Jackson Heights Life

Queens College professor discovers tombstone of abolitionist, who died in 1861
BY LISA L. COLANGELO
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, June 9, 2014, 9:14 PM

He’d be rolling in his grave.

The 153-year-old tombstone of famed abolitionist Wilson Rantus has mysteriously turned up in the backyard of a Queens College professor’s home, The News has learned.

Allan and Elaine Ludman returned from Peru last month to find the 200-pound marble slab in the backyard of their Flushing home — more than 150 years after the headstone was planted at Rantus’ one-time family estate a mile away.

“This is a piece of history that has to be preserved,” said Allan Ludman, a professor at the school’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science, who said he was puzzled why someone hauled the headstone over his 4-foot fence.

Born in Jamaica, Queens, in 1807, Rantus rose to become an educated farmer and activist who owned land across Queens. He became one of the largest landholders in Jamaica while working with pioneering African-American journalist Thomas Hamilton to launch “The Anglo-African” magazine in 1858. He died in 1861.

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Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/grave-mystery-abolitionist-tombstone-turns-queens-backyard-article-1.1823209#ixzz34F6f5SDD