Staten Island’s Elliottville: Abolitionist Enclave, Gilded Age Retreat, Ferry Suburb

Meet the guide for this in-person, walk at 50 Bard Avenue, Staten Island. The walk along Bard Avenue traces the history of Elliottville, a Staten Island neighborhood where extraordinary people lived, from the 1830s to 1890s. The neighborhood’s history illuminates the impact of transformative cultural, social, economic, and political change stemming from abolitionism, transcendentalism, the women’s suffrage movement, and the rapid growth of national markets.  

Elliottville originated in 1839 as a therapeutic community. When some New England patients with ties to Emerson settled near each other, they formed a distinctive community that included Francis George Shaw, Sydney Howard Gay, George William Curtis, Theodore Winthrop, Robert Gould Shaw, Helena (de Kay) Gilder, Charles de Kay, Anna Leonowens, and Maria “Midy” Morgan.