Enslaved & In Service: A New Beginning

Plato. William. Belinda. Stephen. Mary. Peter Williams. Dinah.
The recorded names of people enslaved by Morgan Lewis.

Morgan Lewis,
founder of Staatsburgh.

             Former governor Morgan Lewis is traveling home from Albany. His carriage drives down the dirt roads parallel to the merchant ships sailing in the Hudson River. Before long, he and Mrs. Gertrude Livingston Lewis stop along their way to visit her siblings in one of the countless Livingston estates between Albany and Clinton. Lewis soon arrives at his own country seat, “Staatsburgh,” named for the original Dutch land owners. Their carriage drives past the sheep grazing and horse stables nearby, when the magnificent Federal Style brick mansion comes into view. As Morgan Lewis steps out of his carriage, Stephen, his Black enslaved valet dressed in European-style livery, is there to carry his bags. The cook, a Black enslaved woman named Mary, is preparing the Lewis family’s dinner inside. The Black domestic staff have been busy all day preparing the home for their enslaver’s arrival.  

Two-hundred years ago, the Staatsburgh estate – now Staatsburgh State Historic Site – would have been unrecognizable to contemporary visitors. A brick mansion stood in place of the future Gilded Age mansion, surrounded by wheat fields and farm buildings instead of manicured lawns and allées of trees. Inside Lewis' country home, nine enslaved people of African descent worked as domestic servants. In one century, as the agricultural landscape transformed into a bustling, rural village there would be only one Black person in the whole hamlet of Staatsburg. The enslavement of individuals – men, women, and children – by the owners of Staatsburgh, and the eventual disappearance of Black people from the local labor force, is an overlooked aspect of Staatsburg’s history. 

1810 census showing the household of Morgan Lewis,
including the nine "slaves" (circled).

This presence of enslaved individuals under the Lewis family remains to be explored in a wider context. Building off decades of groundbreaking regional scholarship, and including new archival research and a specific focus on one Hudson Valley estate, Staatsburgh is ready to begin telling this story of the enslaved individuals central to our history.

The original Staatsburgh, c. 1806.
P. Lodet, 1806 drawing from the Hudson River Sketchbook.
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY.

         
            Enslaved & In Service is a six-part blog series that examines Staatsburgh's history of enslavement and race. Part I, "Colonial New York" explores the origins of slavery in the Hudson Valley and the background of Morgan Lewis. Part II, "A New Nation," discusses the paradoxes surrounding the founding of both the nation and Staatsburgh. The essay introduces the names of Peter Williams and Plato as the first recorded people enslaved by Morgan Lewis. Entering the 19th Century, "The Early Republic," Part III of this series, examines how central enslaved labor was to Northern elite society for centuries. As the enslaved population of Dutchess County diminished through gradual emancipation, the number of enslaved persons at Staatsburgh - including Mary, Belinda, and her son Stephen - is growing. Moving into the Antebellum-era, Part IV illustrates the shift in labor practices from enslaved to free people and the growing social tensions surrounding race throughout the United States. Following the Civil War, "The Gilded Age," Part V of this series, brings us to a familiar period in Staatsburgh's history. As Irish maids and English footmen replaced Black servants, Staatsburgh became a household without a Black presence. A fuller image of the era is presented through themes like Jim Crow-era segregation and the Great Migration. Enslaved & In Service ends with a final chapter discussing the impact of this history on Staatsburgh today and moving forward. 

Enslaved laborers (above) and the enslaved 
coachman for the Livingston family (below),
depicted on the nearby 
Rhinebeck Post Office murals.

           Our focus for this project is domestic service. Local tenant farmers, alongside White indentured servants, were the agricultural labor force for large riverfront estates. While enslaved people of African descent working as agricultural laborers was common in Dutchess County, their names and personal stories have been overlooked in the historic records.[i] Enslaved & In Service focuses on the enslaved people who, as named in the existing historic records, performed domestic duties. This context of domestic responsibilities then transitions into a discussion of the Black staffs' replacement by a White European staff at the dawn of the Gilded Age. In the span of three generations, Staatsburgh moved from a household with a strong Black population to one absent of their presence. Acknowledging this long history, from enslaved servants to the disappearance of Black people, demonstrates wider historical trends and presents audiences with a new perspective of Staatsburgh. 

            The legacy of slavery casts a wide shadow over the Hudson Valley. Exploring the importance of enslavement in New York and the Morgan Lewis household may lead to a better understanding of the lives of Staatsburgh’s enslaved population and Lewis’ own paradoxical views on the institution. The names of several people enslaved by Morgan Lewis have been discovered, while others have been lost to history. Saying their names and understanding their stories allows us to restore their humanity and change the current narrative at Staatsburgh. The life of an enslaved person in the Hudson Valley was a difficult experience, and through decades of  research from scholars like A.J. Williams-Myers and Nell Irvin Painter this history has moved from the margins of local histories to the forefront. 

Julia Livingston Delafield,
granddaughter of Morgan Lewis

            In the 1850s, the last Black person working at Staatsburgh was present. Moving into the Gilded Age, Staatsburgh is exclusively a non-Black environment. One important source that bridges the Early Republic to the Gilded Age is Julia Delafield; granddaughter of Morgan Lewis and aunt of Ruth Mills. Her 1877 biography of Morgan Lewis reveal the names of a handful of people enslaved by her grandfather while simultaneously alluding to larger racial attitudes during the Gilded Age. Enslaved & In Service examines the transition from enslaved Black labor to paid White employees at Staatsburgh through racial prejudices and labor practices within both the hamlet and the larger scope of American society. This series also looks outside the estate walls to the Black experience in the hamlet of Staatsburg, putting that experience in the context of White violence and oppressive southern laws that drove Black populations northward. The final picture is a multi-generational examination of the Lewis/Livingston family's treatment of Black people at Staatsburgh, from enslavement in the Early Republic to segregation in the Gilded Age.

           Join us soon for the first chapter of Enslaved & In Service, "Colonial New York" where we'll dive into the origins of slavery in New York and the background of Staatsburgh's founder, Morgan Lewis.

 

Further Reading:

• Julia Delafield, Biographies of Francis Lewis and Morgan Lewis, By their Granddaughter Julia Delafield Volumes I-II (New York: Anson D.F. Randolph & Company, 1877).

• Jessie Serfilippi, “As Odious and Immoral a Thing: Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden History as an Enslaver,” New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (2020).

•    Susan Stessin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini, ed. In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley (Delmar: Black Dome, 2016).

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[i] Michael E. Groth, Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley, SUNY Series, An American Region: Studies in the Hudson Valley (Albany: SUNY Press, 2017), 4-6; A.J. Williams-Myers, “Foreword,” in In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley, Susan Stessin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini (Delmar: Black Dome, 2016), 1.