town of Sousana, Alabama as well as some Native American lands. 

 

Morris concludes his article quote “Who knows what could have been of the Kowaliga school and the town created by John Benson and his family if it was given an actual chance to survive. Regardless they deserve our praise as two of the founders of Black excellence.” end quote. 

 

Next let’s go to Vanport, Oregon. Vanport sprung up in the 1940s as the hub of a booming shipyard industry during World War II. The entire city was built in just 110 days and quickly became the second largest city in Oregon at that time after Portland. It was essentially a giant housing project meant to provide housing for workers needed during the war who mostly worked at the shipyards. At its height, Vanport was home to around 40,000 people. It was not fancy. It was hastily, constructed and, you know, it was essentially a low income government housing project on a massive scale in response to World War II. So after the war, when the shipyards were no longer booming, a lot of workers left Vanport to find work elsewhere. But a lot of people also stayed. According to a Smithsonian Magazine article called “How Oregon’s Second Largest City Vanished in a Day” by Natasha Geiling quote “as America returned to peacetime and the shipyards shuttered, tens of thousands remained in the slipshod houses and apartments in Vanport, and by design, through discriminatory housing policy, many who stayed were African-American. In a city that before the war claimed fewer than 2,000 black residents, white Portland eyed Vanport suspiciously. In a few short years, Vanport went from being thought of as a wartime example of American innovation to a crime-laden slum.” end quote. 

 

In 1947, the Oregon Journal reported quote “To many Oregonians, Vanport has been undesirable because it is supposed to have a large colored population. (and, side note, I know the term colored is not PC, this is a direct quote from 1947) Of the some 23,000 inhabitants, only slightly over 4,000 are colored residents. True, this is a high percentage per capita compared to other Northwestern cities. But, as one resident put it, the colored people have to live somewhere, and whether the Northwesterners like it or not, they are here to stay." end quote. 

 

So Vanport was essentially a slum way too close to the ritzy upper class white folks over in Portland. And it was actually only like 16% black but that percentage was unsettling for the Portlanders. The Housing Authority of Portland wanted to dismantle Vanport, just get rid of it. But over 20,000 people lived there. They couldn’t just kick 20,000 people out of their houses. Where would they go? Well, they didn’t have to ponder this dilemma for long. 

 

1948 was a particularly wet year for Oregon. The mountains were covered in winter snow that began to melt as temperatures rose during excessively rainy spring. The water level in the Columbia and Willamette Rivers soon rose to dangerous heights, over 8 feet above flood stage by the end of May which directly threatened Vanport. Officials started patrolling the dikes which were built to keep flood waters back but they didn’t issue any official warnings to the residents of Vanport. They had been assured by the US Army Corps of Engineers that the dikes would hold and prevent flooding in Vanport. However, these officials took it upon themselves to remove their files and equipment from Vanport just in case. They also relocated 600 race horses from a nearby racetrack. Okay just let that sink in for a sec. They thought the situation dangerous enough to move race horses to safety, but not the 20,000 people living in Vanport. They actually issued a statement on May 28, 1948 that read quote “Remember, dikes are safe at present. You will be warned if necessary. You will have time to leave. Don’t get excited.” end quote. And that last part just sounds so patronizing it annoys me. “Don’t get excited.” 

 

Well, as you may have guessed by now, the dikes did not hold. At 4:17 pm a small hole formed in a dike that separated Vanport from Smith Lake to the northwest. That quickly turned into a 500 foot gap and water started flooding into the city. And still, these officials did not warn the people of Vanport to get the heck out of there. The warning actually came from students and faculty at Vanport College who had come to secure their research projects in the event of a flood. According to Geiling in that Smithsonian article quote “In less than a day, the nation's largest housing project—and Oregon's second largest city—was destroyed. 18,500 residents were displaced, and roughly 6,300 were black.” end quote. 

 

So this one was less intentional than Oscarville and Kowaliga which were both flooded on purpose to create man made lakes. But it does feel like the officials in charge of Vanport just sort of let it happen. Like they were like, “oh this is convenient, let’s see how this plays out. This might get us out of a couple of jams.” And while most people were able to escape, homeless, there were an undetermined number of casualties. According to Geiling quote “In the days following the Vanport flood, rumors swirled in the local press. "Official" estimates of casualties—doled out liberally to reporters by those not directly involved with the investigation—were in the hundreds, and eyewitness accounts told stories of dozens of bodies being carried down the Columbia River. Days into June, no bodies had been recovered from the flooded town, stoking rumors that the HAP had quietly disposed of bodies in order to lessen the blame for its mishandling of the situation. One news story suggested that the HAP had arranged for at least 600 bodies to be stored in the Terminal Ice & Cold Storage facility downtown; another story claimed that the government had quietly and by the cover of night loaded 157 bodies (or 457, depending on the telling) onto a ship bound for Japan. Most derided the rumors as "ugly" and "irresponsible," and they were right, but they reflected the general distrust of the public—especially the now-displaced residents of Vanport—toward housing and city officials.” end quote. 

 

Vanport was, obviously never rebuilt. I mean, they wanted it gone anyway even before the flood. Now, the area that was once Vanport is called Delta Park and it lies along the northern edge of Portland. It’s a beautiful sprawling utopia of public parks, nature preserves, and sports complexes. It’s part of the reason Portland has been named “one of the world’s most livable cities.” It’s something to brag about. “Look at our pretty green spaces. Isn’t our city so nice?” But when you think about what went down to make room for that space, what was allowed to happen. It kind of seems like more of a dystopia than a utopia.  

 

I have one more for you that wasn’t necessarily drowned, more parked? Anyway, this is certainly a place you’ve heard of, Central Park in New York City. It’s world renowned for sure. But before it was Central Park, it was Seneca Village. Established in 1825, Seneca Village was a predominantly Black neighborhood running from 82nd street to 89th street along the western edge of what is today Central Park. By the 1855, half of the Black residents of Seneca Village owned property which is unheard of in the 1850s, this is pre Civil War. Slavery was illegal in New York already at this time but still, Black people owning property in the 1850s is crazy considering the obstacles they were up against even in the north. So 50% owned land. That percentage is five times higher than the average for New York City at the time. 

 

So how did this all go down, according to centralparknyc.org, the land that became Seneca Village was first owned by John and Elizabeth Whitehead, who were white. They subdivided their property 200 lots and started to sell it. A 25 year old Black shoe shiner named Andrew Wililams bought the first three lots for $125 (which today is more like $4,000). A store clerk named Epiphany Davis then bought 12 lots for $578 (which is like $18,000). The AME Zion Church bought another 6 lots and. In all, the Whiteheads sold about half of their 200 lots to African Americans. By the mid 1950s, there were 50 homes, three churches, cemeteries, and a school for Black students. Seneca village was around two thirds black. The other residents were mostly Irish immigrants and a handful of German immigrants. 

 

Seneca Village was far enough away from downtown Manhattan that its residents sort of had their own little safe haven, away from the hustle and bustle and pollution and blatant racism that persisted even though New York had abolished slavery in 1827. And it makes sense that the Irish immigrants joined them there. They faced a lot of discrimination as well. It’s believed that they had gardens and raised livestock. They fished in the Hudson River. And this is making me realize that New York City looked way different back in the early 1800s. The thought of fishing in the Hudson River now, ew. But back then, there was room for gardens and livestock. It was totally different. 

 

 By the 1850s, as Seneca Village was reaching its peak, New York City began planning Central Park. They wanted a green space to escape the unhealthy conditions of the nasty cesspool that is New York City, a place for recreation, a place to, you know, feel some grass, see some trees. And they wanted it to be big. 775 acres big. They determined that the best place for this park was from 59th street to 109th street between 5th and 8th avenues which, of course, included Seneca Village. How very convenient for them. 

 

According to centralparknyc.org quote “The City acquired the land through eminent domain, the law that allows the government to take private land for public use with compensation paid to the landowner. This was a common practice in the 19th century, and had been used to build Manhattan’s grid of streets decades earlier. There were roughly 1,600 inhabitants displaced throughout the area. Although landowners were compensated, many argued that their land was undervalued. Ultimately, all residents had to leave by the end of 1857.” end quote. And that, of course included all of the residents of Seneca Village who had defied all odds to purchase that land with their own hard earned money, money their brothers and sisters to the south were not even allowed to earn. They were just like “see ya, we’re putting a park here, there’s nothing you can do about it.” 

 

In 2011, archaeologists from Columbia University and The City University of New York started doing some excavations of the Seneca Village site in Central Park which is so cool. They’ve found an iron tea kettle, a roasting pan, a stoneware beer bottle, some pieces of porcelain, and a small leather shoe. All that remains of this little piece of paradise that once existed, sheltered from the filth and grime of the city. 

 

And I’m sure there are more drowned towns, if not drowned than taken over some other way by the government and repurposed. And it just really illustrates to me the challenges faced by Black people in this country. I know slavery ended 159 years ago. I know we’re 128 years out from Jim Crow, 56 years post Civil Rights movement. And people point to that and say, see it’s better, we fixed it, we’re equal now. We don’t need affirmative action, we don’t need to be providing opportunities for Black people just because they’re Black. We’re all on an even playing field now. But that’s not something that just happens instantly just because you finally want it to. Success doesn’t just happen to someone poof, like that. It’s something that builds up, generation after generation. Our forefathers and foremothers laid the foundation of success for us. And these things that happened in the past, the night riders descending on Oscarville, the flooding of Kowaliga, the lack of warnings in Vanport, the convenient placement of New York City’s Central Park, these things intentionally destroyed that foundation for Black Americans. They can’t just build a nice house today like white people can. They can’t just go out and buy the wood and build the house because they have no foundation. Even if they build it, it will sink into the mud. In that Smithsonian Magazine article about the flooding of Vanport, Geiling wrote quote “As water seeped into the city, homes were swept away in the flood, their foundationless-walls unable to withstand the force of the water.” end quote. Foundation-less walls literally and figuratively. Because the foundations they fought so hard to build were continually taken from them. Their efforts, drowned.

 

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix. I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow this podcast on whatever app you’re using to listen, that’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  

 

Information used in this episode was sourced from Travel Noire magazine, 11alive, The Jerusalem Post, Clio, The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, census.gov, St. Petersburg Times, Newsone, centralparknyc.org, and Smithsonian Magazine. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.