n-Americans in the Village lived in harmony and attended church together and buried their dead in the same cemetery.Spirituality was very important to the residents of Seneca Village. Three churches were built in the Village along with three cemeteries. Not much is known about the first church, the African Union Methodist Church, which is believed to be founded in 1837. It contained a school in its basement, which became the example for the schooling of African-Americans in New York City. The second church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Branch Militant, an affiliate branch of the AME Zion Church, planted the cornerstone for a church with the capacity to house 100 people. There were also plans to for a school in the basement.The AME Zion Church had burial vaults in their churchyard located in lower Manhattan, but the City Council felt that the burial sites contributed to the rise in yellow fever. The Council granted temporary space in potter’s field but once it was filled to capacity, the church bought land in Seneca Village for burial use. The Church had at least two large burial sites located south of 86th Street. A new site in Brooklyn, the Cypress Hills Cemetery, was the new site for the church due to a new law that banned all burials below 86th Street.The third church, the All Angels’ Church, was built on land donated by a couple of women. The membership of the church was approximately one-third European and the rest African-American. Records from the church indicate that many people died of a cholera epidemic that occurred between 1848 and 1850. Once the law that limited burials south of 86thStreet was enacted, the congregation moved their burials to St. Michael’s cemetery in Astoria, Queens.Acquiring additional burial sites for their deceased in other areas of New York was a barometer of the remarkable increase in landowners, as well as residents, of Seneca Village. Racial tension appeared...
