Devin and Lauren dive into the history of Timbuctoo, an African American settlement founded by philanthropist Gerrit Smith in response to an 1846 law requiring all Black men to own $250 worth of property in order to vote in New York state. To counter this racist policy, Smith decided to give away 120,000 acres of land to 3,000 free, Black New Yorkers, hoping to enable them to move out of cities and work the land to its required value. Lyman Epps and other Black pioneers relocated to the wilderness near Lake Placid, New York — as did abolitionist John Brown, who based his family in North Elba to assist the Black pioneers in their farming.
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On this episode, Devin and Lauren tell the forgotten story of Boston Corners, which once belonged to Massachusetts, but was ceded to New York...
On this episode of A New York Minute In History, we explore slavery in New York and specifically the resistance to the institution, including...
This episode focuses on culinary history and the Pomeroy Foundation’s Hungry for History program. We discover that the history of what we eat, and...
