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93 For multitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African Americans such as William Lanson, documenting vital years of their lives is not a simple process.1 It is difficult to piece together, for instance, Lanson’s date or place of birth and other details of his early life, because the births and deaths of African Americans, particularly those who were enslaved or indentured, were not regularly recorded. Yet for all we do not know about him, Lanson emerges as an important figure. Despite the tumult that accompanied him for much of his adult life, Lanson prevailed for a time as a successful businessman, leader, and advocate for his community against the rigidity of race and class. The following passages offer glances into Lanson’s life of some sixty-plus years. A December 5, 1799, advertisement in the Connecticut Journal for a “runaway servant named Lanson about 20 years old,” may very well refer to William Lanson and would suggest his birth in or around 1779.2 His brief 1850 Statement of Facts Addressed To The Public and his son Isaiah’s 1845 publication Isaiah Lanson’s Statement and Inquiry Concerning The Trial of William Lanson, Before The New Haven County Court offer nothing about Lanson’s life prior to 1803 or 1807.3 Neither Lanson nor his son recorded his place of birth. In this same Statement of Facts, however, Lanson wrote: “I have been in this town [New Haven] 47 years this spring . . .”4 This confirms that Lanson traveled from another place and arrived in New Haven in 1803. In 1807, Lanson acquired property outside of New Haven’s colonial-era Nine Squares city boundary in the area that later would become the posh neighborhood of Wooster Square. When Lanson purchased it, though, it was an open field used for plowing contests, according to New Haven Historic Preservation Trust. The deed, dated March 2, 1807, listed Mary Wooster as the grantor or seller.5 Throughout the first three decades of the 1800s, Lanson purchased Katherine J. Harris 15 William Lanson Businessman, Contractor, and Activist 94 1789 to Civil War more property, a sign of business success and social and political standing. During the period of the early republic (roughly 1789 to 1825), New Haven municipal officials procured funding to make the city’s harbor more commercially viable. William Lanson found a solution to the problem of the shallow harbor. James Hillhouse, the Farmington Canal project superintendent and an abolitionist, hired Lanson to implement his vision, building a 1,500-foot extension to the stone wharf from East Rock. Lanson quarried the stone, loaded it onto scows from a jury wharf, and placed it in position. Lanson’s section of the wharf formed part of the last quarter of the structure. He built it entirely of stone, in contrast with the rest of the wharf that was constructed from wood and earth.6 At low tide, remnant stones from Lanson’s portion of the wharf are still visible. 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.7 In 1811, New Haven’s Reverend Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, commended the achievements of Lanson and his brothers. Dwight applauded them and described them as “honourable proof of the character which they sustain, both for capacity, and integrity, in the view of respectable men.”8 When Long Wharf, as it came to be known, was completed in the 1820s, it extended 3,500 feet into the harbor and emerged as a commercial and maritime hub for the city. Business offices, sail lofts, ship chandlers, rope walks, blacksmith shops, bars, and boarding houses all found a place on the wharf.9 Lanson’s son Isaiah published a brief account that described his father’s work on the Long Wharf, East Haven Bridge, and the steamboat wharf. Mr. Lanson . . . built nearly all the East Haven Bridge and the steamboat wharf, with his own hands; and also long wharf, which he built, when there was no way...

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