Hannah Johnson

Hannah Johnson

(ca. 1799 - 1883) Hannah Johnson is a Black woman who lived with her husband John in the predominantly white township of Wheatfield, near the village of Tonawanda. Popularly known as "Black" or "Aunt" Hannah, she is a reputed fortune-teller (teacup reader) who is visited by ladies of the area to have their future told. She is also said to have sweets and treats at the ready for the local children who visited often.

Her obituary says she was born "in bondage" in Albany around 1800. In 1825 the Erie Canal is completed, and in 1827 slavery is abolished in New York State (after a period of "Gradual Emancipation"). It is believed Hannah came to North Tonawanda about this time. One later writer relays the recollection of an old-timer that Hannah Johnson is part of a "small colony of blacks" that settles along the banks of Tonawanda Creek. According to this account, the blacks' cabins are burned in a raid by locals, and their belongings thrown into the creek. 

Another account from resident Brenda Fire Flateau maintains:

My Great Grandfather Zaggel was involved with the Underground Railroad. He took in the slave known as "Black Hannah" until her husband caught up with her. She stayed with him and then in the woods across from his farm, which was his property.

Hannah Johnson lives in a cabin near a medicinal sulphur well in the vicinity of present-day South Meadow Drive, close to East Goundry (see maps in this set). The cabin is on the property of Dr. Jesse F. Locke (1810-1861), the area's first resident physician (two Lockes are noted in the business directory of this 1860 map). Other blacks, some from the south, appear on census reports. An 1850 census shows (Farmer) John and Hanna Johanson from NY, black, with Henry Hall from Virginia, Joseph (black, Canada b1812)  and Ann Polly (a female "mulatto" from Ireland b1820), and a Stephen Smith (black, Ireland, b1815), all in a frame dwelling. The 1855 census shows Hannah hailing from Albany, John from Washington, and a "Henry Hall" from Maryland. Also says each had been in the city for the last 25 years.

Jesse Locke dies March 12, 1861. A farmer by the name of John Chadwick takes ownership of the larger property containing the Johnsons' cabin. Some sources say Mr. Chadwick grants them a life-long lease on the property, but the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage report suggests John Jonson already owned at least some portion of land by 1850, perhaps purchasing directly from Dr. Locke. John Johnson dies sometime before 1870. From 1872 to 1882, a John Fonner who lives nearby challenges Hannah's ownership claim in court, and John Chadwick assists her.

Hannah dies in 1883 after an illness of two weeks. It is rumored that non-native flowers grow on the site (unusual red trilliums grew during her lifetime). She is buried in Sweeney Cemetery.

Hannah leaves an impression on the imagination of the citizenry, as she figures for decades afterward in its ghost tales, and "Black Hannah's Woods" are whispered to be a haunted realm. Her story is resurrected and recast in a poetic and affecting 1961 News essay by Elizabeth Wherry. The tale is taken up again in a February 1982 edition of the local historical magazine The Lumber Shover.

Although it is not settled, it seems at least possible that Hannah's cabin may have served as a stop on the Underground Railroad for blacks escaping slavery. A document on the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area website (page 192) offers some measured reflections on the subject.

A "Hannah Haines" is buried near the Zaggel family in Sweeney Cemetery; A person of the same name is found in the 1865 state and the 1870 U.S. Census living in Wheatfield with a "Brown" family (like her, from Maine and New England). However, her grave gives her death as the 1870s (HJ died in 1883), and the census gives her race as white. Obit in Ton Herald 1877-08-28 spelled "Hannah C. Haynes."