Adapted from a post written by Chris Rabb
Pennsylvania Representative Chris Rabb’s 26-year-old former self wouldn’t believe that it would take three decades for his hard work to pay off.
In 1996, Rabb accepted an invitation to present his genealogical findings at the Livingston family reunion at Clermont State Historic Site, where his great-great-great grandmother Christiana Taylor Livingston Williams (1812-1909) toiled as a young girl.
When he arrived at the reunion with eight close family members nearly three decades ago, their presence alone was a first. Other than perhaps nannies, no self-identified Black Livingston descendants had attended such a rarified gathering on the 500-acre plot, a fraction of the once-one million-acre holdings of the sprawling, dynastic American family.
Christiana was the product of rape and slavery.
Her father, Philip Henry Livingston (1769 - 1831) was a scion of the influential Livingston family of Manhattan, an elite clan of merchants, jurists, elected officials and socialites whose privilege was enriched and infected by four generations of large-scale human trafficking between West Africa and the Caribbean and the other business interests connected to — and benefited by — the stolen labor of enslaved people.
Philip’s grandfather was none other than Philip “the Signer” Livingston (1716 - 1778), a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Christiana was a skilled seamstress and, later in life, an abolitionist. She shared her story with her grandchildren who, in turn, they told their grandchildren. And so on.
Chris Rabb is the first among the “So on” generation that sought to transition family lore into institutionally validated fact.
The Livingstons did not speak explicitly of slavery when lauding their ancestors or Northern, patrician heritage. But few American families benefited from profiteering off enslaved humans more than them.
Philip Henry acquired Callendar House estate (formerly “Sunnyvale”) located along the scenic eastern bank of the Hudson River. Christiana’s mother (Barbara “Grace” Williams), plucked from one of the Livingstons’ five plantations in Jamaica as a young girl, was likely enslaved there. At 42 years old and married to his cousin for over two decades, Philip Henry raped Barbara. We do not know how young she was at the time.
From that brutal act, Christiana was born.
There at Red Hook-on-the-Hudson in 1812, Rabb’s great-great-great grandmother came into the world on land stewarded by the Iroquois for generations, before it was commandeered by the Livingstons in a state where slavery was the law of the land.
More than 200 years later in 2023, Rabb returned to Clermont State Historic Site for the Livingston Family Reunion. A small, but influential subset of white fellow Livingston descendants welcomed him as he spoke of the change that was coming and offered an opportunity to get on the right side of history. He also announced the upcoming exhibit about Christiana and their connection to the Livingston family.
Eight months after the reunion, the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation invited Rabb to speak at the “Redefining the Family” exhibit opening at Clermont State Historic Site’s visitor center.
The exhibit, on display in the visitor center through June 2025, will travel across the state this year. It is a first-in-the-nation exhibition proposed, facilitated, and implemented by the very same force complicit in slavery and institutional rape: the State of New York, courtesy of the bold Our Whole History initiative under the leadership of Lavada Nahon.
As Chris Rabb says, “this is a story of public recognition, reflection, and repair. It is also a story about resilience and reconciliation — and ultimately, redemption in the making — not of me or anyone else as individuals — but of society itself.”
The Clermont State Historic Site Visitor Center is open from 10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays and on Monday holidays. Be sure to visit before the end of June to learn about Christiana through the award-winning exhibit.
Pictured: Chris Rabb at the 2023 Livingston family reunion, with 8th cousin Vanessa Filley. Filley contacted Rabb in 2021 after coming across media coverage of his genealogical research on their shared Livingston ancestry. Exhibit opening reception: Lavada Nahon; Chris Rabb with other Livingston descendants; attendees listening to Rabb's remarks.
For more about Christiana and the Livingstons, read Clermont looks at Livingstons’ history with slavery by Lorna Cherot Littleway featured in The Columbia Paper.
In addition to being a full-time state legislator, Chris Rabb is an author, speaker, consultant & thought leader at the crossroads of entrepreneurship, media, politics, and social identity. He’s the author of Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity, published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. He’s traveled the country speaking, consulting, advocating for innovations in and on entrepreneurial policy and programs in media and within institutions.
Redefining The Family: The Livingstons and the Institution of Slavery in Early America was awarded a Museum Association of New York 2025 Award of Distinction in the category "Board of Directors Special Achievement".