Black History Month in a Year Series

African American Pioneers in Early Wayne County

Pioneer settlers began to arrive in the area that eventually became Wayne County around 1789, with most hailing from eastern New York and the New England states. African Americans were among the pioneer settlers of Wayne County, New York, and have been part of the fabric of the community throughout its political history.

Most African Americans who arrived in Wayne County between 1789 and1810 did not come as free persons of color. New York was still a slave state. Nonetheless, it was southerners who had been enticed to the area by the salesmanship of Charles Williamson who brought enslaved people to Wayne County at the time. The three largest enslavers of Wayne County were Capt. William Helm of Prince William County, Virginia, Daniel Dorsey of Frederick County, Maryland, and Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh of Maryland. They brought between 120 and180 enslaved persons with them. Those African Americans joined the ranks of the pioneers of Wayne County and made significant contributions to the early growth of first Ontario County and then to Wayne County when it was split off from Ontario in 1823.

One such African American community grew up along North Geneva Road in Sodus. It got its start about 1812 and came to be locally known as Maxwell Settlement. Its descendants continued to live in the area until themid-20th century. Two of the first landowners in the community were David Cooper and Abraham Bradington. Both had been enslaved by Peregrine Fitzhugh. The offspring of both men worked the land, married, and settled into jobs where work was available. These formerly enslaved men along with their wives, Polly Cooper and Veny Bradington, joined William & Sarah (Plumber) Newport and Thomas & Rosetta Lloyd as the earliest settlers who formed the fabricof community life in Sodus. While few maiden names remain for the newly freedwomen of color, their contributions to their families and, by extension, to Sodus is incalculable. For the first half of the 19th century, discriminatory traditions, laws of disenfranchisement and outright racism conspired to limit social and economic opportunities for men and women of color. Still, the number of African Americans continued to grow and by the time Wayne County was officially established in 1823, there were102 free persons of color living in households headed by African Americans and another 34 in households headed by white people. At first free people of color worked almost exclusively as farm and day laborers as well as domestics, but land ownership and entrepreneurial endeavors began to build a small middle class made up of farmers who owned or leased land, barbers, and small business owners. As noted by Judith Wellman and Marge Allen Perez in Uncovering the Underground Railroad "...black barbers played a significant role in the African American life during this time period, being active participants in efforts to expand the economic, social and political status for African-Americans..."(p. 34, 2008?). According to Perez, at least three of Thomas & Rosetta Lloyd's sons became barbers in various villages along the Erie Canal.

Incoming installments of this local Black History series, we will explore the contributions of Black barbers to community life in 19^th century Wayne County and Wayne County’s African American religious leaders beginning in the 1830s as well as the sacrifices of local Black Civil War Veterans to achieve the success of America’s second revolution, the Civil War.

To learn more about the vibrant life of the African American experience in early Wayne County life, the following resources are invaluable:

Historic Sodus Point at http://www.historicsoduspoint.com/ .Choose slavery on the menu bar.

Twenty Years a Slave and Forty Years A Freeman: Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West by Austin Stewart, Rochester, N.Y.: William Alling, Publisher,1857. (http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/steward/title.html)

Uncovering the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Wayne County, New York 1820-1880 by Judith Hellman and Marjory Allen Perez with Charles Lenhard and others (Wayne County Historian's Office, Peter Evans, Historian, with funding from Preserve NY and New York State Council for the Arts).

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