Weeksville is a historicneighborhood founded by freeAfrican Americans inBrooklyn. After the completion of theBrooklyn Bridge, rapid urbanization caused Weeksville to be forgotten until it was rediscovered and preserved by historian James Hurley. Today, it is part of the present-day neighborhood ofCrown Heights.
Weeksville was named afterJames Weeks, a freed African-Americanstevedore fromVirginia.[1][2] In 1838, 11 years after the final abolition of slavery in New York State,[3] Weeks bought a plot of land from Henry C. Thompson, a free African American and land investor, in the Ninth Ward of central Brooklyn. Thompson had acquired the land from Edward Copeland, a politically-minded European American and Brooklyn grocer, in 1835.[4] Previously Copeland bought the land from an heir ofJohn Lefferts, a member of one of the most prominent and land-holding families in Brooklyn.[5] There was ample opportunity for land acquisition during this time, as many prominent land-holding families sold off their properties during an intense era of land speculation.[4] Many African Americans saw land acquisition as their opportunity to gain economic and political freedom by building their own communities.[5]
The village itself was established by a group of African-American land investors and political activists, as an intentional landowning community.[2][6] It covered an area in the borough's eastern Bedford Hills area, bounded by present-dayFulton Street, East New York Avenue, Ralph Avenue and Troy Avenue.[1] A 1906 article inThe New York Age recalling an earlier period noted that James Weeks "owned a handsome dwelling at Schenectady and Atlantic Avenues."
By the 1850s, Weeksville had more than 500 residents from all over theEast Coast (as well as two people born inAfrica). Almost 40 percent of residents were southern-born. Weeksville was the second largest free Black community in the United States in pre-Civil War America.[2][7] Nearly one-third of the men over 21 owned land; in antebellum New York, unlike in New England, non-white men had to own real property (to the value of $250) and pay taxes on it to qualify as voters.[2][8] The village had its own churches (includingBethel Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal Church and theBerean Missionary Baptist Church), a school ("Colored School no. 2", now P.S. 243), a baseball team, a cemetery, and an old age home.[9][2] Weeksville had one of the first African-American newspapers, theFreedman's Torchlight, and in the 1860s became the national headquarters of theAfrican Civilization Society and theHoward Colored Orphan Asylum. In addition, the Colored School was the first such school in the U.S. to integrate both its staff and its students.[10]
During the violentNew York Draft Riots of 1863, the community served as a refuge for many African-Americans who fled fromManhattan.[11]
After the completion of theBrooklyn Bridge and asNew York City grew and expanded, Weeksville gradually became part ofCrown Heights, and memory of the village was largely forgotten.[12]
Hurley was interviewed about the rediscovery process in 2011.[13]
The search for Historic Weeksville began in 1968 in aPratt Institute workshop on Brooklyn and New York City neighborhoods led by historian James Hurley. After reading of Weeksville inThe Eastern District of Brooklyn, a 1912 book by Brooklyn historianEugene Armbruster, Hurley and Joseph Haynes, a local resident and pilot, consulted old maps and flew over the area in an airplane in search of surviving evidence of the village.[14][15]
Four historic houses (now known as theHunterfly Road Houses) were discovered off Bergen Street between Buffalo and Rochester Avenues, facing an old lane—a remnant of Hunterfly Road, which was at the eastern edge of the 19th century village.[12]
Weeksville is currently a majority Black neighborhood (61%), while 19% of its residents identify as Latino. 26% of its population is immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean.[16]
The 1968 discovery of the Hunterfly Road Houses led to the formation of The Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History (now theWeeksville Heritage Center).Joan Maynard was a founding member and executive director for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History. The preservation of the Hunterfly Road Houses became her life's work.[17]
In 1970 the houses were declaredNew York City Landmarks,[2] and in 1972 were placed on theNational Register of Historic Places as the Hunterfly Road Historic District.[18] The houses were purchased by the Society in 1973,[19] and in 2005, following a $3 million restoration, the houses reopened to the public as the Weeksville Heritage Center, with each house showcasing a different era of Weeksville history.[3] Construction of a 19,000-square-foot (1,800 m2) education and cultural center adjacent to the houses was completed in 2014.[20]
{{cite web}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)| External videos | |
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 A Day in Weeksville: Brooklyn's Historic, Free Black Town | |
| WEEKSVILLE WAS A FREE BLACK COMMUNITY IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK |
