The Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses are historic residences in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The simple, clapboard-covered dwellings were built in 1848 in what became known as Little Liberia, a neighborhood settled by free blacks starting in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. As the last surviving houses of this neighborhood on their original foundations, these were added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 22, 1999. The houses are the oldest remaining houses in Connecticut built by free blacks, before the state completed its gradual abolition of slavery in 1848. The homes and nearby Walter's Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church are also listed sites on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.
The Houses
The Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses are transitional late-Greek Revival/early-Victorian houses typical of their time and place. They are wood-frame structures built atop high masonry basements, necessitated by their location in a low-elevation shore front environment. Mary's house, the northernmost, was erected first, begun in April 1848 and completed by the following September. It is of Italianate vernacular design. It is a double house, four bays in width, with opposite side entrances, and two stories in height over a full English basement. It is surmounted by a pair of low-pitched hip roofs, and there is a veranda across the facade.
The interior has undergone very little remodeling from its time of construction, and retains original doors, mantels, and window and door casings. There are indications that it was originally constructed as a single-family house, and that portion to the south was a subsequent addition. Eliza's house was built beginning in September 1848, and completed over the fall and winter months. It is a Greek Revival half-house, three bays wide with a side entrance and side-gable roof. An attic dormer in the Victorian Gothic style was added circa 1862. A storefront was extended out from the facade in 1903 that was removed in the summer of 2013. The interior was scorched by fire in the late 1980s; however, enough original fabric survives so that a complete restoration is feasible.
The Owners
The original owners, Mary (1815-1883) and Eliza (1805–1862) Freeman, were free women of color born in Derby, Connecticut, then a center in the state for the free African American population. In 1848, the year rail transportation was inaugurated between Bridgeport and New York, they purchased two adjoining building lots in the South End of Bridgeport. The sisters had houses built and initially leased them out as rental properties while they continued to live and work in New York City.
Eliza Freeman returned to Bridgeport around 1855 to work as a domestic in the home of a well-to-do sea captain, and Mary (who is known to have been a hotel chef in the city) followed her around 1861. They both died quite well off for their times and situations (Mary's 1883 obituary in the Bridgeport Standard reads, 'Miss Mary Freeman, an old and well known colored lady, died at her residence at 114 Main Street yesterday ... The deceased ... had during her life accumulated considerable property, which is variously estimated from $30,000 to $50,000. She owned several houses on Main and Gregory Streets'), and as well-respected members of the community.
The Little Liberia Community
Little Liberia was first settled by African Americans in 1821, the year Bridgeport became a municipality independent of Stratford. This was one of several similar neighborhoods in urban centers in the Northeast where free blacks gathered to make progress socially and economically. Other African-American communities developed in cities with growing job markets in the same time period include Trowbridge Square in New Haven, Jail Hill in Norwich, the northern slope of Boston's Beacon Hill, Sandy Ground on New York's Staten Island, and Hard Scrabble in Providence, Rhode Island. According to oral tradition, the name "Little Liberia" came from the community's inhabitants identifying with the new African colony of Liberia, established for American free blacks and freed slaves in the early 19th century by the American Colonization Society.