On June 5, 2005, a construction project across from Schuyler Flatts Cultural Park unknowingly disturbed an undocumented cemetery. Archaeologists from Hartgen Archaeological Associates investigated and uncovered 13 sets of human remains near a single unidentified burial found during an earlier construction project in 1998, bringing the total to 14 unknown persons at this very old cemetery site. The exhumed remains included 6 women, 1 adult male, 2 children, and 5 infants, and bio-archaeological analysis by the New York State Museum determined that they were centuries-old individuals of African descent, most originating from west, east, and central Africa. Two females were identified as coming from the Island of Madagascar, and two other sets of remains revealed women of mixed African and Native American descent from the Micmac Tribe of eastern Canada and northeastern America. The people who lived and worked at Schuyler Flatts were legally owned and held in bondage by a branch of the Schuyler family, which owned the land there from the late 1600's into the early 1800s. It is likely that the enslaved people whose remains were found there were owned by Philip and Margarita Schuyler, Philip and Margaret, or Peter and Catherine. In 1800, Peter and Catherine Schuyler owned 6 people, and by 1820, as the 1827 deadline for manumission approached, they had reduced their household to one enslaved person. One of the last enslaved people living at Schuyler Flatts was Sibbie, also referred to as Sibina, Sibby, and later Libbie because of a records error. Her grave is in Albany Rural Cemetery, where she is listed in the Single Grave Book as the servant of the Widow Schuyler, Angelica Lansing, daughter-in-law to Philip. When slavery in New York State ended in 1827, Sibbie remained at the Flatts, and according to her obituary, she was cared for by the Schuyler family until her death in November, 1862. In 2016, the remains lay in state at Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site before burial with dignity and respect at St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands, New York, where a large tombstone marks their final resting place on Founder's Hill.
