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In 2011, an archaeology team unearthed hundreds of artifacts on the west side of Central Park near present-day 85th Street, including the objects pictured below, shown as they were discovered. As the team slowly removed the soil, it became clear what they had found: a large, rectangular iron roasting pan with handles on either side with an iron tea kettle, a glass bottle, and a ceramic pot tucked inside. These were everyday, kitchen-related objects that had been left behind by the family who had lived there, the Wilsons, when they were forced to leave their home about 150 years earlier.

The Wilsons in Seneca Village

The Wilsons were one of dozens of families who lived in Seneca Village, a community founded by African Americans in 1825 that was destroyed by the City of New York in 1857 to build Central Park. The archaeology team (led by Cynthia Copeland, Nan A. Rothschild, and Diana diZerega Wall) used historic maps and soil and ground-penetrating radar tests to identify places where remains of the village might still be buried underground, despite the intensive landscaping that had been done to create the Park. The historic map, shown here, which was made in 1856 so that the City could determine how much to compensate landowners for taking their property, notes that there had been a house on the spot where the roasting pan was found. The map indicates that the house was three stories tall, 21.4 by 19.8 feet in size, and “frame” (made of wood), and that it belonged to a man named William G. Wilson.

The Wilsons in Historical Records

Census records and parish records from the All Angels’ Episcopal Church reveal information about Mr. Wilson and his family, which included his wife, Mrs. Charlotte Morris Wilson, and their nine children, who ranged in age from infancy to 19 years old in 1857. They were African American, all born in New York City. The children attended school, and the eldest worked as a waiter. Mr. Wilson worked as the sexton, or caretaker, of the neighboring All Angels’ Episcopal Church, one of three churches in the village, and the only one with Black and white parishioners. Like many of his African American neighbors in the village, Mr. Wilson owned property, knew how to read and write, and was a voter. These qualities were uncommon among the majority of Black people in New York City at the time, because racism limited their access to education and well-paying, white-collar jobs, and restricted their ability to vote: A state law required Black men to own at least $250 worth of property (the equivalent of about ¾ of the total wages a working man could make in one year) to be able to vote, whereas there was no such requirement for white men. Mrs. Wilson was among many accomplished women in the village. In addition to being the primary caretaker of her nine children and managing the myriad tasks necessary to sustain a large rural household, she learned to read and write as an adult. The Wilsons remained part of the All Angels’ congregation even after the village was no more, moving with the church a few blocks to the west to the village of Bloomingdale, in what is now the Upper West Side.

In the Wilsons' Kitchen: The Exhibition

This exhibition presents some of the artifacts archaeologists found that provide a glimpse into the Wilsons’ home in Seneca Village, specifically their kitchen. Located on the ground floor, their kitchen would have had a hearth (likely with a cast-iron stove), for cooking meals, such as stews, in a big pot, and for heating water for tea and bathing in the kettle, pictured above. The Wilsons would have used the roasting pan to cook meats, seafood, and vegetables in the stove’s oven, where they also baked bread. There would have been a table for eating meals together, doing schoolwork, mending clothing, and other household activities as well as for entertaining guests; a sink for washing; and chairs and stools for dining and relaxing around the hearth. The Wilsons’ kitchen would have been a center of activity and gathering in their home, a place of work, nourishment, care, conversation, and warmth, within a thriving majority African American village.

Beyond the Wilsons' Kitchen

There are no known photographs or drawings of Seneca Village and few visible traces in Central Park today. To view Envisioning Seneca Village—a collaborative digital model created by Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang—that imagines what the village might have looked like in 1855, click below.

Please also visit the Envisioning Seneca Village website for additional materials and tips for how to navigate the model.