Maple Hall was the home of the African American journalist T. Thomas Fortune from 1901 to 1908. Born into slavery in 1856 and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Fortune rose to prominence during his more than twenty-year stewardship of the country’s most influential black newspaper, alternatively known as the New York Globe, the New York Freeman, and, most famously, the New York Age. Known for his hundreds of editorials agitating against discrimination, lynching, and disenfranchisement, Fortune entertained African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington at Maple Hall. Fortune lived there until his separation from his wife, Carrie, who continued to reside in the house with their son, Frederick, until about 1911. The house later fell into disrepair in the early twenty-first century and was threatened with demolition until developer Roger Mumford purchased it in 2017 and donated it to preservationists, who opened a cultural center in 2019. In 1976, the house was designated a National Historic Landmark and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior.
