{"id":7003,"date":"2012-03-14T09:30:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T13:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/?p=7003"},"modified":"2020-10-08T16:02:24","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T20:02:24","slug":"the-black-gotham-digital-archive-the-draft-riots-of-july-1863","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/the-black-gotham-digital-archive-the-draft-riots-of-july-1863\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Gotham Digital Archive: The Draft Riots of July 1863"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Letter\"<\/a>
\nI found this note in the Harry A. Williamson Papers at the Schomburg Center while doing research for Black Gotham<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a central document in my \u201ccluster\u201d on the New York City draft riots and uncovers a fascinating story.\u00a0 The first part of the story relates to Williamson\u2019s identity.\u00a0 He turns out to be the grandson of Albro Lyons, the man to whom the note is addressed.\u00a0 Williamson\u2019s extensive collection testifies to his determination to preserve his family\u2019s history; it includes genealogical records as well as a short memoir by one of Lyons\u2019s daughters, Maritcha (and his aunt).<\/p>\n

Although I didn\u2019t realize it at first, I soon discovered that the Lyonses are part of my family as well!\u00a0 In combing through Williamson\u2019s papers I found out that my great-great-grandfather Peter Guignon married one Rebecca Marshall in 1840, and that Albro married her sister Mary Joseph that same year.\u00a0 That makes Albro my great-great-granduncle.\u00a0 Many years later Philip White would marry Peter and Rebecca\u2019s daughter, Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

So this note has a particular emotional resonance for me.\u00a0 It was sent by one Sergeant Rode to Albro on the last day of the draft riots.\u00a0 The cause of the riots was the federal government\u2019s passage of a draft law decreeing that all male citizens (by definition white) between the ages of 20 and 35 were to be enrolled in the military, and a lottery conducted to determine who would actually serve.\u00a0 New York\u2019s white working class was angered by what they perceived to be the unfairness of the law.\u00a0 Political elites, who had decided on war, could buy their way out of the draft; African Americans, deemed to be the cause of the war, were excluded by law from service.\u00a0 So on July 13, the mob, composed mainly of Irish men and women, took to the streets, wantonly attacking people and property, particularly in the black community.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/p>\n

Albro Lyons lived at 20 Vandewater Street.\u00a0 The print above shows a typical Lower Manhattan street mixing buildings both residential and commercial, tall and low, frame and brick.\u00a0 Maritcha had noted in her memoir that the family\u00a0lived in a large brick building, so\u00a0it could well have been one of those on the left side of the street.\u00a0 It combined both the Lyons household and a Colored Sailors Home, and was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.\u00a0 The mob stormed it three times.\u00a0 When they had finished, this is what Maritcha had to say about the state of her home: \u201cIts interior was dismantled, furniture was missing or broken.\u00a0 From basement to attic evidences of the worst vandalism prevailed.\u00a0 A fire, kindled in one of the upper rooms, was discovered in time to prevent a conflagration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rioters\u2019 goals in attacking Albro\u2019s home were multiple but precise: they\u00a0sought to strike at the heart of the black family; destroy black property and wealth, which they saw as ill gotten and undeserved; undermine black enterprises; prevent black sailors from seeking \u201cwhite\u201d work on the docks; and finally eliminate a black community institution dedicated to the abolitionist cause.<\/p>\n

What really caught my eye in the note, however, was the reference to \u201csaid drugstore.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Could that have been the drugstore that Philip White had established in 1847 and would keep until his death in 1891?\u00a0 Philip lived onVandewater Street only a few doors from the Lyonses.\u00a0 Look again at the print.\u00a0 If, instead of going up Vandewater you turned left onto Frankfort, at the very next corner you\u2019d come to Philip\u2019s pharmacy.\u00a0 Like Lyons\u2019s Sailors Home, it was an important landmark in the black community.\u00a0 When visiting New York some years earlier, black Bostonian William C. Nell had praised Philip as a \u201cpractical man\u201d who \u201cconducted his business, preparing medicines, etc., etc., etc. with as much readiness and skill as any other disciple of Galen and Hippocrates.\u201d<\/p>\n

How could Philip\u2019s drugstore have been a safe meeting place for a white police officer and a black victim gathering up his few remaining earthly possessions? Williamson gives us the answer in an account he preserved in his papers and must have provided to the New York Times<\/em> at the time of Philip\u2019s death.\u00a0 According to the Times<\/em> obituary:<\/p>\n

“When the riot was at its height a crowd of men gathered at White\u2019s store to defend it from attack.\u00a0 Mr. White was warned by some of the business men that he would be wise if he hid himself.\u00a0 He said: `What have I to fear?\u00a0 Even if these men here could not protect me, there are as many men among the rioters who would fight for me as there are those who would injure me.\u2019\u00a0 Not the slightest attempt was made to harm him or his property.”<\/p>\n

Unlike Albro, Philip had made himself indispensable to his local neighborhood.\u00a0 As the Times<\/em> obituary noted,\u00a0he \u201cwas never unmindful of the poor, and the services and material of his store were willingly given without pay to any one who needed them.\u00a0 .\u00a0 .\u00a0 .\u00a0 Scores of poor families were befriended and helped by him not only with medicines, but with food and money.\u00a0 Those whom he helped had a chance to show their gratitude during the draft riots of 1863.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philip had achieved a delicate balance\u00a0in forging a mutually interdependent relationship between himself and his poor Irish neighbors.\u00a0 By giving away medicines for free, Philip was helping to maintain the stability of the neighborhood in which he lived and worked, and protect his own position within it.\u00a0 Accepting his benevolence over the years, his poor Irish neighbors were able to repay him by protecting him during the riots.\u00a0 In so doing, they were also ensuring that the drugstore on which they depended so heavily would survive the riots and continue to serve them.<\/p>\n

Carla L. Peterson is professor of English at the University of Maryland. She currently is completing a faculty fellowship at MITH. This post originally appeared at Black Gotham Archive<\/a> on March 13, 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found this note in the Harry A. Williamson Papers at the Schomburg Center while doing research for Black Gotham.\u00a0 It\u2019s a central document in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":8608,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[70,77],"tags":[89,93],"yoast_head":"\nThe Black Gotham Digital Archive: The Draft Riots of July 1863 – Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/the-black-gotham-digital-archive-the-draft-riots-of-july-1863\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Black Gotham Digital Archive: The Draft Riots of July 1863 – Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I found this note in the Harry A. 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