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Washington Square Park in the 1880s, via Ephemeral NY
Yesterday we noted that as renovations continue in Washington Square Park, a tombstone was unearthed by workers. Considering there are about 20,000 dead bodies under there, this is much more mysterious than creepy.
The bodies are from when the site was a potter's field from 1797 to 1826, but potter's fields don't have tombstones. [Cue confused looks and suspense music.] Today the experts at Inside the Apple point out that only part of the park was a potter's field, however, and as Luther Harris writes in his book Around Washington Square:
The land area [of the original square]...was about 6-1/4 acres, a respectable public space, but not a grand one. Much narrower than today's square, the potter's field was limited on the east by a strip of church cemeteries, and on the west by Minetta Creek, which ran southwest from the foot of Fifth Avenue to the corner of MacDougal and West Fourth Street.The site explains what was found last week is a tombstone, and possibly from a church graveyard; "The Scotch Presbyterian Church owned the largest cemetery and vehemently opposed the park's usurpation of their land. Perhaps this is one of their brethren." As Freddy would say: Nice work Scoob!
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In 1644, eleven enslaved African men petitioned the local government and obtained their freedom in exchange for the promise to pay an annual tax in produce. They each received the title to land on the outskirts of the colony where they would be a buffer against attack from native forces. Black farmers soon owned a two-mile long strip of land known as the Land of the Blacks (Washington Square Park) from what is now Canal Street to 34th Street in Manhattan.
the Land of the Blacks is now north of 110th street