Program

NYS Historic

Subject

People, Site

Location

155 Ludlowville Rd, Lansing, NY 14882, USA

Lat/Long

42.55265562722, -76.537512585893

Grant Recipient

Town of Lansing

Benjamin Joy was born on June 23^rd, 1800, in Fabius, NY.  At age 13 or 14, Benjamin moved to the hamlet of Ludlowville, NY. He started working as a clerk at his brother’s store and went on to establish his own general store when he was around 22 years old. Benjamin Joy married Susan Morehouse in 1823 and built their home between the Presbyterian Church and the local schoolhouse in Ludlowville. They raised nine children and lived at this house until 1864, when they moved to Penn Yan, NY. Benjamin Joy died here on February 18^th, 1869.

Joy was known for his dedication to the temperence movement. As he read the sermons of Lyman K. Beecher, he grew convinced that drunkenness was immoral. Joy has reported to have taken barrels of whiskey from his store and dumped their contents in the village square. He traveled to numerous churches and schools to advance the cause of temperance in neighboring communities. When speaking, Joy had a knack for captivating his audience with humor and anecdotes. Children enjoyed his stories and fondly called him “Uncle Ben”. On New Year’s Eve in 1827, Joy organized a meeting in the local schoolhouse and formed the Lansing Town Temperance Society. The members included notable abolitionists, Thomas Ludlow and James A. Burr. Joy went on to serve as a representative on the county legislature, where he advocated for Prohibition. He additionally played a prominent role, along with abolitionist Gerrit Smith, at the National Temperance Convention at Saratoga in 1865.

As a dedicated agent of social reform, Benjamin Joy was also involved in the abolitionist movement. Dr. John Bascom, a friend of Joy’s, described his activism:

“The strenuous way in which he enforced social truth, both on the question of slavery and of temperance and his personal resources in gathering pleasant and aidful material in support of his theme, constituted on of the strongest and most beneficial impressions of my childhood youth” (Spooner, 1891).

Benjamin Joy was recorded as a subscriber to The Liberator, a weekly abolitionist newspaper printed and published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison. Joy was also said to have kept a station on the Underground Railroad at his home in Ludlowville. Issac Young, an employee of Joy’s, recounted a story where he brought Joy’s horses to the barn and went to feed them hay: “As he plunged the hayfork into the mow, there came forth a burst of cries of pain” (Gallwey, 1963).  An escaped slave had sought refuge in Joy’s barn and was discovered by Young. The man was then transported to the next station. William Bascom, who lived in Ludlowville from 1838-1844, recounted that Benjamin Joy was “a constant, agreeable and effective advocate of temperance and anti-slavery. He occasionally brought forward runaway slaves as speakers” (Letter from Bascom to Siebert, April 7).

George A. Johnson, a prominent leader of the Black community in Ithaca during the mid to late 19^th century, and an active participant in the Underground Railroad, also confirmed Benjamin Joy’s involvement in the Underground Railroad. As a teenager, Johnson worked at his father’s barber shop in Ithaca. It was here that George Johnson aided numerous freedom seekers by providing them with new clothes, shoes, and haircuts to disguise their identity. In an interview with Cornell University student, Elbert Cook Wixom, for his Bachelor’s thesis, Johnson explained that “fugitives” were frequently concealed in steamboats to cross Cayuga Lake from Ithaca. He also referenced Joy’s involvement by saying:

“During the season when the boats were not running the fugitives were compelled to go overland. Some went on the east side of the lake, to Ludlowville, where Ben. Joy kept the station, and thence to Sherwood, where they joined a route heretofore described.” (Wixom, 1903)

Sources:

Wixom, Elbert C. “The Underground Railway of the Lake Country of Western New York”. 1903. Wilbur  H. Siebert Collection. Ohio History Connection.

Gallwey, Sydney. Underground Railroad in Tompkins County. Ithaca: DeWitt Historical Society, 1963.

Letter from William Bascom to Wilbur H. Siebert, April 7. Circa 1891-1948. Wilbur H. Siebert

Collection. Ohio History Connection.

Spooner, Walter W. The Cyclopædia of Temperance and Prohibition: A Reference Book of Facts,  Statistics, and General Information on All Phases of the Drink Question, the Temperance          Movement and the Prohibition Agitation. Funk & Wagnalls, 1891.