 The three lots on which the village was established were purchased in 1825 by Andrew Williams for $125 ($ in current dollar terms), and sold by him to the City of New York three decades later for $2,335 ($ in current dollar terms).In the mid-19th century it was a shanty-town, and it may have been populated by free blacks in the early 1800s.The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was at this location.