[TUE 22. FEB] It is here, around the turn of the last century, that the house’s link to any Harris or Newhouse descendants is lost.
https://t.co/jI8ZxZZxkS
[FRI 18. FEB] Pennington (whose original name was Jim Pembroke) had escaped slavery in Maryland in 1827 when he was 19. The young blacksmith eventually changed his name and went on to become the first African American to take classes at Yale University. https://t.co/jI8ZxZZxkS
[THU 17. FEB] More specifically, the church would fuel the fires of anti-slavery sentiment in what was, then, a remote community removed from the more intense political atmosphere downtown. https://t.co/jI8Zy0h8cq
[TUE 15. FEB] The Whigs, like their rivals, the Democrats, were split on the issue of slavery, but Northern Whigs veered more toward anti-slavery, and this was clearly a political belief both Harris and Newhouse shared. https://t.co/jI8ZxZZxkS
[THU 10. FEB] 10 Besides the buying and selling of houses and lots, Harris had bigger plans. Seeing beyond the orchards and pastureland that surrounded him, he envisioned a more urban landscape, setting in motion three major construction projects. https://t.co/jI8ZxZZxkS
[WED 9. FEB] Here, atop a bluff that tumbled down to the Hudson, a charming Greek Revival–Italianate home rose up in the Eden of surrounding dogwoods, pines and ancient oaks. https://t.co/jI8Zy005aq
[TUE 8. FEB] That same year, Harris returned to England on something of a public relations tour, which was covered in the Anti-Slavery Standard alongside reports of the esteemed reformer Frederick Douglass. https://t.co/jI8Zy005aq
[MON 7. FEB] Harris spoke openly and forcefully in support of others engaged in the Underground Railroad, a position not popular with many, if not most, New Yorkers. https://t.co/jI8ZxZZxkS
[FRI 4. FEB] …Harris wasted no time in 1846, upon hearing of the massive chase through downtown Manhattan, and the runaway slave—a man named George Kirk—now hiding out in the American Anti-Slavery Society office on Nassau Street. https://t.co/jI8ZxZZxkS
See you tomorrow at the Dennis Harris House at 857 RSD Saturday 10 to 1 - Speakers Michael Henry Adams, State Senator Robert Jackson, Assembly member Al Taylor and others!
Juneteenth Countdown
The comparative isolation of Harris’s Washington Heights properties argues for their utility as a protected, easily guarded way station for fugitives who needed to be gotten quickly out of lower Manhattan
Dennis Harris builds a house!
Here, at what would eventually be 857 Riverside Drive, near West 159th Street, atop a bluff that tumbled down to the Hudson, a charming Greek Revival–Italianate home rose up in the Eden of surrounding dogwoods, pines and oaks....
Abolitionist, Clergyman and sugar refiner, Dennis Harris moved north and built a new sugar refinery, house and ran a steamship from Lower Manhattan to his wharf at 158th Street and then up the Hudson River.