Some of them had escaped slavery and they all came here to live near land granted to them by the abolitionist Gerrit Smith so they’d have the right to vote. Though the Adirondacks were a hard place to live in the 1800s, they created successful farms and lived in a largely integrated community with the white settlers here.

But racism was pervasive at the time. While the natural landmarks of the area — hills, brooks, roads — were named after the people who lived near them, the land where these families lived was named with a slur. The slur name stuck around for more than a century — until recently, when the names were officially changed to honor the families.

On Saturday, descendants of members of both the Murry and Thomas families traveled here to celebrate the name changes.

In February, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Board of Geographical Names officially approved the renaming of the former Negro Hill to Murry Hill. Murry Hill is a small, remote hill tucked back in the woods between the hamlets of Bloomingdale and Gabriels. The renaming came from a local effort with 122 petition signatures to reclaim history and remove the racist name.

Tanya Jones, whose great-great-great-great aunt Phebe Murry was one of the Black Adirondack pioneers who lived in the town Franklin, speaks at a ceremony celebrating the renaming of Murry Hill, which previously bore a racist name. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Many maps left the hill unlabeled rather than printing the offensive word. It used to be known by an even more offensive name — N***** Hill. It then changed to Negro Hill.

Two years ago, Paul Smith’s College natural science professor Curt Stager led an effort to change the nearby former Negro Brook to John Thomas Brook. He traveled to county, state and national archives for his research.

The Murrys — Wesley, Phebe and their two sons James and John — lived near the hill and owned a 40-acre parcel of the hill.

On Saturday, around 65 people celebrated the name change at Kate Mountain Park, around a mile-and-a-half from the hill.

Phebe Murry is the great-great-great-great aunt to sisters Lauren and Tanya Jones. Susan Hendrie-Morrow and Deborah Muskelly are descendants of the Thomas family. Their families had not met in 150 years, so it was a bit of a “neighborhood reunion.”

Wesley Murry’s gravestone in Vermontville’s Union Cemetery, engraved with the words “Gone but not forgotten.” To the right of his grave is a stone for his son James. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

The Jones’ said the event was “exciting, renewing and honoring.”

“It makes me proud,” Lauren said.

She was shocked the hill was ever on maps under its old, racist name. It encouraged her to see the community embrace the name change and celebrate her ancestors’ accomplishments.

“Striking these racist names from our town’s map, it’s been long overdue,” Franklin town Councilman Rich Brandt said. “What better thing to do than to name it after the Black settlers? The families, the pioneers.”

State Department of Environmental Conservation Natural Resources Supervisor and Franklin town resident Kris Alberga said the state manages the land the hill sits on “for the benefit of all people,” adding that the renaming is not just a correction, it’s an affirmation of history. He said the state is working on updating its maps, too.

Tom Techman wrote a song about the Murry family, Black Adirondack pioneers who lived in the town Franklin in the 1800s. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Tanya said they were touched to learn the community here is still interested in their family’s story.

“There’s so much enthusiasm here for the Adirondackers that were never recognized,” local resident and petition organizer Dave Filsigner said.

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Family tree

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The Murry Hill Rounders, Ben Hamlin and Addison Bickford, named their band after the recently renamed “Murry Hill” in Franklin. Here, they perform at Hex and Hop after a renaming celebration for the hill. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Lauren and Tanya’s mother, Katherine Butler Jones, heavily researched her genealogy in the 1990s. She had found her great-great-grandparents’ marriage certificate. Their names were Edward Weeks and Hannah Diamond. Katherine learned about the Weeks family and her ancestors’ connection to the land here.

Edward was granted land by Smith in North Elba. They did not live there, as the land wasn’t good, and his family lived in Westport instead.

Lauren and Tanya grew up knowing about the Weeks family, but they didn’t learn about their connection to the Murrys until local author Amy Godine uncovered that portion of their family tree in her research. Phebe Murry was Edward Weeks’ sister.

Katherine wrote about her pilgrimage to the Tri-Lakes with her husband to learn about family connection here in a 1998 article in Orion magazine. This article can be read at tinyurl.com/569y4yjp. She later wrote a memoir on her life and her search through her ancestry in the book “Deeper Roots: An American Odyssey.”

She had pride and amazement that her family were free Blacks in northern New York. Tanya believes the privileges Katherine enjoyed growing up in New York City in 1950s trace back to the opportunities their family had on the land here.

Tanya said, as teenagers, they only listened with half an ear. Now that they’re grown and have kids of their own, they’re sharing in her excitement over their family history.

Their mother has Alzheimer’s now and remembers the family history on some days, but not on others. Tanya and Lauren said they traveled from Boston and Washington, D.C. to the Adirondacks on behalf of their mother and their six other siblings.

Lauren spent summers with decedents of the Weeks family, and they told stories about their grandparents and great-grandparents who lived here. This was the first time her or her sister got to actually see the place.

On Saturday morning, Stager had taken them out to see the overgrown cellar holes where their ancestors’ homes were.

Tanya said having a tangible link to the past was powerful. They took a pine cone to keep as a memento.

Lauren took a moment to speak to her ancestors.

“Big shoulders upon which I stand,” she told them.

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Shaping history

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Adirondack Diversity Initiative Director Tiffany Rea-Fisher said when John Thomas Brook was renamed, she saw people have pride where they had once had shame over the name. She was grateful that the work to change the name, which Brandt called a “long and arduous process,” was done by white Adirondackers.

“A lot of the labor for Black people … we have to do it ourselves,” Rea-Fisher said. “So it was so wonderful to sit back and watch these three men go HAM on it.”

She said the show of support from the community to change the name shows the collective power people hold.

“In this time of extreme erasure and violence, to have something beautiful unearthed — to have an acknowledgement, a reckoning, a reclaiming — we need that, I think, spiritually right now,” Rea-Fisher said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has been cutting “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives across the federal government, in the name of fighting what he calls “anti-white racism” — cutting programs, stopping grants and removing information about Black Americans from museums, libraries and websites.

Arlington National Cemetery removed links to biographic highlights of Black veterans from its website to meet these orders. Links for African-American, Hispanic and Women’s history under a “Notable Graves” tab were removed entirely. A page on Black Soldiers in World War II was edited to remove mention of how they “fought for racial justice.”

The U.S. Department of Defense removed and restored information about baseball great and World War II draftee Jackie Robinson from its website, and his biography was removed from the Nimitz Library in the U.S. Naval Academy, along with 400 other “DEI” books.

The National Park Service’s website had information and a photograph of Harriet Tubman removed and then restored on a page about the Underground Railroad.

The Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C. was razed after Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia, introduced a bill to withhold funding for the district unless the plaza mural was removed, the plaza renamed “Liberty Plaza” and every mention of it being Black Lives Matter Plaza be removed from the district’s materials.

In this moment of history, which Rea-Fisher believes will be studied well into the future, she said it’s important to act.

Godine, who researched the Black Adirondack pioneers for her book “The Black Woods,” encouraged people to do more research. She said there are 3,000 plots of land with 3,000 families and 3,000 stories connected to them.

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Murry family history

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Thomas and Wesley were both from Maryland. Thomas had escaped slavery and Stager said they assume Wesley had, too, since slavery was legal in Maryland. They liberated themselves, came north and got parcels of granted land.

In the 1840s, the abolitionist Gerrit Smith granted 120,000 acres in Franklin and Essex counties to 3,000 Black New Yorkers, giving them the right to vote. New York had abolished slavery but implemented a law requiring Black men to own $250 in property to have the right to vote in the years before the Civil War. In fact, at one point, Stager found that half of the land in the towns of North Elba, Franklin, Bellmont and St. Armand were Black-owned in the 1800s.

The Murry family were granted a 40-acre lot in 1846 on the northern slope of the hill.

For decades, the story about the Black Adirondack farmers had been told as a story of failure.

While many of the grantees simply owned the property for its voting value, some moved here to start families, farms and lives in the community. This part of the region’s history was overlooked for decades.

Recent research has revealed that several Black families, who lived and farmed in this area on granted or purchased land, had successful farms for the time and lived in a largely integrated community.

The historic record shows they were accepted as members of the community, but treated differently and faced discrimination. The old names of the brook and hill reflect that.

It is unlikely that the Murrys ever lived or farmed on their property on the hill. But the family moved to the area and lived and farmed at a larger property on the corner of Muzzy Road and Oregon Plains Road, near John Thomas’ farm.

Census records show the Murrys produced 50 pounds of maple sugar a year and they found a large grove of maple trees on the hill when they bushwhacked to it. This was potentially the Murrys’ sugarbush, Stager said.

Filsinger pointed out that Phebe kept the farm going for almost a decade after Wesley’s death.

“That says so much to me about the power of motherhood and women,” he said.

To read more about the Murry family history and the changing of the hill’s name, go to tinyurl.com/yc7pse8v.

Murry Hill is on state-owned land and is visible from state Route 86 — to the north side of the road, near Mountain View Cemetery, over the fields of Childstock Farms, far to the right.

Hendrie-Morrow had been researching her family tree and kept hitting dead ends. One day, she got a long message from Stager with a long history on her ancestors. Hendrie-Morrow and Muskelly are also descendants of the Morehouse family.

Stephen “Warren” Morehouse was a Black Civil War hero and Franklin town resident. He was recently inducted into the Paul Smith’s College Hall of Fame. John Thomas’ daughter married one of Morehouse’s sons.

To read more about the Thomas family history and the changing of the brook’s name, go to tinyurl.com/2smd5fx2. To read more about Warren Morehouse’s Civil War heroics, go to tinyurl.com/b47dmm4e.

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Sound of the past

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The proliferation of the Murry family story, and the changing of the name of the hill, has already inspired local artists.

Saranac Laker and singer Tom Techman heard about the Murrys from Filsinger and was intrigued by their story, so he wrote the song “The Ballad of Murry Family” in the shape note music tradition. He performed the song at the event on Saturday.

A new folk and bluegrass band comprised of guitarist Ben Hamlin and fiddle player Addison Bickford titled themselves “The Murry Hill Rounders” because they live on either side of Murry Hill and knew of the renaming. The duo played at Hex and Hop Brewing after the event on Saturday and had actually been booked to play before the hill renaming organizers set the date for the ceremony.

After the event in the park, attendees drove to the brewery to listen to them play.

Along the way, they passed Union Cemetery, where Wesley Murry and his son James are buried in the front left corner, among the graves of other Black pioneers of the Adirondacks.

Wesley’s headstone reads “Gone but not forgotten.”

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‘The Ballad of Murry Family’

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“In 1857 / the Murrys came to the Adirondacks / to cultivate their dreams / they needed to plant new seeds

And with help from Gerrit Smith / they would lay a strong foundation / and take that hard rugged journey / that led to victory

Now Gerrit was on a mission / he wanted Blacks to have their voice / and he know that they could vote if they owned land

So he gave them / 40 acres

It was rocky and hilly terrain / because the land had not been tamed / the land was cheap and wouldn’t sell / for much more than a dollar

The land had to be worth 250 / a working fertile land / they stripped, they ploughed and pounded rocks down / ’till they stood on fertile ground

From that point they did not look back / they knew they were on the right track / not only did they survive / but the Murrys prospered and thrived”