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Sep 19, 2002 - Sumner, William Loyd Garrison, Jermaine Lougen, Samuel Ward, Beriah Green, and John Brown ..... In 1864, William Russell and his wife were ...
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C 2002) International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 6, No. 3, September 2002 (°

“For the Means of Your Subsistence . . . Look Under God to Your Own Industry and Frugality”: Life and Labor in Gerrit Smith’s Peterboro LouAnn Wurst1

The rural hamlet of Peterboro, the home of Gerrit Smith, the nineteenth century’s most famous social reformer, has been portrayed as an idyllic and peaceful community free of class conflict. The extensive documentary record suggests a less harmonious situation and indicates that the community was fraught with struggle, engendered as much by Smith’s reform efforts as by general class relations. This article examines class-based struggle through several vignettes, including a look at the voting patterns of the Liberty party in Smithfield, the social conditions of African Americans who lived in Peterboro, and the story of the temperance hotel. KEY WORDS: class struggle; social reform; labor; social relations.

INTRODUCTION When Gerrit Smith died in 1874, the New York Times published an obituary that read “the history of the most important half century of our national life will be imperfectly written if it fails to place Gerrit Smith in the front rank of the men whose influence was most felt in the accomplishments of its results.” While mostly forgotten today, Gerrit Smith was a figure of national prominence in politics and social reform movements including temperance, abolition and the underground railroad, and women’s rights, and is recognized as one of the most significant national figures in the underground railroad and abolition movements (Tyler-McGraw and Badamo, 1998). There is a great deal of literature about Gerrit Smith, most of which concerns his involvement and influence on politics and social reform at the national level (Friedman, 1980; Harlow, 1939; Renehan, 1997; Sernett, 1986; Sorin, 1971). 1 Department

of Anthropology, SUNY College at Brockport, Brockport, New York 14420; e-mail: [email protected]. 159 C 2002 Plenum Publishing Corporation 1092-7697/02/0900-0159/0 °

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It might at first seem curious to discuss Gerrit Smith in a volume whose goal is to emphasize that the relational concept of struggle is a more satisfying, complex way to approach the past than to assume that the authors of the past were discrete, autonomous individuals with self-conceived identities. There has been much ink spilled within historical archaeology about the advantages of a “bottom up” approach to the past in contrast to a more traditional “top down” perspective (Deagan, 1988; Little, 1994; Scott, 1994; Wylie, 1999). My goal in this article is to suggest that neither side of this dichotomy exists in isolation, and that our understanding of even “Great Men” and “Famous Americans” can benefit from a relational perspective that connects them to social relations. In what follows, I present a case study that focuses on Gerrit Smith, one of the nineteenth century’s most famous social reformers, in the context of relations of life and labor within the community of Peterboro. GERRIT SMITH By any standard, Gerrit Smith was a very wealthy individual. In 1819, his father Peter turned over the management of his large estate to Gerrit. Peter Smith was one of the original settlers of Madison County, New York. He had spent years trading in the area as a partner of John Jacob Astor. Peter used his close relationship with the Oneida Iroquois to negotiate a lease for a large tract of land. Between 1804 and 1806 he built a house and land office in the heart of his extensive land-holdings and moved there with his family. The estate was located in what would become the hamlet of Peterboro in the town of Smithfield, both named in his honor. Following his father, Gerrit was one of the largest landholders in the state, owning a total of over 700,000 acres in 54 of New York’s 60 counties. Smith also owned much of downtown Oswego and was the principal stock holder of the Oswego Canal which became his most lucrative investment. In addition, he was involved in railroads, banks, and many other business concerns. With all of this wealth, Smith was able to devote considerable assets to philanthropy and social reform. The list of his reform projects is extensive, although abolition, temperance, and political, educational, religious, and land reform were among his prime concerns (Frothingham, 1878; Harlow, 1939). Smith played a significant role in the creation of the New York State Liberty Party (a party dedicated to the support of abolitionist candidates), and was elected to Congress in 1852 with the support of antislavery Whigs, Democrats, Free Democrats, and other abolitionists. Gerrit Smith ran for President of the United States in 1860 on the abolitionist ticket. Gerrit Smith’s estate in Peterboro served as an important gathering place for abolitionists interested in discussing the issues of the day and planning political action. The list of people who visited Gerrit Smith reads like a “who’s who” of nineteenth-century American history, and includes Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her husband Henry, Frederick Douglas, James Birney, Charles

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Sumner, William Loyd Garrison, Jermaine Lougen, Samuel Ward, Beriah Green, and John Brown, who stayed with Gerrit Smith, supposedly while planning his fateful raid on Harper’s Ferry, which Smith helped fund (Renehan, 1997). While Smith’s reform activities took place within a national arena and may strike us as both unrelated and unconnected to his home in Peterboro, Friedman (1980, p. 23) has argued that he was committed to the ideology of cultural voluntarism. This entailed the notion that all people had the right to unfettered freedom, but also had the cultural obligation to use that freedom morally. Smith believed that cultural voluntarism could be readily achieved at the local level and in small communities (Friedman, 1980, p. 24). This context helps to explain why Smith concentrated much of his reform energies and funds in local activities centered in his own community (Friedman, 1980, p. 25). All of Smith’s activities reflect his commitment to reform at the local level, which for him was Peterboro. Gerrit Smith’s 30-acre estate, located in the center of Peterboro, dominated the small rural hamlet. In 1860, Peterboro had a population of only 350 (French, 1860, p. 393). The historic atlases (Figs. 1 and 2) reveal that Peterboro consisted mainly of dwellings, complemented by several stores, two hotels, a post office, the ubiquitous sawmill, and, by 1876, a cheese factory. Peterboro was largely a “domestic” hamlet, containing only a few services and little rural industry. The individuals that lived there operated these establishments and area farms, or worked for the Gerrit Smith estate. Given this context, the goal of our research was to examine the social relations between the Smith family and the residents of Peterboro, and to explore issues of class, gender, and labor in the context of a community that was dominated by a rare example of “landed aristocracy” in America. It is worth emphasizing that the Smiths were not simply members of the rural landed elite, implying that they just happened to live or summer there, but a family whose goals included reforming the behavior of the other members of the community—a situation in which we might expect to find a community fraught with struggle. However, much of the local history conveys the idea that Peterboro was an idyllic and peaceful community. This image originates in Frothingham’s family-authorized biography which describes Gerrit Smith’s role as a great benefactor of the community and claims that “Gerrit Smith was Peterboro” (Frothingham, 1878, p. 140). Frothingham (1878, p. 138) also states that Gerrit “employed a considerable force of men . . . the desire to employ workmen being quite as constraining on the proprietor as the necessity for having the work done.” This reference gives a clear sense that Gerrit even considered hiring workers as a form of philanthropy to the benefit of the larger community. The extensive documentary record suggests a less charitable situation and indicates that the sleepy hamlet of Peterboro was fraught with struggle, engendered as much by Smith’s reform efforts as by the general class relations of nineteenthcentury rural America. In the remainder of this article I present several vignettes

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Fig. 1. 1859 Gillette’s map of Peterboro showing the location of the Temperance Hotel.

about social reform and labor in Gerrit Smith’s Peterboro that highlight these class-based struggles. These include a look at voting patterns of the Liberty party in Smithfield, the social conditions of African Americans who lived in Peterboro as a result of Gerrit Smith’s abolitionist efforts, and the story of the temperance hotel. THE LIBERTY PARTY In 1840, Gerrit Smith played a significant role in the creation of the New York State Liberty Party, a political organ dedicated to abolition. The Liberty party culled much of its support from upstate New York, and Madison County towns consistently contributed relatively high proportions of Liberty votes throughout the 1840s and 50s. In 1850, 17% of all Liberty party votes were cast in Madison

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Fig. 2. 1876 Beers atlas of Peterboro.

County, a testament to the influence that Gerrit Smith had in his home county (Strong, 1999, p. 125, 152). Gerrit Smith’s personal papers include several poll lists for the Liberty party. These lists include one titled “Voters of the Liberty Ticket in Smithfield, Nov. 1841,” which includes the hamlet of Peterboro and lists the names of 49 Liberty party voters along with 12 individuals who were expected to vote Liberty but did not vote at all. Another list, headed “Town Canvass for the Spring of 1844,” for the town elections in March includes the candidates for the Liberty party and so-called “Rum and Slavery Party,” otherwise known as the Democrats. A final document lists the voters for District #1 in the town of Smithfield (including Peterboro) for the 1845 election of state senator. This document includes the names of 89 voters, and the party they voted for, divided by anti- and proslavery, first time Liberty voters, and those who formerly voted Liberty but did not vote in the last election. These documents make it possible to assess just who was voting for the Liberty party in the town of Smithfield and to offer some suggestions as to why. A total of 182 individuals voted Liberty, representing 54.2% of Smithfield’s eligible voters during the 1840s (Kraut, 1979, p. 124). These data certainly confirm the widespread support that the Liberty party had in Smithfield. In his analysis of these data, Kraut (1979) has argued that the most significant difference between the Liberty party and nonabolitionist voters was their occupation. About 67% of the proslavery voters were farmers, while only 40% of the Liberty voters were farmers.

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Occupations for the Liberty Men not engaged in agriculture were either artisans or local merchants, and significantly, over one fourth of these individuals were listed simply as “laborer.” Without linking these individuals to other data, Kraut assumes that these laborers represent journeyman craftsmen, “New York’s ‘bone and muscle’ [who] may have been moved by Liberty appeals that linked the interests of the slave to those of all free white workers in the north” (1979, p. 143). By evaluating these data in the larger context of Peterboro and focusing on the concept of class-based struggle, a very different picture emerges. While the small sample of names makes any statistical representation difficult, it is interesting to note that many of the names associated with the Liberty party also appear elsewhere in the Gerrit Smith papers. This might not seem surprising in such a small community where everyone surely had regular interactions with everyone else. Yet, of the 29 individuals included in the sample of transactions from various Gerrit Smith expense accounts, only 2 or 7% are listed as having voted for the “Rum and Slavery” party. This percentage is significant since half of the community’s entire population voted Liberty, meaning that there were also half who voted for the “Rum and Slavery” party. It seems clear that Gerrit mainly confined his business dealings to his Liberty party supporters. We can also add some insight into the nature of the laborers that voted for the Liberty party. Included in the poll lists are some names that occur frequently in the Gerrit Smith papers. Among these are Neal Eastman who operated an essential oils business at the corner of the Smith mansion lot. Eastman’s name appears periodically in the Smith household expense records, particularly for “pay” and cream sold by Mrs. Eastman. Smith wrote to Neal Eastman on February 6, 1847 and stated that he would give Eastman $100 to aide him in getting a home if he was to stay in Peterboro. The letter concludes, “I should require this property to be conveyed to me for the benefit of your children after your and your wife’s death” (Smith, 1847). There are many other examples of Liberty voters who were paid by Smith for goods and services. These individuals sold the Smith family excess farm or garden products such as poultry, eggs, veal, pork, mutton, lamb, lard, milk, honey, plants, and oats, in addition to services such as sawing wood, mending horse blankets, making baskets, and repairing wagons. These transactions suggest that a higher proportion of laborers that did business with Gerrit Smith also voted for the Liberty party. The Liberty party had an extraordinary following in the hamlet of Peterboro and the town of Smithfield which Kraut (1979, p. 135) has attributed this to “the influence of an opinion leader” on the behavior of the voters. Kraut notes that several of the Liberty party voters, like Neal Eastman, lived near Gerrit Smith, and suggests that their vote may have been influenced by Smith’s subtle behavior through example. Based on the fact that many of the laborers who voted for the Liberty party actually worked for Smith in some capacity, and that Gerrit seems to have limited his business dealings to his Liberty party supporters, I suspect that the real situation is not simply one of the voters emulating or being swayed by

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a social better. Rather, this seems to be an blatant example of class conflict and struggle. These poll lists were informal records collected by party leaders for campaign purposes. They recorded how voters would cast their ballot, and would thus be part of a general, accessible record (Kraut, 1979, p. 124). Since these records were archived by Gerrit Smith with his personal papers, he obviously knew which community members planned to vote with or against him. In this context, it seems reasonable that the individual laborers that were dependant on Smith’s good-graces for employment or other income would feel it necessary to vote for the Liberty party, perhaps even against their own class interests. The way that these workers cast their ballots had real and direct material consequences that might not be obvious from the larger scale perspective of what working-class interests were.

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN PETERBORO: THE RUSSELL FAMILY A common perception deriving from the published literature is that, because of Smith’s activities with abolition and the underground railroad, more blacks made their home in Peterboro. Dann (1995, p. 8) states that in 1870 the town of Smithfield had a higher proportion of African Americans than any other town in Madison County. Several well known examples have fueled this perception. Frothingham states that a southern slaveholder emancipated 50 of his slaves on his death on condition that they be taken to a northern state and provided for. Smith immediately wrote that they be sent to him, and 10 of them eventually reached Peterboro. The 10 former slaves were quartered in the “old ancestral house,” and as of Frothingham’s writing in 1877, their descendants still lived in Peterboro (Frothingham, 1877, p. 115). Given the community focus of our research and the wealth of Smith family papers, we decided to collect census information for the entire town of Smithfield. These data allowed us to link names, household structure, real and personal estate values, house values, and occupations of individuals mentioned in the Smith papers with the rest of the community. The census data also provided the means to access the residential location and conditions of the African Americans living there. The census results are disturbing. The 1850 federal population schedules are the first that give detailed information, along with real estate values. The total number of blacks and mulattos enumerated in 1850 is 55, representing 11 families. Of these individuals, 13 have occupations listed, 9 were laborers, and 4 were farmers. Only six of the heads of household owned any real estate, averaging $371. The average real estate value for the white population, with Gerrit Smith removed so as not to skew the results, is $1942, over four times the average for African American households. The 1855 New York state population schedule for the town of Smithfield contained a total of 71 blacks or mulattoes, encompassing 15 families, including three individuals who worked as servants in white households. Again, 13 individuals had

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occupations listed: 7 farmers, 4 laborers, 1 grocery man, and 1 servant. Only one of these is listed as owning land. Instead of providing information on values of real estate, the state schedules list house values. In 1855, the average house value for African American families was $300, while their white neighbors lived in houses with an average value of $770; over twice the value of black-owned houses. By 1865, the differences in house values are even more striking, with African Americans living in houses with an average value of $200, while white households had an average house value of $922. For 1875, 15 of 72 blacks or mulattoes had occupations listed: 11 were farm laborers, 2 farmers, 1 servant, and 1 teamster. John West, the only African American farmer in Smithfield who appears to have done well financially, went bankrupt in the 1860s. This evidence suggests that, contrary to the common image of Gerrit Smith’s Peterboro as being a welcoming place for African Americans and ex-slaves to live, the living standards of blacks and mulattoes in the community were much lower than whites. There also seems to be a rapid turnover in the population, with few families appearing in more than one census year. For pre-Civil War censuses, this might be interpreted as evidence of the underground railroad, but this does not seem to be the case. The 1850, 1855, and 1860 censuses show that the overwhelming majority of African Americans were born in New York state—adults as well as children. Their pattern of migration is not well understood, but seems to correspond more to the movements associated generally with lower class and laboring families, whether black or white. Many of the African Americans that made Peterboro their home worked for Gerrit Smith at one time or another. Examining a single family helps tease out their labor relations in this context. The best documented example consists of the Russells, the family of his wife’s childhood maid whom Gerrit purchased from slavery. Harriet and Samuel Russell had been enslaved in Maryland. In 1841, Gerrit tracked them to Kentucky, paid for their freedom, and brought them to Peterboro. The Russells named their first child born in New York “Gerrit” in honor of their patron. Gerrit and Ann Smith wrote a letter to Samuel & Harriet Russell on Oct. 1, 1841 (Smith and Smith, 1841). It is worth quoting this letter at length: Dear Friends, We have purchased your liberty and that of your five children, and paid, therefore $3500. In addition, we have paid several hundred dollars to defray your traveling expenses and those of the dear friend James C. Fuller who went for you. We now consent to let you occupy until 1st April next without rent the small white house opposite Mr. Schofield’s. The few articles of clothing which we let you have and of furniture which consist of beds, bedding, table, chairs, etc. etc, we give to you. We also give you ten dollars in money. And now we say to you that this little outfit is all in the way of property which you are to expect from us. For the means of your subsistence hereafter you are to look under God to your own industry and frugality and prudence. Our advice is, that Samuel should seek employment immediately in one of the large towns in this vicinity—and that the two oldest girls be put into families where they will be fed and clothed and educated without any expense to yourselves. We beg you to be very industrious—and to lay up as much as you can of your

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earnings, so that you may in the course of four or five years be able to buy a little home for yourselves. But above all, we beg you to seek the salvation of your own and your children’s souls, and to lay up treasure in Heaven.

Attached to the letter is a testimonial for Samuel’s use to search for employment that states “he is better fitted for employment as a coachman or as the head waiter in a private family or public house than for any other situation.” By November of that same year, Smith reported that “Samuel went to Syracuse last Monday to seek employment. Mary went with the Birneys to Michigan, and Emily lives with me.” The Russells frequently appear in the Smith family papers. From 1849 to 1850, Samuel was paid over $11 for chopping wood. Emily and William Russell each appear in an expense record once for “pay.” In 1864, William Russell and his wife were paid $10 “to clean.” Interestingly, Harriet Russell appears most frequently in the ledgers dating from 1854 to 1870, where she frequently collected pay from the Smiths for washing. It would appear as if Harriet Russell routinely did the Smith family wash and that she was paid about two dollars a week for this labor. We have no letters that relate what Harriet thought of laboring for the Smith family, and we might simplistically propose that this existence was preferable to their previous life of slavery. However, the overall pattern of African American labor and differential standards of living indicates that Gerrit’s abolition reform did not extend to economic equality. While Gerrit admonished them to “look under God to their own industry and frugality,” African Americans in Peterboro struggled for their very existence, and were often forced to move elsewhere when economic existence was not possible in Peterboro. E. C. HYDE AND TEMPERANCE REFORM IN PETERBORO In 1827, Gerrit Smith built a temperance hotel in Peterboro on the corner of his estate (Fig. 1). He “supplied it with the requisite barns, sheds, and outdoor conveniences, furnished it comfortably throughout, and put a bible in every room” (Frothingham, 1878, p. 152). The hotel was operated under the condition that no liquors be sold. Frothingham (1878, p. 152) describes the rocky history of this establishment: “Though the new inn was in every respect superior to the old tavern, it did not prove a successful, or even dangerous rival” to other hotels in the vicinity that sold liquor. Finally, in May of 1831, Gerrit sold the hotel property and the new owner promptly got a liquor license and “the well-appointed tavern became the most popular resort for tipplers and vagabonds in the whole county” (Frothingham, 1878, p. 153). Smith bought the hotel back in 1841 and offered the lease to E. C. Hyde who again tried to operate it on temperance principles. Gerrit described the tavern needing a good deal of furniture because of its large size. Gerrit made Hyde the following proposition: “I will lend you $250 and I will rent you for five years the tavern property—also an acre of land for garden and potatoes and—also some four

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or five acres for pasturage. I will pay all taxes and insurance. For this—loan and all—you are to pay me at the expiration of each and every three monthes sixty dollars” (Smith, 1841). Two years later control of the hotel passed to Gerrit’s son-in-law Charles Dudley Miller, who rented the tavern to another proprietor without Mr. Hyde’s knowledge. Hyde wrote a letter to Gerrit in 1847 in which he expresses his outrage about this situation (Hyde, 1847). Hyde complained that the business was so different from what he expected that he had been utterly unable to pay any rent, and credited the situation to “strong and deep rooted prejudices against Mr. Smith and the moral principles upon which the house was kept—against religious and political prejudices, and against a rival establishment which those prejudices called into existence.” Mr. Hyde blamed his failure to operate the temperance hotel profitably on the struggle between Gerrit Smith and the larger community which rebelled against Smith’s attempts to instill temperance principles. Much of this conflict stemmed from the publication of a card advertising the hotel. Hyde indicates that “Mr. Smith is not aware of the evil effected by the card which was issued when I came here and the great injury it wrought to the house and its acceptance.” According to Hyde, this advertising card was the material embodiment of the struggles between the community and Gerrit Smith over temperance. The “deep rooted prejudices” were cast with a thick brush that covered his manager as well. Hyde left Peterboro, probably poorer than he came, a victim of the community struggles operating in the area. Sometime after 1860 Smith had the hotel torn down and his blatant attempts to impose temperance principles on the community of Peterboro were over (Hammond, 1880, p. 689; Smith, 1899, p. 390). Frothingham (1878, p. 153) states that “the buildings were removed; the foundations were destroyed; and the site was adopted into the owner’s private grounds.” Archaeological excavations in the temperance hotel area of the Gerrit Smith estate recovered a very rich material assemblage. In order to evaluate the general archaeological integrity of the site, we excavated shovel test pits (STPs) in 10 m intervals across the site. Very few artifacts were recovered from the area adjacent to the Mansion House, indicating that the yard was kept very clean. The STPs in the Temperance Hotel area, however, yielded as many as 65 artifacts each, including ceramics, table and bottle glass, bone and shell, brick, nails, window glass, and smoking pipe fragments. As to the artifacts recovered, we couldn’t help but be excited and interested in the stoneware ale jug fragments, mold blown whiskey bottle and other alcohol bottle fragments, and the numerous bar tumblers and smoking pipe pieces. This was, after all, a temperance hotel containing a great deal of evidence that both drinking and smoking occurred there on a regular basis. This is not surprising since we know from the documentary record that Smith had trouble having the place run on temperance principles.

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The material evidence shows just how obviously different the Temperance Hotel part of the site was. Unlike the manicured mansion area, the people utilizing the temperance hotel just threw their trash out in the yard; broken bottles, dishes, and bone would have added to the cultural landscape, obvious to both visual and olfactory senses. This kind of sheet midden refuse is not uncommon on nineteenthcentury sites, although ideas of refuse and sanitation were being transformed during this period. It is obvious that the Smith family followed a different strategy, one that left their yard area pristine. One of the STPs uncovered a stone foundation wall that belonged to the hotel. Units dug to get a better look at the foundation and associated remains, revealed that the foundation was for the most part completely, effectively, and violently destroyed. In most cases, the stratigraphic profile was the only evidence that a structure had stood there; the only vestige of the stone wall was found in the STP. On the inside of the foundation, in what would have been the cellar hole, numerous artifacts were recovered, including a stack of seven plates that were thrown into the cellar hole while it was being filled in. All of these vessels are highly decorated and would have been expensive for their day (see Kruczek-Aaron this volume, Figs. 1 and 2). One plate (Fig. 3) is decorated with a blue transfer-print pattern based on the “Doctor Syntax” stories written about a poor and eccentric clergyman by William Combe in the early 1810s (Larsen, 1975, p. 71). The literary nature

Fig. 3. Dr. Syntax plate.

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of this pattern, and the general expense of these ceramics, makes it unlikely that they originated at the hotel. It is plausible that the Smith household used the open cellar pit to dispose of their refuse. Ironically, this may indicate that the only opportunity that Gerrit really had to control the temperance hotel was in terms of its destruction. The archaeological evidence confirms that Gerrit did indeed have the hotel torn down and the foundations destroyed. The material evidence for alcohol consumption and smoking provide direct evidence for the rocky history of the Temperance Hotel. While these alcohol-related materials could have been deposited during the period that Smith did not own the hotel, they nonetheless present compelling material evidence for his failure to impose temperance on Peterboro. The community reacted in defiance right under Gerrit’s nose, right next to his mansion house. It seems reasonable to conclude that the operation of a thriving tavern so close to Smith’s mansion had been a source of annoyance. Since Smith was unable to control the hotel, he had little recourse but to raze the building and remove the physical evidence of community struggle from his own house lot. CONCLUSIONS: STRUGGLING OVER PETERBORO I have presented three of potentially hundreds of stories about life and labor in Gerrit Smith’s Peterboro. The extensive documentary record available has made this an easier task than most historical archaeologists enjoy. However, these examples also highlight what we gain by “struggling past” typical conceptual modes that emphasize essentialized individuals, either from the “top down” or the “bottom up.” Utilizing a relational approach that directs our attention away from Gerrit Smith as a famous businessman and philanthropist and towards the struggles within the community in which he lived allows us to clarify the lives of the people that worked for the estate, the class relations operating in Peterboro, and the “prejudices” and strife that his social reform engendered. It is important to note that the knowledge we gain is not simply about the subordinate groups “without history”; examining the social relations operating within the community of Peterboro has also provided a greater understanding of Gerrit Smith himself. Gerrit’s letters and his material behavior indicate that he thought he had “it all” figured out, and was willing to tell, coerce, and impose his ideas on his workers and other community members. Their willful disregard of his temperance campaign, and “prejudice” against him, indicates that Gerrit equally bore the brunt of these struggles. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research presented here would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of Hadley Kruczek-Aaron and Melody Mitchell. Financial support was

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provided by the National Heritage Trust for the Gerrit Smith National Historic Landmark nomination. I thank Mark Peckham and Dick Waldbauer for their comments. In addition, the support and enthusiasm of the modern residents of Peterboro has made this project a truly rewarding endeavor. I also thank Hadley, Maria O’Donovan, Sam Spiers, Paul Reckner, and Rebecca Yamin for commenting on various incarnations of this paper. Any faults or misinterpretations likely result from my failure to follow their advice. REFERENCES CITED

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Tyler-McGraw, M., and Badamo, K. R. (1998). Underground Railroad Resources in the United States Theme Study, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Washington, DC. Voters for District #1 in Smithfield, 1845, Gerrit Smith Manuscript Collection, Special Collections, Bird Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. Voters of the Liberty Ticket in Smithfield, Nov. 1841, Gerrit Smith Manuscript Collection, Special Collections, Bird Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. Wylie, A. (1999). Why should historical archaeologists study capitalism? In Leone, M. P., and Potter, P. B., Jr. (eds.), Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, Plenum, New York, pp. 23–50.