LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - JUNE 21, 2020 “We buried him on the other side of the north wall of the cemetery.” by Lynne Belluscio I first wrote about this tragic event in a Pennysaver article which appeared nearly thirty years ago. I thought maybe it was time to offer it again to remind us that black lives have been forgotten and it may be time to remember. In 1992, I was to present a paper at a museum conference in Winston-Salem, North C a r o l i n a : “ I n t e r p r e t i n g unexpected history – Northern slaves and Southern Jews.” It explored the notion, that slavery was only a southern institution, which was far from the truth. Here’s a quick chronology of the story of slavery in New York. In 1626, the Dutch West India Company imported eleven African slaves to New Amsterdam. A few years later, in February 1644, the eleven slaves petitioned for their freedom and were allowed to buy land and a home and earn a wage from their master, eventually gaining their freedom. However, their children were to remain in slavery. In 1664, the English took over New Amsterdam, and it became known as New York. The English continued to bring African slaves into New York and in 1665 the first slave auction was held. By 1703, 42 percent of the households in New York owned slaves. Only the city of Charleston, South Carolina, had a higher proportion of slaves at that time. One in five people in New York, were enslaved. In 1711, a slave market was established near Wall Street and remained in business for fifty years. The slave laws in New York in 1712, were some of the most brutal in the Colonies. It was during this time, in 1753, that the earliest Le Roy ancestors immigrated from the Netherlands to New York. They became prosperous merchants and at least one of them owned slaves. Daniel LeRoy, of Dutchess County, served in the 6th New York Regiment during the Revolution, and when he died in 1791, his will provided that his “Negro boy, Jack” be given to his brother Jacob (Not Jacob LeRoy who lived in LeRoy House. This Jacob was our Jacob’s uncle), and his “Negro boy, Joe” be given to his brother Robert. (It is this will that we are given a glimpse of Herman LeRoy – our town’s namesake – “To my brother Herman, I give my generosity and gratitude, for he is in want of both.”) Whether Herman’s son, Jacob, who came to LeRoy, owned slaves, is not known. His name does not appear on the slave owners list in New York, never the less, according to the census there was a Negro woman in her fifties living in LeRoy House in 1830. T h e N e w Y o r k Manumission Society was founded in 1785 and worked for the abolition of slavery and to aid free blacks. In 1799, New York passed a law for gradual abolition, but it did not grant freedom to slaves alive at that time. The law required children born to slave mothers to work for their mother’s master as indentured servants until the males turned 28, and females turned 25. Ultimately, the last slaves in New York were freed on July 4, 1827. However, southern slave owners could still bring their slaves into the state without any consequences until 1841. In the meantime, in LeRoy, at the Presbyterian Church, the issues of antislavery and abolition were being debated but not without protest. Two meetings at the church were met with crowds surrounding the church, throwing water and logs through the windows in protest. A church in a nearby community was set on fire the night after an abolition meeting. The Compromise Law of 1850, which was designed by Henry Clay, may have postponed the Civil War for 14 years, but it created the need for the underground railroad, for it was no longer safe just to get north of the Mason-Dixson Line. Enslaved people had to make their way to Canada to be free, and those people who helped slaves escape, were arrested, put in jail and fined. In the midst of all of this, there was at least one slave owner in LeRoy. His story was shared by the Langworthy family with Elijah Huftelen, who wrote two booklets about the underground railroad in the early 1900s. The Langworthys told about David Kneeland, “who settled in Cadman, Langworthy neighborhood.” (The Cadman neighborhood was in the Keeney Road, Thwing Road area.) David Kneeland, was born in Hebron, Connecticut in 1772, and came to LeRoy before 1827 and brought a slave with him. Huftelen writes that Kneeland was “subject to fits of temper” and became enraged at his slave when he was not able to bring in the hay fast enough before an advancing storm. Kneeland struck the man and hit him over the head. The Langworthy’s could hear the man groaning in pain, who died later that night. Kneeland came to the Langworthys and asked them to help bury the body. It was decided to bury the man “on the north side of the burying ground just outside the fence.”Apparently in 1906, when Huftelen wrote his book, the gravesite was still visible. Many years ago, I walked along the north side of the cemetery and could not see any indication of a grave. Kneeland was never charged with murder, and the incident was forgotten. No one even knows the name of this black man. I have often thought that it would be appropriate to start a fund to buy a historic marker to record this tragic story. Slave Murdered in LeRoy