Chester "Bromley" and Lizzie (Phillips) Hoke (Mohawk Street)

Bromley Hoke and Elizabeth Phillips Hoke represent the integral part that African Americans, descendants of grandparents who had been locally enslaved, played in the economic and social development of the Mohawk Valley, as well as the close ties of family and neighborhood that sustained African American families as they moved from slavery into freedom. They rented the house at 45 Mohawk Street and lived there when Bromley died in 1913. Lizzie survived him until 1945. Both are buried in the Canajoharie Falls Cemetery.

Chester Bromley Hoke, known to everyone as “Bromley,” was born in the Town of Minden in 1847 to parents Moses and Nancy (Miller) Hoke. While he was still a toddler, his mother died so Bromley was raised by his grandparents, Henry and Maria (Garlock) Miller. 

As a teenager, Hoke served in the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment during Civil War under Colonel Robert G. Shaw, the nation’s first regiment of all Black soldiers made famous in the 1989 motion picture “Glory.” Bromley returned to civilian life in Canajoharie working primarily as a porter in local hotels and he became a member of the Farrell Post chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). About 28 years after the end of the Civil War, Hoke courted and married local girl, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Phillips who worked for the Arkell family.