Thomas Breen photo
The current Christopher Columbus statue in Wooster Square.
(Opinion) The Christopher Columbus statue in Wooster Square Park is being removed.
In its stead, we should honor a Black entrepreneur who played a pivotal role in building a neighborhood that is now super-majority white. That man’s name was William Lanson.
Mayor Justin Elicker has praised Wooster Square residents for taking “proactive steps” to remove the Columbus statue. As mentioned in the mayor’s press release from earlier this week, Italian heritage should be honored in Wooster Square.
However, we should be equally proactive in both the replacement and process of replacement for the statue. In the context of the current Black liberation movement, it matters that we honor those individuals who built so much of our country, and so much of our city. Often the names of such individuals are lost to history.
In the case of New Haven — and more specifically Wooster Square — this is not the case. We do know of one such man crucial to the existence of the neighborhood: Black entrepreneur, William Lanson.
Removing the statue of a figure of genocide is one proactive step in light of a global movement. Another would be replacing Columbus with Lanson.
In 1803, Lanson moved at the age of 20 or 21 with his family to New Haven.
Entering this decade, the New Haven Wharf was severely limited in terms of capacity. In her book William Lanson: Triumph and Tragedy, Katherine Harris notes that the problem was so severe that merchants were required to transfer cargo onto smaller boats and then row that cargo into the harbor.
As project superintendent for the Long Wharf, white abolitionist James Hillhouse hired Lanson to build a stone extension to what previously was a “wood and earth” wharf. Lanson “quarried the stone” from East Rock, “loaded it onto scows from a jury wharf, and placed it in position.”
By 1810 Lanson and his hired laborers successfully completed a 1,500-foot extension to the New Haven Long Wharf.
Through the 1820s and then 1830s, extensions brought the Long Wharf 3,500 feet into the harbor. An array of commercial activity developed and sustained around the Long Wharf, including “business offices, sail lofts, ship chandlers, rope walks, blacksmith shops, bars and boarding houses.” Lanson’s extensions of the Wharf proved integral to the long term development of New Haven.
In another piece, Katherine Harris notes that
Lanson’s extension enabled merchants to unload cargo directly onto the wharf instead of transferring cargo to smaller boats and rowing it to and from the ships. While New Haven still had to compete with rival ports at Boston and New York, the city’s trade networks strengthened with Europe, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. Connecticut’s manufactured products now could be shipped more efficiently. This stimulated the demand for Connecticut carriages, clocks, wool cloth, rubber boots, arms, and hardware. Demand for these products in turn provided employment for many New Haven residents.
From the 1850s through the end of the century, New Haven was a global leader in carriage-making.
Through his steady amassing of wealth, Lanson was able to engage in neighborhood development. As early as 1807, Lanson began to buy up land just outside of the original nine squares, specifically land deeded to him by Mary Wooster.
According to Harris, prior to Lanson’s purchase this land was simply an “open field used for plowing contests.” On this plot of land he built the neighborhood of New Liberia.
Lanson constructed homes and “rented to more than twenty small families.” Lanson also “provided a needed social service for citizens who may have been forced out into the streets.” While this was largely an area of living for Black residents who faced housing discrimination by white landlords, New Liberia became a racially integrated neighborhood. This area later became known as Wooster Square.
Lanson was not only involved in economic development. He increasingly became involved in local and state politics. He sought to enfranchise African Americans, inasmuch as he himself met the property-ownership requirements to qualify to vote, but was denied this right.
One of his main arguments harkened back to the founding of the United States: “No taxation without representation.”
Instead, in 1818, Connecticut legislators ratified a new constitution with an “expressed provision restricting voting rights to Connecticut residents who were white men of 21 years of age.” Still, Lanson sustained himself as an important political figure, being named “Black Governor” within the Black community, from 1825 to 1830.
Lanson and the organizations he co-founded were also involved in attempting to found the country’s first “African” college. There was violent white backlash to this in 1831, with race riots occurring and white residents specifically targeting New Liberia (again, later Wooster Square).
In the years ahead, Lanson would slowly be stripped of his wealth, including being subject to heavy surveillance by law enforcement. Lanson lost a number of his properties and was marginalized to the corner of the neighborhood he had built. Ultimately, Lanson was saddled with increasing amounts of debt, and died in poverty in 1851.
Rarely do we in the United States honor the Black labor that built this country. In Wooster Square, we have the opportunity to do this. We have the opportunity to honor a man who led the physical construction of two of New Haven’s most important sites: the Long Wharf, and what became known as Wooster Square.
Yes, Wooster Square would not be what it is without the Italian immigrants that came to New Haven to work in garment and metal factories, and ultimately started businesses and in many cases remain in Wooster Square to this day.
Yet, neither would Wooster Square be what it is without the labor and business acumen of Black men like Lanson who poured their life and labor into developing a field into the vibrant, residential neighborhood it is today.
Alexander Kolokotronis is a PhD Candidate in political science at Yale University, researching participatory democracy in New Haven Public Schools. He is an organizer for Concerned and Organized Graduate Students (COGS) and on the Steering Committee of the Central Connecticut chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.
Onyeka Obiocha is a Partner at Breakfast Lunch & Dinner, a startup studio specializing in economic and community development. He is a proud Wooster Square resident and Board Chair of the New Haven Innovation Collaborative.
NHI Note: Independent reporter Allan Appel is currently working on a play about Lanson’s life and legacy. Click here to read his past reporting on Lanson. And click here for city plans to build a different Lanson monument on the Farmington Canal.