First Black Mayor of America

DICK CASE

It's the time of year slivers of our history drift by.

These are two stories:

Edward "Ned" Sherman lived in the Oneida Lake village of Cleveland for more than 50 years. He was said to be 100 years old when he died, in 1907.

Ned came to Cleveland in 1851 by way of Saratoga, where he was born, and Herkimer, where he barbered in the winter and drove mules on the Erie Canal in good weather.

Historians tell us he joined a small neighborhood of African Americans in the Cleveland area, including Peter Feeler, who was born a slave in Dutchess County and moved to the shores of the lake about the same time as Ned Sherman. Peter bought 121 acres in the Reed Tract in Constantia.

Historians tell us his neighbor Ned took another place in the community's history. In 1878, he was elected president (also known as mayor) of the village. He served one term.

Information provided by Barbara J. Dix, Oswego County historian, shows Ned's election by trustees after President Albert Yale resigned. Cleveland had been an incorporated village since 1857.

That we know for sure.

Barbara tells me county historians have yet to verify that Ned Sherman was "the first black mayor in the state of New York, perhaps in the United States."

That claim was staked for him by several students of history, including the late George Walter, who wrote an article in 1966, "The Negro President," which is reproduced in the book, "Tales of Oneida Lake," by Jack Henke.

"He was probably the first man of his race ever to become a village president," according to Walter.

"He served honorably and well," another account says.

Ned worked at Cleveland's glass factories and "chored" about the village. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had four children, all of them baptized at St. James Episcopal Church.

Elizabeth died of a fever in 1875 at the age of 39, leaving Ned with four youngsters to raise.

Historians believe Ned Sherman lies in an unmarked grave in the village cemetery. He's not in Cleveland's small private cemetery at the edge of town where two black Civil War veterans - Edward Wilson of the Massachusetts Colored Volunteers and Henry Feeler, a private in the Connecticut volunteers - were buried.

The Slave Jack

Jim Nakas checked in about an interesting gravestone he notices in Cardiff Cemetery, near his home. The Shue family headstone carries inscriptions for family members buried there, as well as this:

"Jack, 1800-1880, 27 years a slave in New York State."

Jim sensed a story in the burial ground, and he's right. I asked LaFayette historian Roy Dodge about the monument. He knew the answer.

Roy wrote about the Shue family and their slaves in the LaFayette Historical Society newsletter a year ago this month.

Augustinus Shue was a Revolutionary War veteran from Ulster County who brought his family of six adult sons and daughters and wife, Maria, to a farm in the town of LaFayette in 1812. They also had two black children with them: Jack, 12, and Phebe, 8.

Slavery in New York was abolished in 1827. July 4 was "Abolition Day," noted with great ceremony in Syracuse and other towns. The law of 1799 that set this in motion allowed slaves to work out their freedom with owners over the next 28 years.

Thus the monument notation "27 years a slave."

Roy Dodge tells us Phebe, likely Jack's sister, lived with Charity Shue Haynes and her husband and died in 1847. Her marker in Christian Hollow Cemetery says "Phebe Haynes."

Jack lived with John Shue, son of Augustinus, "and was regarded almost as a brother by his former master," according to the historian.