Lost Inwood (dinner seating before presentation)

Near the turn of the 20th century, New York City's housing, street grid, and subway infrastructure were about to reshape the bucolic landscape of Northern Manhattan, from one of verdant farmland to flat cityscapes. But this urban revolution was to come at a steep price: not just at the cost of a couple of million dollars, but to the ancient and invaluable relics belonging to the Lenape people, Dutch settlers, Revolutionary War soldiers still buried beneath the area's untouched soil. This is the incredible story of a rag-tag group of amateur archeologists who joined forces in a race to save the history of Manhattan before it was gone for good.

Join Lost Inwood as we explore the remarkable legacy of New-York Historical Society's Field Exploration Committee — described by The New York Times as "emergency historians," this group raced to sites around Northern Manhattan to preserve buried items before they were destroyed by urban expansion projects.

Led by uptown historian and best–selling author Cole Thompson, our experience surrounding these historical treasure hunters and protectors — celebrities of their day — will include:

• The origins of the Field Exploration Committee at the New-York Historical Society in the late 1800s

• The members of the group, which consisted of photographers, artists, a subway engineer, a librarian, and an insurance publisher

• Lenape era explorations that uncovered intact pottery, tools, and other artifacts associated with the daily life of Native people

• A look at rare photographs documenting the methods employed in locating shell middens, Revolutionary War artifacts, and human burials

• Stories from the team's missions, including the exploration of a forgotten Uptown cemetery where the bodies of enslaved humans were interred before slavery was abolished in New York

• The 1916 discovery and reconstruction of a Hessian Hut behind the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum on West 204th Street and Broadway

We hope to see you there.