From the Bronx to Pine Plains: How a war changed two lives

PINE PLAINS — With Pine Plans being about a two-hour drive from the Bronx, one might wonder how there can be a connection between the two places. 

For the answer to that, the Little Nine Partners Historical Society (LNPHS) invited Bill Jeffway, executive director of the Dutchess County Historical Society, to give a talk on the subject on Saturday, Nov. 18, in the Pine Plains Free Library’s Community Room.

Introduced by LNPHS President Dyan Wapnik, Jeffway presented a treasure trove of slides containing pictures, documents and historical tidbits that gave the audience of more than 50 a look into how the Revolutionary War turned the fortunes of wealthy landowner Morris Graham and enslaved individual Andrew Frazier. The lecture was the final event in a year-long celebration of Pine Plains’ bicentenary.

The two men, instrumental in settling Pine Plains, were very different, but with the common denominator of both having been born in Morrisania, or as it is known today, the Bronx. Frazier was born enslaved, possibly of European-African ancestry, and his birth was noted in the Graham family Bible, as was often the case of slave births at that time. The Grahams were known to be large slave owners, and may also have been in the slave trade.

Frazier became a wagoner during the Revolutionary War, serving with Morris Graham, whose family “owned” him. Frazier was a wagon team leader, and some of his duties entailed transporting prisoners, and delivering captured arms to the furnaces in Amenia to be melted down for reuse. The story that evolves from the time of the onset of the war, through the very long life of Frazier, who died at around the age of 103, was the tale that was told at the event. It is not only the story of two men, it is the story of the beginning of Pine Plains, of one man obtaining his freedom, and the legacy he left behind. It is also the tale of how fate plays a part in the important aspects of history, and determines the continuity and fortunes of a family and a town.

Graham built a stone house, the first in Pine Plains, in 1772, which stands to this day, after his father, one of the original Nine Partners, died, leaving his holdings to his many children. His is not the famous Graham-Brush House we hear so much about — that house is associated with Graham’s brother Lewis — but another one situated just off Route 82. 

During the war, both men — Graham and Frazier — fought in the battles of Harlem and White Plains. Graham’s funding of the militia he raised may have cost him much of his wealth; he was declared “insolvent” and his house was sold off in 1798. He died in 1804 at the age of 58, single and childless in Deerfield.

Frazier, on the other hand, lived to a ripe old age, married, bought land, settled and farmed in Milan, where he raised a family of 11 children. He spoke often of the war, and recounted having met Gen. George Washington. 

His great-granddaughter Susan Elizabeth Frazier was active on the issues of women’s and African Americans’ rights. She was a substitute teacher in New York City Public Schools  when opportunities for African American women were extremely limited. Eventually, after going through the legal system and courts, she was appointed a teacher in the New York City schools. During World War I, she was president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Old Fifteenth National Guard, an African American troop; she continued to work with it after it became the 369th Infantry. 

Jeffway lives in Milan and serves on the research committee of Celebrating the African Spirit in Poughkeepsie and the committee of the Vassar College Inclusive History Initiative.