It’s 6:30am in New York City, and I’m writing in my room on the 19th floor of the Holiday Inn on Nassau Street, one block south from where the teenaged James McCune Smith worked as a blacksmith’s apprentice at Thomas Thomas’s kitchenware establishment. Do tell, you might say - I haven’t yet told the story here. I promise I’ll do so ASAP, as I catch up on my series on sites associated with McCune Smith’s life in NYC. But in the meantime, I’ll continue to tell the story of the current journey I’m on.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been in the archives, which is the main purpose of this research trip. I’m looking at sources and collections I either ran out of time to look at during my last trip to the NYC archives two years ago, or found out about afterwards, or - one one terribly frustrating instance - trying yet again to access a very important source that an archive has apparently lost and doesn’t appear to care much about tracking down. (I won’t say which archive - I’ll refrain for now from tattling on them publicly, though it’s been at least two years now that this embarrassing situation has been going on.)

After my morning and early afternoon session in one archive, I ended up with some free time in the later afternoon (I had set the time aside in hopes of being able to access that lost source, to no avail). So, I visited two sites associated with McCune Smith’s life that I had also missed during my trip two years ago.

First, I went to 305 Mulberry Street, where St Philip’s second location used to stand, in a former Methodist church. Since most of St Philip’s congregation had mostly moved further north, the vestry decided it was time that the church’s worship space moved with them, for their convenience. They purchased the church and held their first service there in 1857. St Philip’s remained at 305 Mulberry until 1886, when they moved to Harlem. As William Perris’s 1854 map reveals, the street numbering is the same as it was in the mid-1850’s, so I know I’m at the right location. There’s no church here now, just some flats and shops and an empty storefront.

I don’t linger long - I’m headed next to a place that closes rather early, and it’s at a somewhat distant location in Brooklyn. I drop my heavy backpack off at my hotel room, grab a slice of pizza at the shop at the nearest corner (it was just all right, not like the excellent slice I had yesterday at Joe’s Pizza), and hurry to the Fulton Street station. I take the J train east, get off at the Cypress Hills station, and backtrack about a block to the front entrance of Cypress Hills Cemetery. It’s an appropriately grey and drizzly afternoon. It sets a solemn tone, but the light rain brings out the lovely green of this lush and peaceful place. It also darkens the gravestones, heightening the contrasts between the surfaces and the engravings and, in so doing, making them easier to read. And though it’s cloudy, it’s a brightish-cloudy, so everything is easy to see.

I went here on my last trip: it’s where McCune Smith, his family, and many of his friends are buried, including Peter Williams Jr, Albro Lyons, Charles and Cornelia Ray, Alexander Crummell, and many others. (I’ll tell that story soon as well.) But there were some grave sites I missed because they’re not easy to find - I had to really do some digging, with the kind help of a wonderful and dedicated Cypress Hills employee. She retrieved and carefully reviewed and explained old records, sent me images of those records and an old map, and in many other ways helped me locate the site. I stop there first, because it’s closest to the gate. It’s where McCune Smith’s in-laws are buried: Malvina’s father James Barnett and her mother Eliza Barnett, Eliza’s mother Opportune Beaumont, and many others. All that remains is the central, handsome granite monument, with only a few of the family members’ names engraved on it. (There’s an Eliza Barnett who was buried in 1888 in another location, as the cemetery’s website reveals. But our Eliza Barnett was buried in this plot the following year, in 1889, information not discoverable in the website, and her burial is not recorded on the monument.) The gravestones that used to surround it are long gone.

Since the cemetery is soon to close, I hurry to my next destination which, of course, is where McCune Smith is buried. Like last time, I get more than a little emotional. I placed my hand on the simple but elegant marker and pay tribute. I am neither religious nor superstitious, but I spoke to his memory. I said - silently - that I hope I did well by him when I wrote his biography and that, once it’s fully edited and finished, he’d be pleased with it. (Now I’m getting emotional again. Though long gone, he feels like a very particular sort of dear friend - after all, I’ve been studying and writing about him for so many years now.)

Now - returning to this morning - the clock tells me I need to hurry. I must pack everything up, get to my last NYC archive appointment, and then pick up a rental car and head north. To be continued…