Part owner of the Chicago and Erie Stove works and co-founder of Erie City Iron Works (and therefore one of the pioneers of Erie’s important iron industry), Himrod (1791-1873) used his home at Second and French Streets to house the “Sabbath School for Colored Children.” He is best remembered for having established the community of “New Jerusalem” as a community for free blacks and destitute whites. Encompassing the area north of Sixth Street and west of Sassafras to Cherry Street, New Jerusalem offered lots at affordable prices with the requirement that they build a home and help forge an interracial community. Himrod also became one of the incorporators of the Erie Cemetery, where he was buried.