Documenting African American History through Archeological Research

Summary and excerpts of a presentation given by Joseph Diamond, Professor of Anthropology at SUNY New Paltz, November 3, 2002.

In the Summer of 1990, archeologist Joseph Diamond uncovered an African American burial ground while conducting an archeological survey for the City of Kingston. Diamond claimed that he found references to the burial ground on local historic maps. During an initial walk-through of the area, a local resident appeared with a box full of bones that he had found underneath his basement while repairing water lines. Diamond was shocked to learn upon later examination that these bones were actually human remains of African American origin.

"This graveyard could and most likely does hold the remains of several different categories of people. The first would be Africans that were being brought over directly from ships coming up the Hudson. Slaves and also free black who died in Kingston between the years 1750 and 1850, and perhaps even earlier. This date coincides with the better known [and] widely publicized and relatively local African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan [which was] excavated in 1993."

Diamond related that church burial had been denied slaves in New York since 1697. This meant that most blacks were buried outside of city limits, most likely in areas known as 'The Common Ground', or 'The Commons,' or in case of Kingston, 'The Armbowry,' which is an old Dutch word meaning 'poor farm.' Diamond explained that this land "was randomly divided and used for pasture land, gardening, or social events and was owned by none save the commonwealth of Kingston." On an 1897 copy of an eighteenth-century map of the Kingston Commons, an open section of land titled 'The Armbowry' is found just southeast of the city proper.

"African Americans did not mark their graves as whites did: inscribed headstones were out of the question for those of slave status, although it has been known to occur elsewhere in the Northeast, where slave owners actually purchased stones for the dead that they had once owned. This practice has been found among cemeteries in Massachusetts, where some slave owners purchased stones for their slaves. However, in these cases, the masters also usually ensured that their own names was placed on every stone in addition to the name of the slaves that the stone markers were supposed to represent.

"Owing to the call for building lots in the village, a section of the Armbowry was divided up during a meeting of the trustees on October 6, 1750, and subsequent meetings occurred the following year. The second purpose of this meeting was to locate a burying ground for the slaves. Diamond then mentioned the work of nineteenth century historian Marius Schoonmaker, who writing in 1888, described a burying ground 'for colored people,' to the south of St. James Street, that had since been covered by a lumber yard. Schoonmaker also pointed out that the place had been used as a burial ground for over 100 years. Diamond then commented on Schoonmaker's statement. "It is important to keep in mind that just because this area was designated specifically to be used by African Americans in 1750, it does not mean that this area was not used for burials in the years prior to 1750. Apparently, slaves in the neighboring townships were often buried on the lands and farms they worked. In some cases, [other slaves] who lived in the area around Kingston might have been buried here."

Again citing Schoonmaker, Diamond discussed the history of the property during the nineteenth century while it used as a lumberyard by a man named Henry Houghtyling. At this time, the black community most likely buried their dead at the Mount Zion Cemetery established on South Wall Street in Kingston. Later, in the early twentieth century, other people bought lots and built houses on the site. In visiting a number of these houses, Diamond realized that, because of the depth of the basements, the workers who dug the basements had to have known that they were in a graveyard. Diamond estimated that in digging a foundation for a typical house of the period, the workers must have disrupted between 60 to 120 graves.

The encroachment on the original Kingston cemetery by the lumberyard and other subsequent developments has rendered the original burial ground all but invisible today. Diamond stated that "if you were to drive down this street, it's one of these kinds of situations where you wouldn't even know there was a graveyard there." Diamond then explained the reasons for why the encroachment was not halted. "The people that are buried here probably do not have gravestones. If they do have gravestones, they're probably minimal. In fact, walking around on the site numerous times, I have seen small stones, and I'm not sure if they are gravestones that have been pushed flat or if they were actually [foundation] stones for sheds in the lumber yardÖ." Despite this situation, Diamond raised the argument that "at some point, somebody should have taken responsibility for this, because there are laws stating that burial grounds should be maintained by the county.

Diamond believes that the actual graveyard covers a very large area and may contain the remains of hundreds of slaves. Cemeteries are usually larger than they appear on maps, Diamond explained, because when people start to encroach on cemeteries, there is always a tendency to take down fence lines and build on the outside edges of the cemeteries. The cumulative effect of such encroachment serves to reduce the cemetery property over time. Diamond mentioned another similar situation that he found while working on a cemetery in Wappingers Falls in Dutchess County in 1988. In this particular instance, the cemetery was so obscured by encroachment that the Village actually bulldozed the remains of probably sixty or seventy people before realizing they were there.

In trying to protect the remains that are still buried on the site, Diamond reported some of the difficulties of trying to work through local governments and other community members. Particularly frustrating for Diamond is the belief among people that the site can not be a graveyard since there are no stone markers. "I actually had a number of people say," explained Diamond, "how could this be a graveyard, there are no stones there?" To answer such questions, Diamond has tried to explain to people that in a lot of cases people who were enslaved often didn't have the money to set aside, or in somes cases, even didn't have the wherewithal to purchase gravestones. Further, the use of gravestone markers was not necessarily even one of the cultural practices among all of the enslaved Africans whose remains are located at this site.

Diamond did report some success in that the various groups interested in protecting the graveyard have managed to save it from one businessman who wanted to turn it into a parking lot. Fortunately, the Kingston cemetery was 'flagged' by the city's buildings department at the time of its discovery, so that they would be informed if any construction were to be proposed for the site. Additionally, letters stating the nature of the find went to the owners of the cemetery and those of the adjacent properties. In the Spring of 1996 the owner of one property encompassing about 60% of the property, decided to sell the parcel to the businessman who was planning to construct a parking lot on the graveyard. Both parties were immediately informed that the whole lot consisted of a burial ground. Negotiations by members of the African American community, as well as reluctance to proceed with a SEQRA archeological review ultimately halted the proposed construction.

In making his case to the city government, Diamond argued that the graveyard was important for both cultural and historical reasons, since the studying the remains can provide information to researchers about the health, stature, and burial practices of the people who are buried there. Diamond was pleased that the city government opted to protect the site from further development, stating that "I think that is saving it, the city did the right thing." For the future, Diamond explained that until enough money is raised to purchase the property, "the whole idea is just to protect them [the remains] and make sure that whoever does live here is sensitive to the fact that there is a graveyard here."