Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Industry & Commerce, People, Site

Location

3154 County Hwy 26, Vermontville, NY 12989, USA

Lat/Long

44.565308, -74.069247

Grant Recipient

Paul Smith's College

Blacksville was part of a larger project involving Adirondack land grants by Gerrit Smith during the 1840s and 1850s that were intended to empower Black New Yorkers as self-sufficient landowners who would thereby be granted the right to vote.

The Blacksville settlement was led by Willis A. Hodges (1815-1890), a publisher from Brooklyn, NY.  Willis was born in 1815 in Virginia to a free African American family. Prior to the Civil War, Hodges traveled between Virginia and New York, where his brother was living, working as a preacher, painter and businessman.

Hodges founded The Ram’s Horn, an anti-slavery newspaper. The paper drew the attention of abolitionist John Brown who offered financial support. Shortly after, Hodges led a group of families to settle on land in the Adirondacks given to them by Gerrit Smith, a wealthy philanthropist, as part of his “scheme of justice.” (see Timbuctoo marker for additional information). Willis Hodges settled his family in Franklin County near Loon Lake, adjacent to a bay that came to be known as Hodges’ Bay. During the first winter, residents of Blacksville were supplied with barrels of pork and flour sent to them by John Brown. (The Evening Post, New York, December 29, 1859) In 1848, during the first year Willis Hodges lived at Blacksville, we wrote his autobiography, Free Man of Color: The Autobiography of Willis Augustus Hodges. Returning to Brooklyn sometime after 1851, Hodges continued to travel between New York and Virginia, becoming involved in voting rights for freed Blacks. He passed away in 1890 in Virginia.