JOY, N.Y. — A man from the Rochester area played a crucial role in ending slavery 161 years ago.
News10NBC’s Emily Putnam visited the childhood home of General Gordon Granger, who was instrumental in the first Juneteenth. On June 19, 1865, Granger told enslaved people in Texas that they were finally free.
“Gordon Granger was born here and he lived here until he was about 3 and a half years old,” Sodus Town and Village Historian Sandy Hopkins said.
Granger spent his early childhood in the hamlet of Joy in the town of Sodus. His father was a farmer who managed a saw mill. After his mother died, he went to live with his grandparents in Phelps in Ontario County, where he went to school.
“And then he came back to Sodus and he taught school at a schoolhouse over on Preemption Road in Sodus until he entered into the war,” Hopkins said.
He went to West Point to begin his military career, served in the Mexican and Civil Wars, and worked his way up the ranks to general.
“Some people thought he was nice, but some people thought he was pretty gruff,” Hopkins said. “He was by the books and also if he didn’t think you were telling the truth, he would call you out and tell you you weren’t telling the truth. So some people did not like him because he was pretty strong opinionated person.”
When asked if she considered General Granger a hero, Hopkins said yes.
“He was a hero. He freed a lot of people and changed a lot of peoples’ lives, including his own,” Hopkins said. “I think he’d be proud of us, yeah. We’re pretty diversified, everybody’s welcome in this small little town.”
A small town connection to a moment that helped change the course of American history.
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