Archival records have revealed some interesting history about an enslaved Black man in New York, but also how those held captive lived and how African Americans with roots in the city can trace their heritage. George Rex is recorded as having died on March 2, 1885, in Elmhurst, Queens, at the age of 89. At the time of his death, Elmhurst was known as “Newtown,” and the town’s archives — now part of the NYC Municipal Archives — show next to his name that in the category for his “occupation,” he was described as “the last slave.”
Archivists learned about Rex after Dr. Michelle Morse, the acting commissioner and chief medical officer of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, toured the archives. She noticed that manumission records — the documents created to comply with New York State’s 1799 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery — listed the date a child was born to an enslaved woman alongside any other information necessary for their emancipation.
“Dr. Morris was particularly intrigued by them,” notes Kenneth Cobb, assistant commissioner for records and information services. “The manumission records date from 1799, when New York State passed a law for the gradual emancipation. Any child born to an enslaved woman after July 4, 1799, would be automatically free — men at age 25, women at 28. To keep track of their age, they needed to report the birth before some town official.”
(Photo credit: archives.nyc/blog) Credit: archives.nyc/blog
But the records missed some details: “The problem with those records is, for example, it says the male child by the name of so and so was born on such day, but what’s the father’s name? It’s not recorded,” said Cobb. “What name did he take when he was free at age whatever? I thought, maybe the vital records we have — birth, death, and marriage records — could help fill in some of that lack of information and give these children more sense of identity and dignity.”
While they went over Newtown’s death ledger, Cobb and his coworkers found an entry for George Rex. His label as “the last slave” was probably just local recognition that Rex had been enslaved in New York. When Rex died, his death was covered in local newspapers: the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran articles about him, like “Frozen to Death” on March 3, 1885, which described how Rex, known as George Recks in some records, vanished from his home on Quincy Street near Lewis Avenue in what is now Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
The article notes that Rex had been enslaved by the Rapelye family and was believed to be the last enslaved person freed on Long Island. “One of the newspaper stories said he was named for King George, as was his father apparently,” Cobb explained, noting the different spellings of the family name: Rex, Recks, Ricks.
Rex lived for years in a small house on Quincy Street. “He lived in Brooklyn, on land from the Rapelye family. They had given him this place,” Cobb explained. “The records we have of property ownership and so forth showed the lot where he lived.”
Tracing George Rex’s lineage shows that Black families can access vital records, press reports, property maps, and death certificates through municipal archives to build family trees. Cobb encourages those interested in their own genealogical research to also consult the city’s Municipal Archives.
“Most of these vital records have been digitized and they’re online and quite accessible either directly from the municipal archives or by way of Ancestry.com,” Cobb explained. “If you don’t have a subscription, you can go to any public library and get free access to Ancestry.com. We help people do their family research using these records, which are mostly digitized and online now. It’s fairly accessible at this point.”
The Municipal Archives has a transcription project for manumission records that is temporarily paused but should startup again soon. Cobb said that will help researchers even more. “The idea is that they’ll transcribe the manumission records. You’ll get names, and then we can take those names and look for them in the vital records later on.”
The city’s archivists traced George Rex’s family for multiple generations. A marriage certificate for his daughter, Phoebe Ricks, showed that her parents were George Ricks and Isabella Crips. Isabella’s death certificate shows she was born in Virginia and buried at the “Weekesville” Cemetery in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. More of George Rex’s children were identified through the Historical Vital Record collection, including daughters Margaret and Jane, as well as sons William, Thomas, and Peter, who died young. Research into Phoebe and her husband, Joseph Trower, found at least two sons, Walter and Herbert, whose records listed Phoebe Ricks and Joseph A. Trower as their parents. “The idea is we’ll take this forward, perhaps even find some of George Rex’s descendants to this day,” Cobb said.