Guinea: Hyde Park's Lost Colony of African-Americans
by Jane Dodds

The historical presence of Native Americans, Dutch and British colonials, and early European Americans in the Hudson Valley remains most visible today in the form of place names, roadways, architecture, and the towns themselves. But along with this presence there is a significant absence: some visible imprint left by the Africans whose lives overlapped and intertwined with those of the other residents of the valley. Africans were brought here as slaves beginning with the first Dutch settlers. The nation's first census tells us that there were 2300 enslaved and free African Americans in Dutchess County by 1790. This group accounted for a little over 5 percent of the total population at the time, and their labor is acknowledged as essential to the settlement and economic development of the region. Yet the historical record on their lives is scant, and, sadly, the material evidence of the early existence of blacks here consists primarily of burial sites, most unmarked. Thus the recent discovery and archaeological investigation of the remains of a community of free blacks in Hyde Park dating back to the late 18th century constitutes an important milestone in the process of piecing together a life-like picture of early African Americans and their fit within the local landscape.

The investigation had its start when the Dutchess County Historical Society's Black History Committee approached Bard archaeologist Dr. Christopher Lindner about looking for traces of a free black community known as Guinea, long-rumored to have existed somewhere within what is now Hackett Hill Park. Dr. Lindner did a surface inspection within the park, and after finding evidence of dwelling places, was able to launch the Bard Archaeology Field School at the Guinea Community site. Three summer sessions of fieldwork directed by Lindner have followed. And because historical research is also essential to the effort of making the invisible visible, research associate Susan Hinkle has logged many hours investigating local archives. Based on her review of census data, property deeds, personal letters, diaries, newspapers, church records, and other sources, Hinkle estimates that the Guinea community was viable from approximately 1790 to 1870, and she has turned up two or more references each to 60 individuals who lived there. In addition to free blacks, the community sheltered slaves, a few whites, and fugitive slaves.

To date, four sites have been discovered where homes once stood. Three of these include building ruins. The most extensive excavation has been done on the ruins of a house determined to have been that of Primus Martin, a free man, according to the 1790 census, who shared his house with three other African Americans. Several references to Martin occur in the 1876 notebook of Edward Braman, an affluent white Hyde Park resident who recorded all he could gather of his town's history, interviewing older people and copying gravestones, and writing about all social classes. Braman referred to Martin as a "Bard negro." That means he may have been owned at one time by Dr. John Bard and/or his son, Dr. Samuel Bard (grandfather to the John Bard who founded St. Stephens College, since renamed Bard College), or that he worked for the Bards. Successive generations of the Bard family owned land that included what became Guinea, as well as land that later comprised the Vanderbilt estate. The Bards sold off or gave small parcels of their land to African Americans, including Primus Martin, and "some white people," according to Braman. Based on her research, Susan Hinkle believes that Martin may have worked for the Bards as an operator of one of the four mills then in the vicinity of Crum Elbow Creek.

The Braman notebook referred to the Guinea settlement site as "rough land" — and it is, consisting of a series of rocky outcroppings that would have been very tough to farm, though residents were recorded to have done so. The marginal nature of the land is typical of the free black settlements known to have been established in the Hudson Valley in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, during the period when New York State passed a series of acts mandating gradual emancipation of slaves. One of these towns was located in between Poughkeepsie and Pawling, in what is now Poughquag, and its residents, like those of Guinea, presumably honored their African origins by calling the settlement Guineatown (though it was also known as Freemanville and Depot Hill).

Like most traditional dwellings in Africa, though perhaps not for the sake of tribute, the houses built in Guinea were quite small. Martin's measures 9 by 16 feet, and the ruins of a neighboring house that has been excavated measures about the same. A lease deed shows that house was leased from the Bards by a free black, Artemis "Quock" Quackenbush who, Edward Braman hypothesized, had been released from slavery by Quakers living in Pawling. There was also an early Quaker settlement in Hyde Park, and the proximity of Guinea and Guineatown to Quaker populations may have been a significant factor in the founding of both, given the early Quaker opposition to slavery and their deep involvement in the Underground Railroad. In any case, Quackenbush is also listed in the membership records of Hyde Park's Saint James Episcopal Church, the records of which have been particularly valuable in identifying members of the Guinea community. It is possible that Saint James drew more blacks than the town's Dutch Reformed Church, which predated it, since unlike the Reformed Church, Episcopal churches permitted the baptism of both enslaved and free blacks. In addition, a Bard slave eventually freed by Samuel Bard, Richard Jenkins, served as sexton of Saint James for 45 years.

Abundant ceramic artifacts have been found at both the Martin and Quackenbush house sites, displaying a wide range of patterns. The rich of the time were in the habit of jettisoning their tableware regularly to make room for the newest styles, and Susan Hinkle believes many of the pieces were passed on by the Bards, and that it is possible that the pieces changed hands from one Guinea household to another. Further excavation may shed light both on social relations within Guinea, and between it and the greater Hyde Park community. The Bard Archaeology Field School is set to continue investigation of Guinea this July — high school as well as college students can apply to participate. Much of the community and its story remains to be uncovered, including the intriguing possibility that the home of a white resident known to have lived on the edge of Guinea was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Guinea Community Trail winds through the reforested land the settlement once occupied and can be accessed from the Hackett Hill Park parking lot on East Market Street. The stonewall-lined wagon road marked today as Fredonia Lane was originally called Guinea Town Lane and was the main street of the community. In winter, with the trees mostly bare of leaves, recently-built houses abutting the park are clearly visible from parts of the trail, and they are a reminder of two things: like open land, archaeological resources are extremely vulnerable to destruction in our area because of new construction and development; and, due to its perceived lack of worth, "rough land" often gets passed into the hands of the public, giving any diamonds within it a fighting chance to be discovered and preserved.

Other sites of archaeological interest to see about town: A small exhibit on prehistoric Indian campsites at the Elmendorph Inn in Red Hook, open Tuesdays from 10am to 4pm (closed 12:30 to 1:30); and an exhibit at the Tivoli Bays Visitor Center (One Tivoli Commons), interpreting life at a riverbank camp south of Tivoli Bays dating to about 1300 AD,. open Monday to Thursday from 4 to 8pm as well as every second and fourth Saturday of the month.