ownership rate of all New York City residents at the time. Many of Seneca Village's Black residents were landowners and relatively economically secure compared to their downtown counterparts in the Little Africa neighborhood by Greenwich Village. Many African-Americans owned property in Seneca Village but lived downtown, perhaps seeing it as an investment. Inhabitants Based on analysis of various documents including census records, maps, and tax records, researchers have estimated that in 1855, approximately 225 people lived in Seneca Village. On average, the residents had lived there for 22 years. Three-quarters of these residents had lived in Seneca Village at least since 1840, and nearly all had lived there since 1850. The unusually high level of address stability gave a sense of permanence and security to the community. At this time in New York City's history, most of the city's population lived below 14th Street; the region above 59th Street was only sporadically developed and was semi-rural or rural in character. Under a New York state law created in 1821, African American men in the state could vote only if they had $250 worth of property and had lived in the state for at least three years. Owning property was a way to gain political power, and the purchase of land by Black people likely had a significant effect on their political engagement. Of the 13,000 Black New Yorkers in 1845, either 100 or 91 were qualified to vote that year. Of the voting-eligible Black population, 10 lived in Seneca Village. Nevertheless, many of the residents were still poor, since they worked in service industries such as construction, day labor, or food service. Only three residents could be considered middle-class as measured by occupation, of which two were grocers and the other was an innkeeper. Many Black women worked as domestic servants. However, historian Leslie M. Harris holds that the African-American middle class of the time should be judged by educational and social criteria that were different from that of the white middle class. Many residents boarded in homes they did not own, demonstrating that there was significant class stratification even with Seneca Village's high land ownership rate. Maps show that residents had gardens, likely to grow food for their own consumption. The residents likely also relied on the abundant natural resources nearby, such as fish from the nearby Hudson River, and the firewood from nearby forests, as well as driftwood.