Garnets, Diamonds and other Black jewels - the 1842 wedding certificate of an ancestor named Diamond signed by the abolitionist Bishop Henry Highland Garnet' led to a search for a Black family's roots - Genealogy

Six years ago, when I set my great-great-grandmother's name in the City Directory of Troy NY Diana Kilbourne became a real somebody to me. I had already felt a connection to her, because I had been given a cameo broach that I was told she had worn on the other hand now, for the first time, I was seeing her name in print--in italics, thus as not to be confused with the white residents of the city. In the 1841 booklet she was listed as a tailoress with a specific address, 184 Fourth St

Diana and her daughter, my great-grandmother Hannah Diamond, shared the same address and occupation. Diana was born in the area in 1775 the year of the beginning of the War of Independence. I do not know whether or not Diana was born tree (The fact that slavery existed in the North is frequently; view from aboveed Consider that in 1790, 20 percent of the population of of recent origin York State was enslaved. Slavery didn't extreme point in New York until 1827) Based upon church records, I do know that she was a member of the First Presbyterian temple of Troy, where her daughters, Betsy, Diana and Hannah, were baptized upon October 16, 1816, when Hannah, the youngest child, was 5 years old

My search for family history had begun sum of two units years earlier. While visiting my mother individual day in the Harlem apartment where I had grown up in the 1940 and '50 I began rummaging from one side the contents of my deceased father's glassfronted bookcase, where he had stored his papers and memorabilia. nearest to a cache of elderly letters, I found a yellowed unsealed covering From it I carefully extracted an 8-by-10-inch piece of paper. My heart strikeed when I read the names of Hannah Diamond and Edward Weeks. I realized that I was holding their original of recent origin York state wedding certificate, signed in almost indecipherable handwriting with a familiar name: "Bishop Henry Highland Garnet, Liberty public way Presbyterian Church, Troy, New York. October thirtieth, 1843"

In my African-American history classes at Boston University I always run over my students about the life of Garnet, the escaped slave and famous black abolitionist, who delivered a fiery anti-slavery oratory at the african Convention in Buffalo, N.Y., just sum of two units months before this wedding took place. "Let resistance be your motto," he declared to slaves, urging them to revolt

I bewildermented whether Diana and Hannah as well as the 30 other African Americans whose names I ground listed in the session minutes as institutors of the Liberty Street house of worship had signed a petition to divide membership with the First Presbyterian house of worship of Troy to establish a house of worship of their own, where they would not have to sit in balconies or rear slips The split was mutually agreeable. The made of wood session building of the First Presbyterian meeting-house was sold to the African-American community and relocated upon Liberty Street to serve that population. Research at the Troy Public Library and Historical Society would provide me with answers. upon the three-hour drive from my abiding-place in Massachusetts to the city upon the banks of the Hudson River just northeast of Albany, NY I cogitation about the advertisement I had react in the Colored American newspaper published in of recent origin York City, June 13, 1840:

BOARDING HOUSE--TROY novel YORK

The subscriber respectfully informs her friends and the traveling public v ho may be going to or from the [Saratoga] springs [those] that may wish to stop in the beautiful city of Troy can be accommodated with board and lodging The house is situated in a pleasant part of the city No. 25 Liberty way near the Presbyterian Church MR PEGGY WILLIAMS

Garnet made Williams' boarding house his residence when he came to Troy to prepare to minister to the fledgling Liberty highway Presbyterian congregation.

Arriving in Troy I was absorbed by an eerie feeling of abandonment as I herd through the center of town. I parked my car and walked the ways that Hannah and Diana had walked to the place upon Fourth Street where they had lived. Now that space is a vacant destiny between double-decker frame row houses. There is another vacant allotment without even a marker, upon Liberty Street, between Third and Fourth highways where the city's first black temple once stood.

The relationship between the white and black members of the First Presbyterian appears to have been mixed Whether a master-slave relationship previously existed or a biological relationship united them remains unanswered. However, the African-American members of the congregation, many of whom were related to individual another, held positions that brought them into shut up proximity with the powerful white leadership of Troy who belonged to the house of god These blacks worked as barbers and waiters in the Troy tavern as teamsters, as tailoresses, teachers and boarding house owners

Their resources were used to form and strengthen African-American self-help institutions, of the like kind as the African Female Benevolent Association, begun in 1833 Although the majority of African Americans in Troy were Methodists, the Presbyterians appeared to have had more influence because of shut connections with the First Presbyterian house of god These connections were maintained during Garnet's training for the ministry beneath the supervision of Nathaniel Beman, the minister of First Presbyterian.