Help remember the Legacy of Samuel Dove and Mother Lavender

Hi my name is Edward Jackson, I am a community activist and Cornhill Community for Change board member. I am asking for your financial assistance with a proposed community project. The project is to memorialize two past members of our community who were born in slavery, and journeyed from southern plantations to Utica and proved to be exceptional citizens, each making significant contributions to the social fabric of the city. We think that their contributions should be remembered and eternalized with memorial markers it the Martin Luther King Dream Park on South Street in Utica NY.

Credit (Utica OD)

Samuel Dove - In 1820 Samuel Dove was born into slavery in Virginia. Eventually his owners sold him to settle a debt, so he his mother and siblings were all separated.

“Sam says they were ripped from each other’s arms. It’s just so heartbreaking.” – Deirdre Sinnott, Oneida County Freedom Commission

Dove is bought and sold several times and eventually marries his wife America. While at a plantation in Mississippi he’s tricked into breaking a rule but fights back and stabs the overseer. His punishment was 200 lashes which he receives over 2 days. Dove is then traded again and his wife is sold to a man named John Munn.

“John Munn, his family, the children, and America all come up and make their way to Utica. Sam meanwhile is left.” – Deirdre Sinnott, Oneida County Trail Freedom Commission

He eventually makes it Utica in the late 1840’s but was forced to leave their son Jesse behind. Dove picks up several jobs like cutting up wood and fueling the train at the New York central railroad.

“He’s very deeply involved in life in Utica. He becomes the first African-American to be a member of an organized fire brigade.” – Deirdre Sinnott, Oneida County Freedom Trail CommissionAfter 10 years of working hard, taking out a mortgage on his home and help from friends, dove was able to buy back his son out of slavery in 1859.

“He arrives, he’s 19, he’s healthy. 15 months after he gets here he gets sick and dies.” – Deirdre Sinnott, Oneida County Freedom Trail Commission

Then Dove’s wife America dies 2 years later. Years later he remarries but never stopped looking for the rest of his family. Dove passed away in 1904 but his legacy continues to live on.

Mother Lavander -

Ominous dark clouds could be seen in the western sky, rapidly approaching the street corner in downtown Utica where a small crowd had gathered to hear the well-known African-American woman speak.

Then the rains came, but the woman continued to talk. She could not read or write, but she could talk — and talk she did. Afterall, she had much to talk about.

When she was a 15-year-old slave in the 1850s and working in the cotton fields on a large plantation in South Carolina, she could not have envisioned a day when she would be free and speaking to a crowd of mostly white people on a street corner in a city in Upstate New York. And also being invited to lecture in Utica’s churches, assembly halls and opera houses.

But, at the turn of the 20th century, Ellen Elizabeth Lavender — affectionately known as Lizzie — was doing just that.

She was doing much more, though, than lecturing about her life as a slave and the inhumane conditions slaves had to endure. When she died on Sept. 8, 1928, the Observer-Dispatch reported that she “was an evangelist who died after scores of years of charity work in the city. Relatives believe her to be at least 90.”

By the time she died, she had become known as Mother Lavender and one of the best known African-Americans in the region. Quite an achievement for a woman born a slave in Macon, Georgia, in the 1840s and sold at a slave auction at age 9, never again to see her parents and eight brothers and sisters.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Albany to be with Nicholas Lavender, an African-American Union Army soldier she had met in the south. They were married in Albany. Lizzie had a son Amos, from a union forced on her by a plantation owner when she was a slave. She and Nicholas had nine children, but only one survived – a boy named Nicholas. Her hardship continued when her husband was stricken with blindness.

It was in Albany that she became interested in evangelistic work. She made her first visit to Utica in about 1883 as a member of a choir of African-American jubilee singers. Several years later, she returned to Utica to lecture on her life as a slave.

One evening, she was on stage of an opera house on the third floor of Utica’s City Hall — then on Genesee and Pearl streets — when in the audience was Edward Curran, a successful owner of a hide and leather business in Utica. He was a well-known public benefactor and it was written that “he took a lively and active interest in all important projects which promised … permanent good.”He was impressed with Lizzie’s talk and asked her to move to Utica “and take up evangelistic work among her race.” The city had about 250 African-Americans at the time. She accepted Curran’s offer and became involved in that work — and much more.

She began to lecture on street corners in downtown Utica, not only to raise money to support her family, but also to provide help for those in need. Her husband had died in Albany and Lizzie and her sons — Amos and Nicholas — lived in various places in Utica through the years, mostly in the area of Elizabeth and Charlotte streets and on Broad Street in the area of First and Second streets. She continued to receive encouragement and financial support from Curran, who died in 1894.

Lizzie believed that no one should begin a new year hungry, so she did something about it. Today she is best remembered for her annual New Year’s Day dinners, hosted the majority of times in her home.

The dinners probably began in 1900 or 1901. In 1902, it was reported that about 125 African-Americans and whites were served. As more and more learned about Mother Lavender’s New Year’s Day dinners, more and more donated money and food. Hundreds through the years began their new year in Lizzie’s home enjoying a typical holiday dinner that included chicken, turkey, roast pork and lamb, potatoes, pickles, celery, pie, lettuce, coffee and tea.Lizzie spent the rest of her life – without success – trying to locate her brothers and sisters. Malio J. Cardarelli, in his biography of Mother Lavender, “I’ll See You In Heaven,” wrote that every day of the year, Lizzie had a pot of soup on her stove for any hungry visitor. Cardarelli wrote that she said, “It makes no difference who comes to my door asking to be fed. I’ll not refuse him as long as I have something to eat. How can I, when for all I know he may be my own flesh and blood, my own kith and kin. And if he is not my mother’s child, he is God’s child just as much as I am.”

Ellen Elizabeth Lavender died in 1928 of heart disease. She is buried in the New Forest Cemetery, off Oneida Street. Her sons had died earlier are buried near their mother.

The New Year’s Day dinners continued after Lizzie’s death, primarily through the efforts of Hattie Jackson, Dr. Walter G. Hollingworth and, later, Mary “Mae” Miller. It has been reported that Amos’ two daughters, Ruth and Viola, also were involved in some of the dinners. The last dinner was held in the Cosmopolitan Community Center on Jan. 1, 1968.

(Most of the information for this article was obtained from Malio J. Cardarelli’s detailed biography of Mother Lavender. It is available at the Oneida County History Center bookstore and at Chanatry’s supermarket on French Road.)

Mohawk Valley Milestones is a history series written by O-D historian Frank Tomaino.