Monday, July 15, 2024

In the June 2024 Dem. primary , Jamaal Bowman lost support across Greenburgh

I. Jamaal Bowman's electoral record:

(1) June 2020: newcomer Bowman handily defeated longtime incumbent Elliot Engel in the very high turnout June 2020 Democratic primary winning 55.4% of the total vote.   In 2020,  Westchester County comprised 59% of  the active registered Democrats in New York's 16th Congressional District (CD16), with the remainder in the Bronx.  Bowman won 52% of the Westchester County votes in 2020.    In 2020, CD16 included 19 Greenburgh electoral districts (out of then 81)  consisting of the villages of Hastings-on-Hudson, Ardsley, and in unincorporated Greenburgh, the Edgemont school district, and portions of the Ardsley school district south of that village between Edgemont and Hastings.  Bowman outperformed his CD16 margin  in those parts of Greenburgh within CD16 primarily because of the extraordinary result of his receiving 69% in high turn-out Hastings.  

(2) August 2022: in a redistricted CD16 where south and central Westchester County now comprised almost 90% of the districts's Democrats, Bowman defeated challengers Catherine Parker and Vedat Gashi in a low-key campaign, with low turnout, by an almost identical margin as in 2020 (54%) and again won Westchester with 52%. Now with Greenburgh almost entirely within CD16 (excluding 4 electoral districts in Tarrytown village), Bowman's Greenburgh margin fell to 52%, matching his county total. 

(3) June 2024: Before the June 2024 primary, CD16 lines were redrawn in the Bronx, while Westchester (including Greenburgh) remained almost unchanged, maintaining the same 89% to 11% divide among registered Democrats in the two counties comprising the district.  Bowman's vote total of 25,590 in Westchester in June 2024 far exceeded his total of 19,353 in the 2022 primary, but Bowman's percentage of votes in Westchester fell from 52% in 2020 and 2022 to just  36.5% in the 2024 primary.  Turnout in the 2024 primary nearly doubled turnout in 2022, but still fell short of the 2020 primary.  Once again, like in 2022, Bowman's % in Greenburgh matched his result in Westchester Co. 

 

II.  Mapping 2024 Primary Results  in Greenburgh by electoral district

Benjamin Rosenblatt has done all the hard work and created a map depicting the primary results.   Here's the Greenburgh portion from Rosenblatt's website (green are electoral districts won by Latimer, while purple went for Bowman).


III.  Bowman's vote totals in Greenburgh, broken down by electoral district area.  I keep the Democratic Party "areas" intact except for breaking out the Highpoint Condo complex separately from Fairview and dividing "Hartsley" in the unincorporated areas within the Ardsley school district south and north of Ardsley village.  


With turnout nearly doubling from 7,395 in 2022 to 13,935 in 2024, Bowman's vote total grew in nearly all areas but still fell fall short in those south Greenburgh areas within CD16 2020 from Bowman's success in his freshman campaign.  The most dramatic vote change came in Hastings where the total turnout in 2020 and 2024 were very close, but where Bowman lost 35% of his vote numbers over four years.   
 
IV.  Bowman's vote % by electoral areas: significantly Bowman's % of votes fell in every area when measured from 2022 to 2024 and also in all four areas within CD16 from 2020 to 2024.  The drop in support in the Rivertowns is particularly dramatic: 



V.   As has been usual for several years, turnout in Hastings is extraordinarily high,  led by Hastings ED23, which ranked #7 out of 675 CD16 electoral districts in turnout in the 2024 primary, exceeded only by one ED in Scarsdale, and 5 in north New Rochelle. With CD16 Westchester turnout at 32%,  Greenburgh was well in front of its neighbors with 41%.  As seen by checking these %'s with the map, Bowman's wins were all in lower turnout areas.  

I'm not going to speculate here about the reasons for Bowman's dismal performance in Greenburgh in the 2024 Democratic primary compared to his previous primary results, but the widespread drop in support, even in the two areas he won in 2024, suggests complex reasons rather than the simplistic narrative offered by local and national media and on-line commentators.  I do think that the collapse in Bowman's support in progressive, highly engaged Hastings, points toward disenchantment with Bowman's performance as a congressional representative as much or more than any particular policy issue.   


Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Mapping Black Households in 1950 Greenburgh: A Study of Suburban Segregation

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post mapping Greenburgh's African American home ownership using data from the 1940 U.S. Census.  My purpose then was to investigate whether Black homeownership patterns in mid-20th century Greenburgh gave evidence of housing segregation.  I concluded that essay writing that  the cumulative impact of examples I offered of segregation practices, such as the widespread use of restrictive covenants in Westchester, the practice of steering, changes to zoning codes, and incidents of neighborhood intolerance highly suggested that the ownership patterns illustrated by that 1940 map did not result from freely made housing choices by Black home buyers.  

Now that the 1950 US Census has been released, we can reexamine that question a decade further on. 

I. Where did Black people live in 1950 Greenburgh?

Sources: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-1/vol-01-35.pdf ;   https://www.ancestry.com/ ; https://www.familysearch.org/en/.  [Note: on both familysearch.org and ancestry.com, the 1950 US Census transcriptions are replete with errors and should be confirmed before cited],  

TOV (unincorporated Greenburgh):  
Black population in Census Enumeration Districts 117 (Parkway Gardens/north east Greenburgh) and 119 & 120 (Fairview):    2,101                                                                                                              Black population in remaining TOV (Hartsdale, Edgemont, Ardsley TOV, North Elmsford):     232.  This number includes 102 residents of the Fulton Park apartment buildings.   Of the remaining 130 TOV Black residents, 86 are domestic employees living in white households (including a few country club employees living on premises). 

While Black people comprised just over 6% of the Town of Greenburgh in 1950, 91% of Black residents lived in one of four neighborhoods, as follows:

1.  Tarrytown Village downtown:  nearly the entire Tarrytown Black population lived west of Broadway and north of what is now 87/287, with the focus being "downtown" Tarrytown centered on Wildey St. and Mechanics Ave.  
2.  Elmsford Village north/east of Main St./ Tarrytown Road.  It is startling that the 1950 Census shows no Black people living in the half of Elmsford Village south  of this line.  
3.  North-east Greenburgh: the Presidents streets neighborhood of Parkway Gardens and also Parkway Homes, partially in the Valhalla School District. 
4.  "Fairview"the square (about 2/3 of a miles on each side) strictly defined by Knollwood Ave on the west,  Prospect Ave and the Metropolis Country Club on the south, Hillside Ave on the east, and Old Tarrytown Road on the north.  In 1950, 1,958 -  2/3 of Greenburgh's Black residents - live in this compact area.  

II.  Charting Black "Households" in 1950 Greenburgh. 

Now that the 1950 census has been released and is indexed, we have the opportunity to measure changes, if any, over the interim decade. An exact comparison is impossible, however, because the 1950 US Census, unlike the 1940 Census, does not identify home ownership.  

When looking through the 1950 Census population lists, there is the quandary of domestic workers.  About 111 Black people in Greenburgh living outside the green shaded areas were domestic employees living in white households or sometimes at country clubs.   It would be misleading to include the residences of these domestic employees - typically in the wealthiest white neighborhoods -  in a study of segregation patterns.  In response to this problem, I decided to map "heads of households." 

For each residence, the 1950 Census identifies a "head."  The head of a household could be a home owner living with a family in single family house, or one person living alone in an apartment.  

Black heads of households in the Town of Greenburgh, 1950

The green-shaded areas are the four neighborhoods with large concentrations of Black residents that I listed above.  The figure in each green area is the number of Black heads of households in the particular area.  The red dots represent Black "heads of households" located outside of the four green-shaded neighborhoods. The largest red dot (on the east-side edge of the map) is the Fulton Park apartments with twenty-two households comprised of 102 Black residents. 

In 1950, 94% of Black-led households in the Town of Greenburgh were located in the green-shaded neighborhoods.

When examining these households more closely we see de facto segregation in operation on the ground level, specifically its impact on  the town's school districts.   It is startling to see that no school-age Black children live in Ardsley and Irvington villages in 1950. In fact,  the Census identifies no Black residents in Ardsley village in 1950.  A Black 18 year old woman lives in Dobbs Ferry in an apartment on Broadway with her 25 year old sister and another woman -the only Black headed household in Dobbs Ferry -  but the census does not indicate if Evelyn Davis still attended school.  The other six Black residents in Dobbs Ferry village are domestic employees living in white households. In Irvington village has one Black household consisting of the three Patterson siblings - each 55 years or older. The remaining 14 Black residents in Irvington in 1950 are adult, domestic employees  living in white households.  

The village of Hastings, however, is somewhat of an exception with all 21 Black residents of the village living in one of three households headed by Black men.  Interestingly all three of these Black men who are heads of households are immigrants.  Dr. Albion Chase and Dr. Cyril Dolly, both born in the Caribbean, lived with their families in adjacent single family homes on Pinecrest Rd. The third household is headed by a Brazilian married to a woman (and a stepson) listed as from Puerto Rico and who are not listed as Black by the census taker, but instead as Philipino which was probably the census taker's stand in for "Latin,"  It is not known if children from these three families attended the Hastings public schools.

While 1950 shows minimal integration improvement over 1940 in household locations, the segregation patterns along school district lines suggested in 1940 is well-established in 1950.  There were no Black children residing in what would have then been the Hartsdale Schools District or the large portion of the Ardsley school district located in unincorporated Greenburgh, and there was one four-year-old child in the Edgemont School district in 1950.  While there were 622 Black children of 18 years or younger in unincorporated Greenburgh in 1950, if it unclear if any - and certainly not more than a two or three Black students - attended the Hartsdale, Edgemont and Ardsley school districts where about one-half of the TOV population resided.  Anecdotes support this perception: the Hartsdale School District was described by the New York Times on April 21, 1966, as having 850 enrolled but only one Black student.  A memoir of growing-up in Edgemont recalls the late 1950s appearance of a black transfer student from Yonkers as notable and novel.  Ardsley schools were only "integrated" in 1965 when a teenager from South Carolina was brought north to live with a white Ardsley family as part of an educational program.   https://patch.com/new-york/tarrytown/first-african-american-integrate-school-1965.  

Greenburgh will undergo enormous growth (from 47,527 in 1950 to 76,213 in 1960), but to map the impact on Black residential choices,  we'll have to wait until 2030 for the release of the 1960 US Census.  

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Greenburgh Central School District Enrollment in the 21st Century: A School District in Transition

Takeaways:

1.   From 2000 to 2023, Greenburgh Central School District (GC) K-12 enrollment declined 19%: from 1,893 students in 2000-01 to 1,527 in the current school year.   During this same period, adjacent school districts had enrollment increases: Edgemont +15%; Elmsford +15%; Ardsley +7%; White Plains +6%. 

2.  GC's enrollment decrease is led by a steep drop in K-12 students identified by the district as Black: a 56% decrease from '02-'03 (1,074 students /57% of total enrollment) through the current school year (473 students/ 31% of total enrollment). 

3.  Unlike a similar drop in "white" enrollment (which mostly occured in a short period from '00-'01 to '03-'04) during the time period examined, the decline in Black enrollment has been steady since '02-'03 (declining in 18 of the past 20 school years)  suggesting not "flight" but a myriad of complex factors discouraging young families from remaining or moving into the school district, including housing prices, cost of living for working families, and school district reputation, etc.  

4.  The number of students identified as Latino/Hispanic (according to NYS Education Department definitions) has grown, although not entirely steadily, from 298 students (16% of total enrollment ) in '00-'01 to 737 (48% of total enrollment) in the current school year. Assuming current trends persist, GC will have a majority Hispanic enrollment in the coming school year or two.  This milestone becomes significant when reflecting on the apparent lack of Hispanic representation on the district school board (one member) or in school district admiinstration and senior leadership.    

5.  NYS Education Dept's statistic tracking "economically disadvantaged" students has varied from 47% to 64% of GC's enrollment over the past dozen years.  NYSED definitions for this category have changed over the past two decades, however, making long-term trends difficult to infer.  

6. Students with disabilites (per NYSED definition) have varied from 15% to 19% of K-12 enrollment since '05-'06, and is currently 16%.



source: https://data.nysed.govcurrent year

Note:  

1. Although these categories may be awkward and even offensive, NYSED guidelines define students as: 1. American Indian or Alaska Native; 2. Black or African American, 3. Hispanic or Latino, 4. Asian or Native Hawaiian/ Other Pacific Islander, 5. white, or 6 Multiracial.  Multiracial was added in the 2000s and its use varies widely among school disticts. It is a growing catetory in GC and currently accounts for 42 (2.7%) of K-12 students. 

2. It should be noted that GC had a K-12 enrollment increase of 20 students from 21-22 (1,507) to the current school year (1,527). 

3. At least in recent years, departure for non-public schools has not caused GC enrollment declines.  Private/parochial/home school enrollment among school-age children residing within the Greenburgh Central school district has also declined in recent years:  e.g., from 577 in '16-'17 to 437 in '21-'22.  

4.  Greenburgh Central historic enrollment K-12 (post-merger)  the 80s saw nationwide school enrollment declines after the late 60s/early 70s "baby bust.."  Unlike nearby districts, however, where enrollment boomed in the 90s, GC only recovered a small portion of it's earlier losses. 










Monday, February 27, 2023

Greenburgh Town Democratic Party Convention: close results for the second Town Council spot enliven the evening

The Greenburgh Town Democratic Party held its its nominating convention for candidates for town offices this past Thursday, February 23, 2023.    Greenburgh has 81 electoral districts (EDs) with two district leaders (DLs) for each ED.   119 of the 156 DLs (there are currently 6 vacancies) gathered and (with two party officials not voting) 117 DLs (75%) voted to endorse candidates for town supervisor, town judge, town clerk, town board and county legislators.

Paul Feiner for Town Supervisor and Dolores Braithwaite for Town Judge were each unopposed in their re-election bids and were accordingly endorsed by the town party.  David Imamura (running for the county seat vacated by recently elected Assemblymember Mary Jane Shimsky) and Jewel Williams (running for reelection) were unanimously endorsed to represent their respective county legislative districts. Town party leadership has turned decisively against longtime incumbent town clerk Judith Beville, as reflected in a vote of 101 DLs for challenger Lisa Marie Nero to only 14 DL votes for Beville.  Beville lost the Town Democratic Party endorsement for town clerk by a narrower margin 4 years ago and still ran and won re-election.  Beville was first elected town clerk in Nov. 2007 when she beat then incumbent Alfreda Williams.  Beville also won contested Democratic primaries for town clerk in 2013 and 2011.  It is assumed that she will run again this year.  

The main event came last: the four way race for endorsement for two Greenburgh town council seats.  This bout did not disappoint.  First came the surprise withdrawal from the race of Bishop Wilburt Preston. Preston, a Feiner ally and longtime head of the Greenburgh Housing Authority, was clearly a distant fourth in the predicted voting among DLs. He preserved his dignity by pulling out instead of risking the ignominy of receiving just a handful of votes.   The next surprise came with the nomination from the floor of Manni Areces, head of the Juniper Hills Civil Association, to the bemusement of the audience.  As expected, incumbent Gina Jackson lead the voting comfortably and Areces did about as dismally as might have been expected of Preston.  The highly anticipated contest came between Joy Haber of Dobbs Ferry and Jonathan Campozano of Hartsdale for the second of the two town council endorsements.   Here are the results as I count them::





Haber pulled off a very narrow victory over Campozano to receive the town party's second endorsement for town council. While each reached the 50% threshold of weighted votes necessary to receive the party endorsement, Gina Jackson had already sewn up one endorsement, leaving the other candidates to vye for the remaining spot.  

The performance gap among the incorporated villages DLs and the unincorporated DLs, as indicated above, is significant.   Incorporated villagers are almost entirely removed from Greenburgh town government.  They pay only nominal amounts of property taxes to the town and receive few services in return.  In contrast, DLs representing the unincorporated areas are evaluating candidates for town board who, if elected, will set their town property tax rates and impact their home values and standard of living through planning and zoning decisions.  It is revealing that unincorporated DLs favored Haber, a villager, over a fellow unincorporated resident, Campozano, while village DLs reversed that ranking.   It is reasonable to conclude that at least a few unincorporated area DLs felt more comfortable entrusting their budget and tax rates with Haber, who has years of county government employment, over Campozano who had more limited local government experience. 

Friday, February 10, 2023

Greenburgh public school enrollment stabilizes (and even increases courtesy of Elmsford)

Greenburgh's ten public school districts (with three that include areas outside of the town) cumulatively saw an enrollment increase of .5% after three years of declines.  Surprisingly, the biggest increase from last year- in both percentage and absolute numbers - came in the small Elmsford School District.  Notably, Greenburgh Central saw a small increase after six consecutive years of declines.  GC fell from 1,757 in '15-'16 to 1,507 in '21-22, for a 14% K-12 enrollment decrease over those years, plummeting to its lowest enrollment on record last year.   On the decline side, Ardsley peaked after several years of rapid growth and Edgemont in now the leader in enrollment decrease this year and over the past three years (taking away that distinction from GC).  Still, the school districts (with the exception of Elmsford and, effectively, Dobbs Ferry) have not yet recovered their pre-COVID '19-'20 enrollments; these enrollments are reported to the State Education Department in the fall, so '19'-'20 numbers were reported prior to the impact of COVID in the spring of 2020.  All these numbers come from http://www.nysed.gov. and are reported by the school districts.  






 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Joseph A. Riker: The Story of a Black solider from Hastings, NY in the Civil War

On February 5, 1885, the following notice appeared in the [Washington DC] National Tribune.  





Ten months later, this plaintive notice appeared in the Fort Scott (Kansas) Monitor:  

























Mrs. Mary Ann Riker of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, then eighty-five years old, was searching for her son, Joseph who had disappeared years before somewhere in the West. Joseph served in the Union army in the Civil War and Mary, who had been widowed for decades, sought confirmation of Joseph's death to support her application for a military pension available to her as her son's financial dependent. 

The Riker family (sometimes spelled Ryker) lived in Greenburgh dating back at least to 1840. That year, Peter and an unnamed adult female headed a household the included four young males and three young females.  The 1850 census listed Peter (60 years old) and Mary Ann (49) with children Golden (19), Oman (16), Mary (13), Joseph (11) and Sidney (9).  All are listed as "black" by the census taker and Peter, Golden and Oman are described as laborers.  Significantly, Peter was a property owner.   In light of their ages, it is quite possible, although unknown, if Peter and Mary were born into slavery, which was abolished in New York through a gradual process ending finally in 1827. Peter died on Jan. 19, 1851 at the age of 68; Mary Ann never remarried. After Peter's death, the family stayed intact in Greenburgh (post office Tarrytown). In 1860, an oldest son, Alexander (32) was listed in the Riker household and described as a sailor.  Golden, now aged 25, remained with the family, along with Mary (20), Joseph (19)  and Sidney (17).  Indeed, the ages do not match up among the various censuses, but  military records consistently show that Joseph was born in 1839.    

As the secession crisis of 1860 escalated, Westchester County showed the same tendency toward Southern sympathies as New York City.  In the November 1860 presidential election,the county voted for Stephen Douglas and the Democrat-Fusion ticket (54%) over Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln (46%). The county's newspapers, led by Edmund Sutherland of White Plains' Eastern State Journal remained stridently anti-Lincoln, and supported the South and slavery.  While Greenburgh and other towns did fulfill their military service quotas, anti-war agitation persisted as seen in the July 1863 Draft Riots which spread to Westchester County through attacks on military draft offices, including in Tarrytown, and threats against government officials in White Plains, although the county did not see violence against Black residents as in New York City.    

Many Northern Blacks were initially skeptical about the war effort as they were not eager to defend a union that preserved slavery.  That reluctance, however, rapidly changed after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which explicitly made freedom for the enslaved a fundamental war goal along with restoration of the Union.  With Black recruitment into the United States army authorized beginning in January 1863, Massachusetts led the way in forming Black regiments, first organizing the famous 54th (immortalized in the movie Glory) and 55th Massachusetts Infantry regiments, followed by the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. Rhode Island and Connecticut recruited Black regiments of their own with the 29th Connecticut Infantry and the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery. New York, however, with a Democratic governor, dragged its feet and it was not until late in 1863 when the Union League club sponsored the 20th United States Colored Troops that the first New York Black regiment formed.  Two more New York USCT regiments- the 26th and 31st - would follow.  In the fall and winter of 1863, however, many young Black New York men, impatient to serve, traveled to New England to enlist in the first Black regiments. In her study of Black soliders from The Hills neighborhood of the West Harrison/ White Plains, Dr Edythe Quinn wrote that these men volunteered to fight to "destory slavery; to demonstrate their manhood; and to secure their civil rights, especially the right to vote."  Most men from The Hills joined the 29th Connecticut and 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery. [Quinn, Freedom Journey, pp. 29; 70-71]. So far, I've found only five or six Black men from the Town of Greenburgh who enlisted in the Civil War army and Joseph Riker is the only soldier I've identified from the village of Hastings.

Joseph A. Riker was one of these young men eager to fight against the Confederate enslavers and secure rights for his family and people. Mary A. Riker's pension application and newspaper ads state that Joseph first served in the Harris Light Cavalry (2nd New York Cavalry, regiment, named for New York's Senator Ira Harris) as early as 1862. I cannot verify Riker's service in this regiment. He may have had some affiliation with this unit although almost certainly not as an enlisted trooper.  His enlistment and subsequent service in the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, however, is well documented.

Joseph traveled to Newton, Massachusetts where he enlisted on January 6, 1864, in Company B of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry regiment for a three year term.  His enlistment papers describe him as 5' 5.5" tall with black hair and black eyes and the occupation of "horseman."  The 5th Mass Cavalry was a "colored" regiment although the commissioned officers were entirely white.   The regiment's first companies (each "company" within a regiment was typically 100 men) assembled late in January and Riker must have impressed the officers as he was given the rank of quarter master sergeant and then promoted to first sergeant for Company B on March 31, 1864.  [Note: much of this account of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry is drawn from Steven M. Labarre, The Fifth Massachusetts Colored Cavalry in the Civil War (2016) and also, Massachusetts in the Civil War.] The regiment trained for several months near Boston as volunteers filled out its twelve companies.  The colonel of the 5th Mass Cavalry, Henry Sturgis Russell, was a cousin and Harvard classmate of Robert Gould Shaw, who had fallen the previous July leading the 54th Mass in the charge featured in Glory. Riker's comrades in Company B included Sergeant Charles Douglass, the son of Frederick Douglass, who had previously joined the 54th Mass but left that unit because of illness before enlisting in the 5th Mass Cavalry.  

Serg. Charles R. Douglass - Co. B 5th Mass Cav.
(source: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site Facebook page)

Another Company B soldier, Franklin Jennings, was the son of Paul Jennings who, as a boy, was a personal servant to President James Madison in the White House, and later wrote a memoir of his experiences. [Labarre, p. 62].  The 5th Mass. Cav. found another presidential connection when Charles Francis Adams, Jr., grandson of Pres. John Quincy Adams (and great-grandson of Pres. John Adams), joined the regiment as an officer and later replaced Col. Russell as the unit's commander.  Finally, filling its roster with 37 officers and 893 troopers divided into twelve companies, the 5th Mass Cavalry departed Boston for Washington DC in May 1864. 

Col. Henry Sturgis Russell,
first commander of the 5th Mass. Cav. from Jan. 1864 to Feb. 1865
(source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/167978081/henry-sturgis-russell)

Col. Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
commander of the 5th Mass Cav. from Feb. 1865

Joseph Riker's military record is uneventful as he was present at all roll calls, and never recorded as wounded or absent on sick leave. He must have been an ideal solider and respected non-commissioned officer.  We must rely on  the chronicle of the movements and campaigns of the 5th Mass Cavalry to tell the story of Riker's Civil War experience in which, as first sergeant, he was, in rank, the senior Black enlisted man in Company B.   

To the extreme dissatisfaction of all the men, the regiment had been "dismounted" from their horses after leaving Boston and were then trained briefly as infantry. After a stop in Washington DC, the regiment was sent to the Union army transit hud at City Point, Virginia on the James River and assigned to picket and guard duty which required extreme vigilence.  On June 15, 1864, the 5th Mass Cav engaged in its first and most significant combat when the 18th Corps - comprised of Union colored troops - attacked a Confederate position blocking the road to Petersburg, Virgina.  After intial confusion, the Black Union soldiers triumphed by seizing the Confederate position and sending their foes in retreat.  

Baylor Farm was a minor clash and Union troops subsequently failed to capitalize on the Black soldiers' achievement but the battle proved significant as the first offensive carried out by Black soldiers in the Civil War's eastern theater.  The performance of the 5th Mass Cavalry at Baylor Farm was debated then and now.  The cavalry regiment was insufficiently trained as infantry and, consequently, 18th Corps commanders were hesitant to rely on the 5th in combat. The 5th was placed in reserve initially but then did engage in fighting, before being returned to a reserve position after the Baylor Farm defenses were captured. The 5th Mass Cavalry. suffered 3 men killed and 19 wounded at Baylor Farm.  

The soldiers depicted in this image of the capture of a Confederate cannon at Baylor Farm may very well have been from the 5th Mass Cavalry.
(source: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015046806710&view=1up&seq=279)

At the end of June, the regiment was assigned to guard Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout, Maryland, where it was stationed for the remaining six months of 1864. To the regiment's great joy, they received horses and were returned to cavalry service during this time. The regiment was sent back to the Petersburg front in late March 1865 in time for the last onslaught on Petersburg. On April 3, 1865, the 5th Mass Cavalry took part in perhaps the most triumphant moment in American history when they joined the first Union troops to enter and capture Richmond. Riker and his comrades would always remember the jubilation of their newly emancipated brethren who shouted "God bless you: We have been waiting for you and looking for you a long time," and cheered the Black troopers as they rode through the liberated capital. The next day, April 4, the regiment had the privilege of escorting and guarding President Lincoln when he came to tour the fallen city and received a liberator's welcome from the city's Black residents. As first sergeant of Company B, Joseph Riker would have had a significant role in all these historic events. [Labarre, p. 130-5]. 

Even as the war ended, the 5th Mass Cavalry remained in service.  As tensions rose with Mexico, the regiment was sent to Texas in June 1865 along with several other regiments, mostly Black, to guard the border. The conditions were appalling and all the regiments suffered greatly with many more men succumbing to illness on the border than had fallen in battle during the war.  Finally, at the end of October, the regiment, along with Riker, boarded ships for Boston where the men were paid and discharged from the army. Some men stayed in Boston long enough to enjoy a triumphant parade in December and deliver their regimental flag to the Massachusetts state house where it remains to this day.

Flag of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry regiment 

 

It is unclear what happened to Joseph A. Riker after his discharge from service. His mother wrote that the family lost contact with him after 1868.  Mary Ann Riker believed that her son had migrated to Kansas, Perhaps like other veterans, including comrades from the 5th Mass. Cav., Joseph sought to claim homestead act land out West. Like many settlers in the West, however, he disappeared, with his mother never learning of his fate or the location of his grave to mourn him. 

1867 map showing the location of Mrs. Riker's home along Farragut Ave. near what is now Ravensdale Road. The Saw Mill River is on the right.  The Riker house bordered a quarry and was close to a small pond that still exists.  Source: Hastings Historical Society and https://www.hastingsgreen.org/protect-our-woods/restoration-hastings/boutilliers-brook

Joseph's mother, Mary Ann, never remarried after becoming a widow in 1851. Beginning in 1885, Mary Riker, then 85 years old, began applying to the federal government for a pension. Mary's application claimed that Joseph was wounded in the head, and contracted dyspepsia and pleurisy during his service at Richmond in 1864. Mary asserted that Joseph's death in Kansas in 1884 to 1885 resulted from illnesses contracted during military service. The War Department, however, responded that Joseph's military records showed no record of any wounds or diseases during his time in the army.  Certainly, Joseph's complied service record show him present for duty at all recorded roll calls.  The much needed pension was never awarded.

































Source:  National Archives, Joseph A. Riker Pension File. 

The Riker family continued to own property in Hastings for several decades.  In 1893, the Rikers lost a home and lot near the corner of Ravensdale and Farragut to a tax foreclosure. The Riker family appeared to have held property in Hastings, primarily in the Ravensdale Road neighborhood, until at least 1940 when the the Riker landholdings were subject to tax foreclosures by the Town of Greenburgh and Village of Hastings-on-Hudson.


Background:

For the story of the families of Black Civil War soldiers in the North and their fight for justice during and after the Civil War, see, Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr. The Families Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice (2022)

For the story of the Westchester County Black experience during the Civil War with a focus on The Hills community, see. Edythe Ann Quinn, Freedom Journey: Black Civil War Soldiers and The Hills Community, Westchester County, New York (2015)

For an excellent book-length account of the career of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry along with profiles of many of its officers and troopers, see: Steven M. LaBarre The Fifth Massachusetts Colored Cavalry in the Civil War (2016)

Saturday, September 3, 2022

Greenburgh Property Tax Rates - 2022 EDITION

Get your Greenburgh Tax Rates here! All in one place! Compare.. compare... The following chart compiles 2022 tax rates for the Town of Greenburgh  (villages and TOV), county, schools and fire districts, in pretty much all the various configurations I could find. It does not include sewer districts and other such small add-ons. Nor do these rates reflect STAR or similar Veterans deductions. Just the raw rates found at http://www3.westchestergov.com/property-tax-rates . Who are the Greenburgh tax winners and losers? In the villages, the lowest tax rate goes to Elmsford villagers who live in the Greeenburgh Central school district. And in unincorporated, the lowest rates, by a wide margin, belong to those lucky householders in the Pocantico Hills school district with N. Elmsford Fire Protection Distrct. And the highest taxes? In the villages that honor goes to Ardsley villagers.  But the distinction for the property highest property tax rates in Greenburgh (possibly the world), goes once again to the unincorporated denizens of the Ardsley School District and the Hartsdale Fire District. Congrats guys!
























NOTES:

I. TAX RATES AND TOTAL TAXES DO NOT APPLY STAR DEDUCTIONS (BASIC STAR
REDUCES $80,270 FROM THE HOME'S ASSESSED VALUE FOR SCHOOL TAX CALCULATION
ONLY)
II. TOTAL TAXES DO NOT INCLUDE SEWER AND OTHER SMALL TAX DISTRICT ADD-ONS
(TYPICALLY ABOUT 3% OF THE TOTAL TAX BILL)
III. ALL TAX RATES ARE PER MILL (DIVIDE HOME'S ASSESSED VALUE BY 1000 AND
MULTIPLE RESULT BY TAX RATE)
IV.  FOR TOV: RESIDENCES ARE MOSTLY ESTIMATES AS THE TOWN HAS IGNORED MY
REQUESTS FOR THE TOTAL OF RESIDENCES IN THESE VARIOUS CONFIGURATIONS.