Peter Wheeler commemorated in Ludlowville

This Saturday, Juneteenth, June 19, at 10:30 a.m. in Ludlowville Park, there will be a dedication ceremony of the historic plaque in honor of Peter Wheeler, a man who was enslaved in Tompkins County in the 1800s, and all are welcome to attend.

According to Wheeler’s account in “Chains and freedom,” he “was born the 1st of January 1789, at Little Egg Harbour, a parish of Tuckertown, New Jersey.”

Though he was enslaved from birth, when Wheeler’s first master died, they freed him in their will. However, he was soon stolen and sold to Gideon Morehouse — who tortured and beat Wheeler until his eventual escape — and brought to Ludlowville.

Wheeler remained enslaved and was continuously abused by Morehouse in Ludlowville until his escape in 1806, around the age of 17.

The historic marker dedicated to Wheeler, funded by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, was originally scheduled to be placed in October 2020, went up in March of this year, but the process to get it took close to two years.

The plaque project was a joint effort between Karen Edelstein and her husband, Joseph Wetmore. Edelstein has lived in Lansing for 30 years and has known Wheeler’s story for a long time. When Wetmore moved to Lansing, he too became interested in Wheeler’s story.

Wheeler’s biography was published in 1839 by Charles Lester, who met Wheeler rather late in Wheeler’s life. The biography is a series of long interviews, and around 2011, Edelstein and Wetmore took the manuscript, which is public domain, and reprinted it. The republished book includes new drawings by Edelstein, who is a cartographer by trade.

Edelstein’s profession made the placement of the plaque especially important to her.

She explained that before Tompkins was consolidated into a county — Cayuga County at the time — the records kept of deeds and land transfers were very poor. There are no records for Tompkins County prior to 1817 when it was incorporated. Edelstein said she spent a lot of time at the “antiquarian deed office, this county clerk’s office” in Auburn, but could not figure out where the house was or even get anything concrete, only speculation.

“As a park, it’s public space; it’s highly visible,” Edelstein said of Ludlowville Park. “It was the center of commerce because of the mills that were there. And [Wheeler] was very close friends with the founder, the white settlers who founded Ludlowville, the Ludlows. And we know where their house was, which is just a few 100 yards away.”

The dedication event’s date holds a great deal of significance because it is on Juneteenth and nearly 215 years to the day that Wheeler escaped — June 21, 1806.

“The omen that he took from on high that it was really time to go … was that there was a solar eclipse that day, which was widely publicized and well talked about,” Edelstein said. “So, this is kind of an auspicious time that the dedication is happening.”

While there is a detailed account of Wheeler’s life in his own words, much of the information we have from the past has been edited or silenced to assuage guilt and avoid the atrocities of the past.

In looking at how history is taught at Lansing, teachers Dan Ferguson and Isis Ivery spoke to the schools’ efforts to go beyond the state-set curriculums to give students the tools to educate themselves past the textbooks.

Of Wheeler’s story, Ivery said, “It is an important reminder that the evils of slavery touched so many communities, including our own. Acknowledging history, even difficult history, is key to understanding the inequalities present today.” Ivery mentioned that Lansing High school currently offers two electives that “allow us to delve deeper into history and social science: The 1960s and Race, Class & Gender.”

Many classes at Lansing schools “are currently completing and presenting end of the year capstone projects and presentations focusing on Human Rights,” Ferguson said. “Many of our students often choose to use the stories of local families, or even their own, to highlight how international human rights challenges continue to impact even Lansing. Contemporary stories of local personal struggles still carry a lot of weight, just as Mr. Wheeler’s story still does 200 years later.”

Wheeler’s story was featured in a walking play through The Cherry Arts in downtown Ithaca. The show, “Trap Door,” ran May 20 through 30 and centered around hidden, painful histories of the spaces we inhabit and the narratives woven throughout Tompkins County surrounding struggles for freedom.

Through dialog, music, text and sound, Lead Writer Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon created a space that was difficult, productive and provocative, by making viewers participate, actively have a different experience than they were expecting and spark conversations that continue long after the proverbial curtain.

Van Clief-Stefanon spoke to how plays and art can break down narratives that have come to be so well known and common in society, such as the flattening of Black stories and the use of the same character traits over and over in movies and popular media.

“Poetry allows space for complexity,” Van Clief-Stefanon said.

Through a pulling together of stories, the show makes viewers/participants confront these narratives alongside the history of Tompkins County from the Underground Railroad to the civil rights era to the present.

Also included in “Trap Door” is Dinah Ten Broeck, who was enslaved in Lansing.

According to archival resources from The History Center, Ten Broeck (some records list her last name as Tenbrook or Tennbrook) was born between 1813 and 1815 in Ulster County, New York. In 1816, she was brought to Lansing, enslaved by the Bogardus family and forced away from her mother and family, whom she never saw again.

On July 4, 1827, Ten Broeck was freed, along with all other enslaved persons in New York state. She remained in Lansing with the Borgadus family for her entire life, raising their children and grandchildren. A memorial to her was published in The Ithaca Journal in 1903, which included, “Nearly ninety years she had lived to bless four generations of friends who loved and respected her.”

While we do not know the whole of Ten Broeck’s story, to say that she was entirely happy in staying with the Borgadus family ignores the fact that she likely did not have any record of where any members of her family were since they were forcibly separated, nor did she likely have the resources or security to leave.

Part two of “Trap Door” is currently in the works, using feedback and contributions from viewers to weave a telling and questioning of further narratives, and will be on around this time next year.

Special thanks to Donna Eschenbrenner and The History Center of Tompkins County.

In Brief:

LYS Fishing Derby

Lansing Youth Services’ Annual LYS Fishing Derby is June 19 from 7:30 to 11:00 a.m. at Myers Park in Lansing. LYS can provide a limited number of poles and tackle to borrow, with proper sanitation between uses.

New York state and CDC guidelines will be followed, and all youth 15 and under are invited to participate. Check out LYS’s Facebook Page for more information, www.facebook.com/LansingYouthServices.