Since arriving at Paul Smith’s College in 1987 as a professor of natural science, Curt Stager’s interests have shifted to include the early human presence in the Adirondacks.  A new book, “The First Adirondackers,” co-authored with Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center Director David Kanietakeron Fadden, explores 12,000 years of indigenous history. In addition, Stager has been exploring the landscape for the missing and untold stories of African American settlers in the 19th century. 

Stager began his research into the Black settler story by examining the paper trail – land transfers in a ledger archived at Syracuse University, historic maps, census data, tax records, letters and genealogical information.  

Then he went looking for the actual evidence hidden in the undergrowth, bushwhacking through the woods hunting for signs of human habitation in suspected locations.  In the process, he found cellar holes, stone-lined wells, and evidence of farming. A chance encounter with Brian Carl, who teaches geology at St. Lawrence University, added a new opportunity to use technology to help narrow the search.

Carl is involved in several projects using LIDAR imagery available online from the New York State Geographic Information System (GIS) Clearinghouse to uncover glacial landscapes and archeological features in the Adirondacks.  LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) uses laser scanning, usually from an aircraft, to create high-resolution topographical images.  

“We were working on a project near Albany, and Brian showed me some LIDAR, and you could see cellars, old fence lines and old fields,” said Stager.

Abolitionist Gerrit Smith gifted land to Black residents of New York state in 1847 to help them be eligible to vote, though Stager is quick to point out other important motivations behind Smith’s efforts.  But what is actually known about the 3,000 people who accepted the land grants, and what happened to the roughly 30 to 50 families that actually blazed into the thick, Adirondack wilderness?

Stager allowed me to accompany him and Carl to a potential homestead in May.  Stager had uncovered a few pixels of hillshade in the LIDAR that he suspected might be a cellar hole at a “perfect spot” for settlers with a nearby brook as a water source.

First, he showed us a confirmed site at what was once a small neighborhood of three families at a crossroads.  According to maps, the lot belonged to Wesley Murry and was kitty-corner to John Thomas’s property. The Murry family had a couple of boys, the Bradys had one boy, and the Thomases had two girls and a boy, Stager said. A nearby hill was renamed from a racial slur to Murry Hill this past spring.

Stager led us into the woods to a hollow in the ground. Appearing to look like generic Adirondack terrain to any casual observer, this depression had a stone foundation hidden in the erosion of time.  

Smith’s Black settler initiative is often characterized as a failure – perhaps because only a fraction of the 3,000 people granted land actually moved to the parcels.  Many may have accepted the land because it was free.  Some never made the trip due to financial constraints.  Others were swindled out of their land almost as soon as they arrived.  

RELATED READING: Untangling Timbucto and the Roots of Gerrit Smith’s Land Grants of 1846

John Brown’s experience as a surveyor is one reason cited for his move to the Adirondacks, so he could assist the nascent Black community.  Success may also have been the luck of the draw – whether the land allotted was tillable with a nearby water source.

Four families granted plots on Baker Mountain decided it wasn’t feasible, sold the land, and left.  

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was another complication for Black settlers.  Those without documentation were often swept up and disappeared into the South.  As a result, people fled to Canada, including a number of families that had been granted land in the Adirondacks.

In the end, much of the land was obtained by the state through tax foreclosures.  Maps of today’s state forests overlap with Smith’s land grants.  

RELATED READING: Untold stories of freedom: A journey through the North Star Underground Railroad Museum

But many who did  relocate found success utilizing their skillsets, whether it be farming, shoemaking, weaving or guiding – just a sampling of occupations fulfilled by the Black population.

John Thomas

Such is the story of John Thomas featured in a multimedia production at the North Star Underground Railroad Museum adjacent to Ausable Chasm.  

Thomas was born into slavery, but “self-emancipated” at the age of 29.  His experience on a plantation may have served him well as a farmer in the Adirondacks.  His story is also notable for how his white neighbors came to his rescue when a slavecatcher arrived to hijack him back to the South.  They forced the slavecatcher to leave at gun point.  

Thomas arrived in 1847 and spent the rest of his life in the Adirondacks until his death in 1894.  He is buried at the front of the Union Cemetery in Vermontville along with members of his family and several neighbors.

The 15.3-mile brook that meanders through lands once occupied by Thomas and about a dozen other families was renamed after Thomas in 2023.

Another misconception about Black settlers in the Adirondacks, magnified by early writers such as Alfred Donaldson and even Russell Banks in “Cloudsplitter,” is that they established little centralized communities with a church, general store, and livery or school with names like Timbuctoo that suggest a dot on a map.  In reality, they were clusters of families sprinkled onto Smith’s map of 40-acre lots living near already established white communities.  

In order to reach the suspected homestead site, Stager leads us on a bike ride along the D&H railbed past a swamp where he has charted a course to a kink in the John Thomas Brook.  As we bushwhacked through the woods, we emerged into an overgrown clearing – evidence of either a fire or a farm.  A lack of rocks suggests it was tilled.

When we find the roughly square depression in the woods, Stager pushes a probe into the earth in various locations in search of foundation stones under the dirt.  “It will make a metallic tink sound if it hits a stone.”

Unfortunately, we don’t find any.  Perhaps they only used cornerstones and further investigation is required, or the sill logs were laid directly on the ground, but the written record confirms that a Black family once farmed in this vicinity.

“There’s a second-hand account.  We don’t know much except their name,” Stager said.  “They arrived shortly before John Thomas, and they were here when the Thomases showed up.  By the time of the1850 census, it looks like they were residing in town (Vermontville) with two other Black families on the main road near the cemetery. Then they vanished from the local records.”

Stager hopes further research will “fill in the gaps with the stories embedded in the landscape and communities.”