In 1825, Andrew Williams paid $125 for three lots in what became Seneca Village, one of the largest free Black communities in upper Manhattan. Thirty years later, as New York City moved to seize the neighborhood to make way for Central Park, the New Jersey-born landowner protested that his property was worth at least $4,000.
By then, Williams had raised a family in the community. He and his wife, Elizabeth, also born in New Jersey, shared their home with a son, daughter-in-law and grandson. Their daughter lived nearby, according to census records and the Envisioning Seneca Village research project.
Nearly 170 years after the village was cleared, the Central Park Conservancy is working toward a permanent commemoration. The effort began in 2025, the community’s 200th anniversary, with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project…