Emancipation in Pound Ridge
The celebration of Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, which was ultimately accomplished when Texas moved to enforce emancipation on June 19, 1865. In New York, slavery officially ended on July 4, 1827 when the state’s gradual emancipation law finally took full effect. New York’s Black population, however, opted to celebrate the legal end of slavery in our state on July 5th, acknowledging that July 4th, 1776 had not been an Independence Day for Black Americans.
The first slaves recorded in Pound Ridge appear on the 1800 Federal Census, which cataloged a slave population of 26. In reality, this number was likely much higher as enslaved peoples were almost always underrepresented on census records for tax purposes. These people worked in households, on farms, and in woodlots, mostly along Honey Hollow Road.
The last recorded slave in Pound Ridge appears on the 1820 Federal Census. He was a man between the ages of 26 and 44 who was engaged in agricultural labor. While we know the name of the man who owned him, his own name and background are unrecorded. He appears in the historical record only as a hash mark in his owner’s household. But, as our town comes together to celebrate the end of slavery on Juneteenth, we can hope that he lived to gain his freedom in 1827.