Genealogist and historian Aaron Goodwin had a packed room on the edge of their seats Thursday as he worked his research magic in search of one of the founding families of the lost Seneca Village. Goodwin fascinated the crowd with details he unearthed about Andrew Williams, a landowner in the largest community of free African-American property owners in antebellum New York known as Seneca Village (or “West Yorkville” as it may also have been called). The community was scattered in 1853 when the City of New York took the land via eminent domain to create Central Park.

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