Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses

Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Little Liberia in Bridgeport's South End, 1850.
Location:	352-4 and 358-60 Main St., Bridgeport, Connecticut
Coordinates:	41°10′11″N 73°11′12″W / 41.16972°N 73.18667°W / 41.16972; -73.18667Coordinates: 41°10′11″N 73°11′12″W / 41.16972°N 73.18667°W / 41.16972; -73.18667
Built:	1848
Architectural style:	Italian Villa, Greek Revival
NRHP Reference#:	99000110[1]
Added to NRHP:	February 22, 1999

The Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses are located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The wood-framed, clapboard-covered, two-family houses were built in 1848 and were added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 22, 1999 as the last surviving houses of Little Liberia, a neighborhood settled by black freedmen starting in the early nineteenth century.^[1][2] The houses are the oldest remaining houses built by free blacks in Connecticut.^[3] The homes and nearby Walter's Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church are listed sites on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.^[4][5]

The owners

The original owners, Mary (1815-1883) and Eliza (1805-1862) Freeman, were two African American sisters born free in Derby, Connecticut, a center for the African American population at the time. They purchased two adjoining building lots in Bridgeport in 1848 and used the houses built there as rental property while they lived and worked in New York for a number of years. Eliza returned to Bridgeport around 1855 and Mary moved back to the community around 1861. They both died relatively well off for their times and situations and as well-respected members of the community^[2][6]

Little Liberia

Little Liberia, first settled by African Americans before Connecticut abolished slavery entirely in 1848, was one of several similar neighborhoods in urban centers in the Northeast where free blacks gathered to further themselves socially and economically. Other African American communities created in cities with growing job markets in the same time period include Trowbridge Square in New Haven, Jail Hill in Norwich, the northern slope of Boston’s Beacon Hill, Sandy Ground on New York’s Staten Island, and Hard Scrabble in Providence, Rhode Island.^[2][3] The name "Little Liberia" is based on oral tradition that the community's inhabitants identified with the new African nation of Liberia established for freed African slaves.^[6]

Joel Freeman was the first African American to purchase land in Bridgeport's South End in 1831, moving a vacant shop that he purchased to the site. Accounts of African Americans living in the neighborhood date back at least to 1828 when the congregation of an African American church first organized. The growth of Little Liberia accelerated with the building of an African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in 1840 (cornerstone laid in 1835) near the corner of Broad and Whiting streets with the Stratfield Special School for Colored Children following soon after in 1845 at the same intersection.^[2] Walter’s Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.^[7] By 1850, a map shows two churches on Broad Street, designated North African Church and South African Church.^[8]

In 1998, a 104-year-old resident, who had arrived in Bridgeport nearly a century earlier when her family moved north from Virginia, described her neighborhood: "Little Liberia was a close-knit, safe African-American community where family life was highly respected and the spirit of the community was evident and prevailed, even during hard times."^[4] The community was first called "Ethiope" and developed as a village of free blacks, Native Americans, and Cape Verdeans, a village with its own school, lending library, churches and social organizations.^[9][10]

Preservation

In early 2010, the two Freeman houses were said to be near collapse and that, for one, rebuilding, as opposed to restoration, might be necessary. At that time, Mayor Bill Finch announced $47,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds for the houses and a newly formed Mary & Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community is seeking additional funds from organizations such as the 1772 Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Freeman Center's goal is to eventually open the Little Liberia houses to school groups and historical tours and researchers. The city sold the houses to the Freeman Center, clearing up a dispute over back taxes and fees with an earlier organization seeking to preserve the homes.^[9]

See also

African American portal

Connecticut portal

• History of Bridgeport, Connecticut
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Bridgeport, Connecticut

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-08-01. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Charles W. Brilvitch (1998-01-08). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form" (pdf). National Park Service. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/99000110.pdf. Retrieved 2010-07-28.  and 21 accompanying photographs.
3. ^ ^{a b} Stephanie Reitz (2009-11-23). "Group tries to preserve 2 historic Conn. homes". Associate Press (Boston Globe). http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2009/11/23/homes_built_in_conn_by_free_blacks_in_jeopardy/. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Weizel, Richard (1998-06-14). "More Than a Century of Living History". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/14/nyregion/more-than-a-century-of-living-history.html. Retrieved 2010-08-04. 
5. ^ "Connecticut Freedom Trail: The Concept of Freedom". Connecticut Historical Commission. http://www.ctfreedomtrail.ct.gov/site/concept.html. Retrieved 2010-08-04. 
6. ^ ^{a b} "Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses". National park Service. http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/feature/wom/1999/freeman.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-01. 
7. ^ "Oldest Black Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut Celebrates 175 Years". Gospel News Wire Service. 2010-06-07. http://www.thegospelnewswire.com/oldest-black-church-in-bridgeport-connecticut-celebrates-175-years/. Retrieved 2010-08-04. 
8. ^ Mary K. Witkowski and Bruce Williams (2001). Bridgeport on the Sound (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing. pp. 25–27. ISBN 978-0738508627. http://books.google.com/books?id=4OGk67G-wsIC&pg=PA25. 
9. ^ ^{a b} John Burgeson (2010-02-12). "Officials, experts urge action on Little Liberia restoration". Connecticut Post. http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Officials-experts-urge-action-on-Little-Liberia-362730.php. Retrieved 2010-08-04. 
10. ^ In 1895, orator and author Willis Augustus Hodges addressed the "Young Colored Men's Republican Club" of Bridgeport on the topic of not being misled by "Negro Democrats". "As to Negro Democrats". The Freeman (Indianapolis): pp. 4. 1895-11-23. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7MAyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lgQGAAAAIBAJ&pg=4405,6412673. Retrieved 2010-08-04. "Do these men think that we, surrounded by light and knowledge in the North and reading of the political outrages in the South, are fools enough to vote the Democratic ticket?" 

External links

• "Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses". National park Service. http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/feature/wom/1999/freeman.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-01. 
• "Connecticut Freedom Trail: The Concept of Freedom". Connecticut Historical Commission. http://www.ctfreedomtrail.ct.gov/site/concept.html. Retrieved 2010-08-04.