Accooe Descendant’s Story Comes Full Circle In Harlem
By Mark Moore
Hi Claude,
I think this may give you goosebumps!!!
Ferdinand Accooe as a New York All Star, circa 1910.
I just found out that there is a continuous connected unbroken circle between the funeral of form New York Renaissance player John Isaacs, former Black Fives Era basketball star Ferdinand Accooe, and you, Claude.
I know you’re thinking what the heck am I talking about?
Remember earlier this year when you spoke at John Isaacs’ funeral at the Metropolitan A.M.E Church?
Well exactly 100 years ago, in 1909, that was the location of the Lincoln Theater, and the Bishop Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, whose pastor was the Reverend John Harris “J.H.” Accooe, the father of Ferdinand Accooe.
According to the 1909 Edition of the World Facts and Encyclopedia, Rev. “J.H” Accooe was the pastor of the Bishop Chapel A.M.E. Church, which was located at 60 West 135th Street, which is next door to the current Metropolitan A.M.E Church at 58 West 135th Street.
You were at a funeral honoring a legend, Mr. Isaacs, at the location where Rev. Accooe preached the gospel every Sunday, with his son Ferdinand Accooe sitting in the front row, who at that time was a member of the Smart Set Athletic Club basketball team, and from where he would go home to Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and hang out with his friends Teddy Horne and Charles Scottron (whose sister he later married).
So Mr. Isaacs, a black basketball legend, was laid to rest at the location where another black basketball legend, Ferdinand Accooe, attended church on Sundays, and where his father Rev. Accooe gave many funeral eulogies.
And you connected all of them together, Mr. Isaacs in body and spirit, and the spirit of Ferdinand Accooe and his father, when you spoke at the funeral remembering the past, in the present — as you say “making history now!”
Mark
(Mark Moore is the great-great-great grandson of Ferdinand Accooe’s uncle, James Accooe, the brother or Rev. “J.H.” Accooe — he is also the Accooe Family historian.)
Hello Mr. Moore, I was wondering if you were aware that there is a book that records earlier efforts of your great great great grandfather and his efforts to integrate the schools in Burlington County NJ while pastoring there. i can be reached at pastorgregoryscot@gmail.com for more details.
This is good. I just love the way you have all of us thinking BEYOND the dailies and connecting the dots. It really is keeping us connected to our roots and one another. Thank you both for the update.
wow 100 years later in the same church where Accooe’s dad used preach, now thats history Claude : ) Greatness!
I would like to learn more about the founding and history of the AME church in the New York City area, in general. In my hometown Beulah AME church was founded between 1825 and 1860 (don’t have the exact date offhand) by several former slaves, some of whom had successfully sued for their freedom in Indiana courts in the 1820s. One of the ex-slaves, Jesse Perkins, came to Indiana from Kentucky with my ancestors in 1816, the same year the Lincolns did. He is best-remembered for losing in 1853 in a game of whist to a priest the land which is now a prominent Catholic church and school in our town of Washington, Indiana.
In 1856 Jesse’s relative Ben Perkins was elected township clerk in our county as a Democrat, but lost support in the party when he cast his ballot later that year for John C “Free-Soil” Fremont, the first Republican candidate for President. The AME church & its founders laid the cornerstones for the DeJernetts and Harmons who would become Indiana’s first black basketball champions in the 20th century. The original church and its companion DunBar School building still stand today.
Very interesting. I suppose you realize what your networking can uncover.