Guinea Town Community Historical Marker

This marker was dedicated in 2018 with the support of the Pomeroy Foundation and shares the history of the Guinea Town community of Hyde Park, a settlement of free African Americans and formerly enslaved people that existed at this location from roughly 1790 to 1850. The community was named for the Guinea Coast of Africa, the ancestral homeland of many of the community’s residents. The only remaining traces of the community are bits of the foundations of a few structures and a marker that recognizes the site’s place on the National Register of Historic Places. Several of the foundations of homes from the community remain along with a stone wall, and ongoing archaeological research is being conducted at the site.

Upstate New York played a significant role in the Underground Railroad, with many stations and safe houses to help formerly enslaved people as they made their way to freedom. Many runaway slaves chose to continue their journey on to Canada, but a number settled in New York, and as a result, several communities of former slaves developed in the early to mid-1800s.

One such community was Guinea Town, which was founded in approximately 1790. The community was home to several free Blacks, some of whom had escaped slavery and made their way to New York. The name Guinea, or Guinea Town, was a fairly common one among free Black communities, often used as a kind of shorthand for settlements whose residents had African ancestry, whether their ancestors originated in Guinea or somewhere else.

According to an early history of the community, its residents were free Blacks and their descendants, with some of the earliest settlers there having been formerly enslaved by large landowners in the vicinity. Associations with those landowners continued after becoming free, as several of the Guinea Town residents were employed by those families after New York abolished slavery. Other Guinea Town residents owned or rented small plots of land.

By 1836, there were at least a few white landowners in the vicinity of Guinea Town, with several buying lots on the road to Delamater’s Mills. At least one of the white families was Quaker, which likely explains their decision to live in the community. According to an early history of Guinea Town, there were at least sixty African American families living in the community at one point, with several concentrated along Freedonia Lane.

The remnants of Guinea Town, which are in the woods of Hackett Hill Park, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

New Guinea Community , Hyde Park NY . Accessed April 29th 2022. https://www.hydeparkny.us/336/New-Guinea-Community.

Freedonia Lane , Stories From Hyde Park . January 22nd 2018. Accessed April 29th 2022. https://hydeparkhistorian.tumblr.com/post/170011861741/fredonia-lane.

Sheidlower , Noah . Free Black Communities in New York State , Untapped Cities . February 22nd 2022. Accessed April 29th 2022. https://untappedcities.com/2022/02/22/free-Black-communities-new-york-state/12/.