The churchyard of St. Paul's Church in Mount Vernon, New York, holds generations of African Americans from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s. Some were born enslaved to local families. Three served in United States Colored Troops regiments at the end of the Civil War, and one was killed in France with the Harlem Hellfighters. The Park Service's six-stop walk through the cemetery tells their stories.
The six stops. Staff at the visitor centre can help you find them. NPS
| Stop | Who | In short |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thomas, Rebecca Turner and their neighbours | the enslaved and freed families of Eastchester |
| 2 | George Carter | escaped slavery, 10th USCT, among the first troops into Richmond |
| 3 | Samuel Nelson | the church's gravedigger, married into the Turner family |
| 4 | James Polite | born enslaved in South Carolina, 35th USCT |
| 5 | John Bird | 117th USCT in Texas at the time of Juneteenth |
| 6 | Morris D. Link | 369th Infantry, killed at the Second Battle of the Marne |
1. The rear of the cemetery
Start at an American flag beside an orange-brown gravestone at the back of the cemetery. Many of the people in this section were related, and several had been enslaved by prominent local families. Until the early 1800s enslaved Africans made up about 15 percent of Eastchester's population.
Thomas's sandstone marker is the only gravestone in any Westchester County cemetery known to use the word "servant" — the polite word for a slave.
About ten yards toward the church, a small granite footstone marks Rebecca Turner. Born into slavery in 1781, she won her freedom in 1810 and, with her husband Benjamin, made a homestead with a small farm on the Hutchinson River just east of the church. They raised six children. After Benjamin died in the mid-1830s Rebecca owned the land for 40 years — rare for a Black woman in the 19th century — and kept her family going with a laundry business. She died in 1874 at 93, and her daughter and granddaughters held the homestead into the 1930s. A Mount Vernon school, Rebecca Turner Elementary, now bears her name.
Her daughter Emeline and granddaughter Maria lie under the large marble stone to the left. Nearby are Nathaniel and Hannah Franklin, enslaved by the same woman as Rebecca, Glorianna Franklin, and freed in 1824, three years before slavery legally ended in New York; they farmed in Eastchester for several years. Their daughter Charlotte, who had married an enslaved man from Pelham, died still enslaved in 1823.
2. George Carter, 10th USCT
Follow the path across to the city side of the cemetery. Under a tree is George Carter's faded marble stone, with a new granite footstone beside it. Born enslaved in Virginia in 1842, he escaped early in the Civil War and in 1864 joined the 10th United States Colored Troops. He served to the end of the war, mostly in Virginia; his regiment was among the first army units into Richmond when the Confederate capital fell in April 1865. Afterwards Carter, his wife Rosa and their children moved north — to Babylon, Long Island, then about 1880 to Mount Vernon, where he worked as a janitor and as a gardener on a Bronxville estate. He died in 1902, aged 60.
3. Samuel Nelson
About 30 yards diagonally toward the front, under a mulberry tree, is another old marble stone with a granite replacement. Samuel Nelson arrived in the 1830s, married Sarah Turner — Rebecca and Benjamin's daughter — and lived on the Turner homestead for the next 30 years. He dug graves at St. Paul's and worked for many years for the Grigg family across the road. His daughters Maria and Sarah kept the homestead into the 1930s.
4. James Polite, 35th USCT
Born enslaved in South Carolina, James Polite joined the 35th USCT in 1865, as the war ended, and served two years in South Carolina — facing occasional attacks by Confederate guerrillas and keeping order in the early days of Reconstruction in the state where secession began. After his discharge he and his wife Anna moved north; he lived in lower Manhattan and worked as a waiter in New Jersey before settling on Mount Vernon Avenue about 1890. His son, James Polite Jr., was active in Mount Vernon's civil rights movement in the early 20th century.
5. John Bird, 117th USCT
Twenty yards toward the front is John Bird, born in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1845. He enlisted in the 117th USCT at 19 in 1865 and served mostly in Texas, skirmishing with the last pockets of Confederate resistance; he was almost certainly there when emancipation was proclaimed on June 19, 1865 — Juneteenth. Back in Petersburg he joined the Colonel Steadman Post of the Grand Army of the Republic and picked up the nickname "Colonel," which stuck for life. He moved to Mount Vernon in 1902 and lived there more than 30 years, dying at 89 at his daughter's house on South 6th Avenue — one of the last Union veterans in Westchester County.
6. Morris D. Link, 369th Infantry
By the low stone wall lies Corporal Morris D. Link of the 369th Infantry, the all-Black "Harlem Hellfighters." Born in North Carolina, he was married to Elizabeth and living in Mount Vernon when he enlisted. The 369th met prejudice at every stage — in recruiting, in training and above all in France, where American commanders would not give them combat roles and used them as service troops. So they fought with the French Army instead, and fought well. Link was killed by German artillery on July 15, 1918, at the Second Battle of the Marne, and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. First buried in a French military cemetery, he was brought home in 1921 and buried here with full military honours.
Sources
Written from "Self Guided African American History Tour of St. Paul's", St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The site's website (nps.gov/sapa) has more on each person, and a video follows the same route.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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