Middletown, Connecticut
An Ignored African American History
by
Rudolph Elmore Young
1
Introduction
In 1987, the Carson-Young family reunion was held at Cross Street
A.M.E. Zion Church in Middletown, Connecticut. Most African
Americans family reunions are held where the most family members live.
This reunion was held where the local history is most interesting to family
members. This is not a family history. The Carson-Young family lived in
Middletown, Connecticut, Connelly Springs and Vale, North Carolina. All
three African American communities came about through the Great
Migration. Middletown, Connecticut was the last stop outside the South.
There have been African Americans in Middletown since 1661, but
there was not a wave of African Americans migration until the 1920‘s
and 1930’s. The Africans American migration came on the heels of the
Sicilian immigration. The African Americans, like the Sicilians, a people
of color, came for a better way of life; they worked hard, and improved
their lots. Unlike the Sicilians, the African American middle class is
migrating back to where they originated, in Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina and Georgia. The interaction of these two groups was
negative in nature, but both groups seem to have developed “selected
amnesia”. The African American migration was invisible to the residents
of Middletown. Most of the African Americans who are part of the present
day out migration are not the descendents of the original migration. The
African Americans that were at the South end are not the same people at
the North end, Today.
Ethnic Sicilians call themselves white people, not people of color and
exhibits racism worst than the Anglo Saxons who created the racist
2
system. Sicilians
have the national origin of Italian, but they are not
ethnic Italians or white. They are people of color, regardless what they call
themselves. They became people of color after they were colonized by
North Africans and others.
I was once on a NATO military exercise with Italian troops. The
ethnic Sicilians were not treated like other Italians and the Sicilians in my
unit had trouble with the language spoken in northern Italy.
The ethnic group called Anglo Saxons set the rules for race and
ethnicity and the world is expected to follow those rules. No one can opt
out of the system in this country. I noticed that the Sicilian population of
Middletown is lighter than they were when they first came to this country.
The Sicilians developed a color bias against darker Sicilians
. They
would deny this fact. African Americans, on the other hand, are “color
struck”. They have had this color bias for hundreds of years. As a result,
Africans Americans was 25% mixed at the end of slavery, but now 98% of
all African Americans have one or more European ancestors. This mixture
is present regardless of physical appearance.
You Cannot Opt Out
Americans have always had a twisted view about race. Many have
tried to opt out of the Anglo Saxon system. All have failed.
In the 1920’s,the Middletown , Connecticut Tribune reported that Ida
Williams, a tall well formed white girl with a rather pretty face , had
renounced the Caucasian race and married a negro doctor , Frank
Williams , because she was displeased with treatment accorded her by
members of her own race. She was married in East St. Louis, Ill., by Rev.
B. M. Campbell, a Negro preacher.
3
The story came to light through the statement of Mrs. Anne Lane that
Ida had been kidnapped by Williams. Investigation revealed that she had
become tired of suffering among her own people and had accepted
Williams as a husband because he administered to her wants and treated
her with unusual kindness.
“I was an orphan”, she said.” I was sick and in want. The only
assistance I got was from Williams”. “My own people jeered at me when I
asked them from help. So I became a party to my own resolve”. “I am a
Negro at heart, if not by birth, and want nothing more to do with my race.
My husband is black, but his heart is white”.
The couple lives in a humble apartment at 716 Sixteenth Street in E
.St. Louis. The girl was born in England and is 18 years old.
PART ONE
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
From the rural South to a small town in the North
FOREWORD
Have you heard of the True Vine Fire Baptized Holiness Church of
God? The church is located in a house on Main Street in Portland, Ct.
True Vine was originally established in a house near the campus of
Wesleyan University in 1920. The congregation was made up of African
American migrants from South Carolina. These migrants brought their
church denomination to Middletown. The
Fire Baptized Holiness
Church of God in the Americas was established in Greer , South Carolina
in 1906. The South Carolina migrants revived the local African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church in Middletown and officially named the church
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Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church. This was fitting, since a former member
of the Methodist denomination helped establish their original Holiness
church back in South Carolina.
These migrants are not mentioned in the history of Cross Street
Church or the history of Middletown. These families were called Young,
Smith, Ruffiin, Taylor, Hunter, Alford, Fasion, Varine (Vereen), Wilson,
Bartell, Johnson and Jenkins.
In 1930, Horace Jenkins was a patient at the hospital. He was born in
1867. He and his wife Annie came from Bennettsville, South Carolina.
She was born in 1896. They were from Marlboro County and knew the
Jerome Bird family in nearby Darlington. Bird operated a barbershop on
Sumner St. The Jenkins had two daughters. Annie who was born in 1917
and Alma who was born in 1927.
The migrants arrived in Middletown only to find that there was no
stable place of worship for African Americans. The Cross Street Church
had been sold and the church boarded up. While the building waited to be
moved, the trustees were in a legal struggle with the A.M.E. Zion
Conference for having sold a church that they didn't own.
The early migrants were mostly from South Carolina. Those from
Eastern North Carolina arrived on the tail end of the Great Migration.
They worked first in the tobacco industry but could not compete
successfully with West Indian labor. By the 1950s the East Carolina
migrants was concentrated in the rubber industry in Middletown. These
migrants came from the Bertie County area in North Carolina.
The First Migrants
Thirty five years later, in 1955, Frances Young Randolph
followed her uncle, Jesse Young to Middletown Ct. Jesse Young was one
of the first three migrants to arrive. He started from Vale, in Western
North Carolina in 1919 and arrived in Connecticut about the same time the
Mt. Calvary Migration from Middle Georgia started arriving in Vale.
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Frances Young Randolph was born in Vale in 1934 and died in Apple
Valley, California in 2006. Along the way to Middletown, Jesse spent
some time working at a Winston Salem tobacco barn. Jesse also met the
McCrae and Moody families during his travels.
Jesse followed Edmond McCrae to Middletown from Virginia where
he first met him. Edmond had come up from Raleigh. They drifted into
town and settled in the area of Union, Morgan, and South Streets during
the time that the first of Polish residents were moving out of the South end
neighborhood. The African Americans made this new neighborhood their
new community.
This was part of the Great Migration that went from rural South to
small town in the North. For some reason these migrants avoided the
larger cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia.
The Mt. Calvary Migration was from rural Georgia to rural North
Carolina. These migrations avoided any town or city of any size. These
African Americans had relatives who went on to Detroit, Cleveland and
Chicago. Migrants were always associated with a local church; they
brought the Primitive Baptist Denomination to Vale, like the Holiness
Church was brought to Middletown.
The Southern migrants arrived in Middletown and met immigrants
from Sicily and Poland whom they had to compete with for jobs and
housing. The African American community was developed in the same
way as these immigrant groups. There are no identifiable Polish
communities in Middletown today. They totally assimilated into
Middletown society. Poles were considered to be white people, so it was
easier for them to assimilate. Some immigrants from Poland were also
Jews. The Sicilians, like African Americans, were people of color. There
are no African American communities of migrants or their descendents in
Middletown, They are scattered around the city. The black people who
replaced the Sicilians in the North End of Middletown are not part of the
original migration and are not the descendents of the original migrants.
Racism made the migrant community invisible. When migrants started
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arriving in Middletown in the 20's and 30's, the white people did not
realize that they were dealing with two different communities. The
migrants were separate from the blacks who were here already. Both
groups together are numbered about 57 people. The migrants established
their own church in a house on the university campus, the university
thought that this was part of the Cross Street congregation. After the
Cross Street Church property had been sold illegally by the trustees,
trouble started. It appeared that the trustees where agents of a Conference
and not the local church.
In 2012, the white people in Middletown still do not acknowledge
the two African American communities. All black people are not alike,
African Americans are judged as the worst people in this society. Black
people on the North End are considered by whites standards, to be the
worst group of African Americans in the town. This being said, all the
blacks are still being judged the same. The black people in the North End
do not live in a community as we understand it. The neighborhoods are not
communities. The North End has become the dumping ground for both the
state hospital and drug rehab program. Larry Owens told me that where
there is a homeless shelter, there is drug dealing in the area.
MIDDLETOWN BEGAN ON JULY 4TH 1991
My nephew Joshua Owens is a typical descendent of the Great
Migration. He thinks the world began when he was born.
“I, Joshua Owens, was born in Middletown Ct, July 4th 1991, I am
told that I am a descendent of the Great Migration. I don't see how that
makes any different in my life. When I first stood up, I stood up in the
United States of America. I have been told this in a family narrative that I
have no way of verifying.
My great uncle said that my great grandparents came to Middletown
from Georgetown County, South Carolina. Which is in the GullahGeechee belt, from Wilmington, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida.
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They moved to Sumner Street in Middletown Ct, which is on the South
End. Frank Vereen Sr. and his wife, Luddie, purchased a house there. My
grandparents were born there. Frank Vereen Jr. and Clara lived with
them. Their daughter Victoria Susan Vereen married Larry Owens of
Virginia. Both families were migration families. The Youngs came from
Western North Carolina. Jesse Young was the first to settle down in
Middletown in the year of 1919. He married Mary McArthur. Shortly
after the Youngs arrived , the Cross Street Church closed. In 1927, they
attended True Vine Church in Portland. My great great grandfather said
we were related to Ben Vereen the actor. Ben Vereen played the role as
Chicken George, in the 1977 mini TV series "Roots". Although,
eventually we learned that Ben had been adopted into the Vereen family in
Florida. His real name is Ben Middleton from the Sand Hills of eastern
North Carolina.
The Westons family was the other migration family who are related
to the Vereens.
"I graduated from Middletown High school in 2009."
100 Years before the Migrants Arrived
There was a black community already in Middletown when the
migrants arrived , this is not in the old Beman triangle community. The
old beman triangle community was a victim of outside developers, foreign
immigration and the great depression. The original resident of the Beman
triangle community had moved to Middletown or other neighboring cities.
They did not commute back to the church. There is a rule in African
American history that says "you will lose your community if you are
separated from your church". The newly arriving migrants were priced out
of the neighborhood. After all, they had migrated there because they were
broke. The Italians resented their arrival and protested the removal and
establishment of cross street church down on cross street.
8
In the 1820s, the system of chattel slavery, reigned in Connecticut,
along with a community of free persons of color. Middletown had long
become rich, indirectly, on the slave trade. According to tradition, Asa
Jeffrey came to Middletown on a trading vessel from Georgia. There are
not any documentations of the origin of Asa Jeffrey that have been found.
Asa was a farmer and sometime seamen. A tiny congregation of Christian
often met regularly at his home.
In 1823, representatives of Washington College came to Middletown
seeking a place to establish their college. They found the former campus
of a military institute. Washington College was not able to purchase land
from Henry Paddock, near the old campus. Washington College
established their college in Hartford and Paddock sold the land to Asa
Jeffreys Congregation. Washington College is known as Trinity College.
Asa Jeffrey lived in Middletown and became an influential member
of the A.M.E. Zion Church in Middletown, a church that was unofficially
called the Cross Street Church.
Asa Jeffrey's family moved to Meriden and then on to New York.
Asa ended up in Michigan. He and his sons were barbers, tavern
operators, entertainers, land owners and lumber men. Asa Jeffrey first
settled in Canada before moving across the border into Michigan.
George Jeffrey remained in Middletown. He moved to Meriden where he
became a barber and a well known politician.
THE MIGRANT COMMUNITY
Most African Americans living in New England, Connecticut and
cities like Middletown have no local historical connection beyond the
Great Migration, [1914-1945]. The Wormsley family seems to be one of
the few African Americans families with roots back to the 1700s. They
came from Rhode Island to Middletown.
The African American communities actually confirmed the fact that
they did not have deep roots in Connecticut. A black church in New
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Haven celebrated "North Carolina Day". Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church
in Middletown used to have "State Day" as a fundraiser. Most of the
members roots are from South Carolina.
Their concept of African American history is found in the Southern
plantation model. Plantations, as we know them, did not exist in New
England.
These emigrants from the South had continuity of culture in the same
way as the foreign immigrants.
At this point, you might ask. ”What do ethnic Sicilians have to do
with the African American migration"? Sicilians immigrated from Europe
and African Americans migrated from a region within the United States.
Sicilians are people who had arrived in Middletown a couple of decades
before African Americans and served as the immediate model for
immigrants. African Americans are compared most often with Sicilians
and Sicilians are African Americans greatest critics. Regardless of what
these immigrants say or think about themselves, the Anglo Saxons who
were already in Middletown set the rules on race and color.
Even though African Americans were in Middletown as early as 1661
as free person and or slave, the modern African American emigrants in
Middletown are not aware of the small prosperous black community of the
antebellum Middletown.
During the 1920s, the community flourished. Today, we are in the
second generation since then and the community is during well. On the
contrary; The African American families that were not part of the Great
Migration are in big trouble.
These early emigrants to Middletown had a modest, but a good start.
The Africans Americans who came later were poor and unable to lift
themselves out of poverty. Being poor in the African American
community have never been the root cause of the problems these families
face. The cause is having been the victims of racism and discrimination
that has caused problems in parenting. Being poor and victims of racism
have become convenient excuses. Victims- in- the Hood is not a valid
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excuse. The mind set of African Americans in Middletown is different
than those who arrived earlier.
The Problems of African Americans during and right after slavery
were the same problems that they have now. The attitudes of white people
are also the same. The problems of African Americans need not be
studied, they haven't been studied enough.
Americans do not see themselves in their own historical reality; they
tend to see themselves in the illusions they have created.
Even when Africans Americans read about slavery in Connecticut,
They do not recognize the Southern elements of this vile institution.
*Denis Caron wrote about a slave called Prince Mortimer in Middletown
and missed this very point.
It is in the fiber of American society for racist to believe that African
Americans receive what they do not deserve. This racist belief is the basis
of the concern that African Americans get undeserved public assistance.
Today, this translates into welfare, they criticize blacks on welfare, but it
is alright for white people.
Slaves made money for someone's private business interest. To take
care of a used-up slaves in the public sector was far worse than public
bail-outs. To liquidate an asset like a slave meant a moral slippery slope.
In 1863, the American Freedmen Inquiry Commission under
Secretary of War E.M. Stanton concluded that 100% of all African
Americans who received public assistance also accepted a job.
The government off -set the cost of the program through workfare. At
that time alcohol was the drug of choice, the commission said that it had
not seen a drunken African American. This condition must have been very
rare.
Keep in mind, 25% of all freedmen who went behind Union lines
died of sickness, disease or starvation. Black woman were sexual
exploited and we know now, that slave were sent to Cuba to remain in
slavery or enslaved on the plantations of so called "loyal union men".
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The commission also addressed the issues of African American
fathers and concluded that children turned out well even though the fathers
were in the home and spent little time with the mother and children. The
time the fathers spent was short but it was quality time. A heavy work
schedule kept the father away.
SLAVES IN MIDDLETOWN
The Prince Mortimer story was no more than the dilemma in which
slave owners often found themselves. Buying a slave meant that you had
to decide what to do with slaves that had out lived their useful working
life? The most extreme solution was to kill them, as some southern slave
owners did. Denis Caron seems to have missed a sad truth about slavery.
The harshest form of Slavery grew from the south to become northern
slavery, thus becoming less developed. On large plantations, the “slave
gardens” came into existence. Slaves were expected to feed and take care
of other old and infirmed slaves. Larry Owens’s community garden is a
modern day version of the plantation garden. Under no circumstances
should a slave owner allow his slave to become a ward of the county or
the state or become a liability of the plantation owner. Slave owners
believed the Biblical principle that if you do not work, you do not eat.
This principle was modified to if you can’t work, you do can’t eat, either.
Larry Owens’ concept of a community garden is not so far removed
from what have existed before. I WISH HIM SUCCESS.
Prince Mortimer’s owner made him a ward of the state by dumping
him on the prison system. Any rational person could see through the
tromped –up charges of attempted murder. Prince beat the odds on Captain
Starr’s gamble. At 87 years old, sick and infirmed, Prince was 37 years
past his life expectancy. At 111 he was 61 years past his life expectancy.
We do not know at what time Captain Starr believed that Prince was
unable to work or unable to take care of himself.
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There was another Middletown slave called Mimbo who was freed
and then became blind. The Town of Middletown compensated those who
took care of paupers, idiots and the infirmed. This option was not open to
slaves and slave owners. Mambo’s slave owners set her free while she
was still productive. Mimbo’s former slave owners were not as benevolent
as you may think. It was in their interest to free Mimbo while she was
healthy. They knew that they would be paid to take care of her, later.
Middletown reimbursed any citizen who went to any expense in the
upkeep of such poor and infirmed persons. Poor houses came later.
The African Venture Smith story was an exception; other African
immigrants found it far more different in American. The Venture Smith
experience serves to advance the illusion that all other African Americans
lacked ambition and the American way of life provided an avenue to
overcome slavery. Remember, at some point, all slaves were set free, they
did not free themselves.
The American System of Chattel Slavery
Americans tend to view slavery as something in the southern
United States. Slavery was in Connecticut as it was an American
institution where New Englanders dominated the international slave trade
from Newport.
American history started in the southern colonies and moved north
and the then west. Africans were in the southern colonies before the
people called Puritans were in New England.
The people of the
Mayflower were no more than economic refugees. Africans was already
settled in what became the United States.
We believe the great lie that the people of the Mayflower came to
America in search of freedom of religion. The Mayflower Compact was
drawn up by the Plymouth Trading Company and it did not outline the
worship of God.
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Religion facilitates a political reality, it is always the excuse, and it is
never the reason. Religion gives permission for racism, slavery,
oppression and genocide.
In religion, God and Salvation are
afterthoughts. The people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are told that
the United States is making war on Islam. This is the excuse for their
actions against the West. The actual reason is to force the West into a
political stance to their liking. In other words they want to rule the world.
If the pastor of your church practices religion over righteousness or a
person relationship with God, both of you are in trouble already.
Finally, collective religion is politics. These Islamic groups pretend
that they are subject to the absolute Will of God, as Christian America
pretended in years past.
THE SLAVE TRADE
History books never tell us that Rhode Island dominated the slave
trade from Newport. A Jew called Aaron Lopez was the biggest slave
trader with more than 20 ships .I find it hard to generate any sympathy for
the Holocaust when some Jews are responsible for the Holocaust called
the Middle Passage and the death of 20-50 million Africans.
The involvement of Americans in the international slave trade did not
end until about 1875. I know that you have probably been told otherwise.
New England traders were at the center of this trade all of that time.
Governments outlawed the trade, but they did not abolish the Institution of
Slavery. The illegal slave trade continued in Latin America for 15 or more
years after the American Civil War.
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TIME IN HELL ON THE NIGHTINGALE
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Nightingale, a luxury liner
converted to a slave ship, was captured at the mouth of the Congo River.
The Nightingale was from Boston, as indicated on the side of the ship and
was sailing under American colors. It was built in New England. New
Englanders never stop engaging in the slave trade. They operated through
the American Civil War and on until the Latin American countries
abolished it in the 1880’s.
International slave trading was considered piracy, punishable by
death, but slave ship captains had no fear because they knew that the U.S.
Navy had reached an “understanding” with them. That is why the
Nightingale flew American colors with” THE NIGHTINGALE OF
BOSTON” on the side of the ship.
The tragedy was the ship had 961 captive Africans aboard. The real
captain of the slave ship was Francis Bowen of Massachusetts, but a
Spaniard called Valentino Cortina was listed as captain. The U.S. Navy
captured and sailed the slave ship to Monrovia Liberia. Over 100 Africans
died on that trip. An unspecified number of “Kroomen” were also left in
Monrovia These African crewmen were originally from the Kru tribe. The
U.S. Government sold the 861 captives on the Nightingale in Liberia for
10 dollars each. Historians would argue that they were indentured, but let
us be real, slavery was slavery.
The U.S.S Saratoga captured the Nightingale. Lt. J.J. Guthrie and a
prize crew sailed the slave ship to New York for the judicators to handle.
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There was a suspicious incident on April 22, 186I, aboard the
Nightingale on the way to Monrovia.
Lt. Guthrie’s report:
"……… and I regret that an American name Francis Bowen and a
Spaniard name Valentino Cortina effected their escape during my watch
on deck on the night of the 22nd of April last. They probably did so by
slipping down a rope over the stern of the ship, at a time when I had gone
forward among the Negroes to attend to the sick ones. Whatever blame or
censure may be attached to this circumstance devolves entirely on me; and
I need not add that I feel deeply grieved on account of it and it has added
greatly to the solicitude of the voyage…………..”
Bowen went to Boston where he could have been arrested at any
time. The government was not looking for him. The bottom line was that
the U.S. government had no intension of hanging a white man for
engaging in the slave trade. Lt. Guthrie was also a criminal, He allowed
Bowen to escape. Lt. Guthrie became a Confederate officer during the
Civil War.
The government allowed Francis Bowen to live out his life.
BENJAMIN DOUGLAS
The Benjamin Douglas House is still in Middletown. As for Mayor
Douglas being in an anti-slavery group, this is an expression of freedom of
speech. To allow his house to be a stop on the Underground Railroad is to
violate federal law and could make him a criminal. I do not believe
Douglas risked violating federal law for the sake of black people. The
report that he aided runaway slave was created years later to show a non16
existed civil rights record. Above all, Douglas was a politician
created a civil rights record after the fact.
,
who
SAMUEL W. RUSSELL
Middletown, Connecticut is very proud of Samuel W. Russell, a
shipper and trader. After all is said, he was no more than an illegal slave
and opium trader.
In 1937, the Samuel Wadsworth Russell House was transferred to
Wesleyan University. I have seen the house from the outside. It is a
beautiful white house that looks like the county courthouse in my
hometown of Lincolnton, NC.
The Samuel Wadsworth Russell House was built on the human
misery of African slavery, illegal opium trading, Asian slavery and the
cut- throat world of private armies and piracy. Opium trade from Asia is
still with us. It is now coming from Afghanistan and the Europeans and
Americans are still the major players in poppy politics.
The African American community in Middletown participated in this
vile trade. I do not make any excuses or offer any apology. Asa Jeffrey
was a seaman and other members of the community “shipped over”.
On the next time you go to Harbor Park, remember that as late as
1811, a slave market was at that location. Another slave market was on
North Main Street near what became the old fire station.
SHIPPING OVER
African Americans in Middletown did not come away with clean
hands.
In the 1820’s and 1830’s there were African American seamen and
there were other African Americans who were landsmen who went to sea
under contract .They went to sea for up to three months for up to 20
dollars a month. These contractors stood a good chance of being killed or
17
attacked by pirates. Some of these contractors served on ships controlled
by the Russell & company. When the Russell Company established a
manufacturing facility in Middletown, African Americans were excluded
from the labor force.
These African Americans who went to sea from Middletown
participated in the new slavery called the coolie labor indentured system
which was slightly above the chattel slavery system. The new faces
became yellow and brown rather than black. They were mostly described
as Chinese or Indian. They were sent to South Africa, Trinidad and
Guyana and places like Fuji. East Indians deny that they ever been slaves.
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
CROSS STREET
“Raise up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he
will not depart from it”
I can’t remember where I heard those words or if they are correct. I
know that these words came to my mind in a conversation with Mrs. Joyce
Jones. Mrs. Jones said that when she was a child, her aunts took her to
Cross Street A. M. E. Zion Church. When she grew up, she did not go to
church anywhere. Now that she is middle aged, she said Cross Street
Church is the place she needs to be.
Larry Owens would not agree. Larry is married to Mrs. Jones’ cousin
Susan Vereen Owens. Larry has been ranting and raving about black
preachers and the harm done to young African Americans by “pulpit
religion”.
In July 2008, I visited Middletown, Connecticut. I was in town for
my brother’s funeral. Larry Owens took me on a tour of the city and the
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new edifice of Cross Street A. M. E. Zion Church. The church is on West
Street, not Cross Street, as the name would suggest. I had attended this
church as a child with my sisters. There was a written history of this
church at the Russell Library, but I did not like it. This history seemed to
have been written by a political correct group, probably at Wesleyan
University. I wrote a brief history of Cross Street A. M. E. Zion Church
more than 30 years ago, but it was rejected as to radical. Rev. Lawrence
did not want to offend the good old Christian white folk of Middletown
and Wesleyan University .This was strange since I used the same sources
except the Middletown City Directory, interviews with local black
residents and my personal experiences. African Americans have had their
story told, too often, by other people.
Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church is proud of their land exchange
with the local university. This was no more than a recent change- of –
tactic in the university’s 140-year effort to force the church off Cross
Street. Then, as now, a rival Methodist denomination could not be
tolerated near the university. I believe that the deference in denomination
was no more than a cover for racism. In the end, the university won this
battle just as the African American community lost to the city in the
struggle to stay at the South End. Racism was cloaked in the mantle of
urban development.
“LORD” BUTTERFIELD
The greatest pressure put on the Cross Street Church came from
Victor Lloyd Butterfield. He was President of Wesleyan University from
1943 to 1967. The matter of West Street and Long Lane had come up
before. Butterfield had “promised” the church some land if they were able
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to purchase the Long Lane School from the state. The deal flopped .The
State of Connecticut did not sell the school to Wesleyan University, at that
time.
Victor Butterfield continued to put pressure on Cross Street Church
through a black employee at Wesleyan. Dave Cooper was Butterfield’s
ally at Cross Street Church. Under Rev. Battle, the church was offered
land off Washington Street. The church rejected it, because it was a
swamp. If the land was any good, Wesleyan would have used it. Then
Wesleyan offered land on Hwy. 66 near Portland. The members did not
want to move the church out of Middletown. Land was offered on
Randolph Road, which turned out to be on a rock cliff. Eddie Jackson was
one of the church members who oppose Butterfield in his real estate
expansion in Middletown. The church saw Victor Butterfield as a ruthless
real estate develop. Wesleyan University was seen as a threat to their
existence, at that time.
LARRY OWENS
I met with a former pastor of the church, Rev. Douglas Lawrence. He
and I had worked on this history nearly 20 years ago. I now understand
why the history was lost; Rev. Lawrence did not want to present “our own
story” for it might contradict Wesleyan historians.
I also learned that
African American history in Middletown was not so different from many
other places in the Antebellum South. The largest free black population
was in the South. I mention Savannah because that city had two African
American churches older than the Cross Street Church, Slavery was
abolished in Connecticut in 1848 and it was not abolished in Georgia until
20
1865. The names changed but the game was the same. Connecticut just
did not have the plantation system.
Larry and Susan Owens operate an organization called the Village
Children and Larry is president of Middletown United Fathers Inc. They
operate on the African belief that “it takes a village to rear a child”. Larry
impressed upon me that the African American community has failed in
this effort. He pointed to the killing of a 15 year-old black boy in the state
capitol as proof that the village has failed. The demonstrations that
followed the killing were like locking the barn door after the horse had run
away. In his estimation, it was not always the case. There was a time when
Cross Street Church was nearly the whole village, but over the years the
church has lost its influence.
“African Americans should know that we have a problem when we
see our sons going out the door with their pants hanging off their asses or
their hair looking like “Topsy”................. Larry Owens, 2008
Larry told me how he felt about recent event in America .I had heard
the same things in my hometown in North Carolina.
LARRY’S OBSERVATIONS
“The patriotism of African Americans was first an issue as far back
as the French and Indian War. During that war a circular was sent to
ministers to encourage slaves to fight for the British. The circular actually
said that slaves should be loyal to the British colonialists, because slavery
under them was far better than under the French.
It was not until the first Gulf War that America fielded a truly
integrated army in a major war and the patriotism of African Americans
21
was not an issue or questioned. We cannot say this was true for the greater
American society. We have forgotten that people with an average age of
19.8 years fought the Vietnam War. They were poor and had a
disproportionate high causality rate. Most were black or brown soldier. In
other words, the young, poor and minorities fought the war.
Never in the history of the United State had a candidate for president
had to continually defend whether he was an American or American
enough, patriotic enough, white enough, Christian enough or Christian at
all.
Obama’s morality was questioned.
We mean morality, not
character. Never had we ever heard a candidate called antichrist, terrorist,
Arab, Moslem, secret Moslem, traitor, liar, Communist and anti-Semitic.
We had never heard of Americans rejecting a truly American story by
redefining what it means to be American. The so-called Tea Party
movement is no more than radical racism egged on by extremist elements
under the Republican label.
Where are we now? We are at a point where we must be very careful
not to enter a period of collective denial .The election of an African
American to the highest office in the land, does not mean that racism has
been defeated. Obama will learn that there is not a dimes worth of
difference between the Republicans and Democrats. They will turn on him
to be reelected and stay in power. To hell with the best interest of the
American people.
How can we expect the people of the world to have respect for us
when we do not show any respect for our own President.
The U.S. Census was taken in 1920. It revealed that Americans were
obsessed with race and color. Race is an artificial construct. Sicilians in
Middletown resisted being classified as people of color. Finally,
the
instructions given to the census takers did not square with reality on the
ground. They were told if a person is an ethnic European, he or she is
22
white regardless of color. This general rule did not apply, if the European
was of African descent. The problem of the draft registrations about five
years before could have been avoided.
We hear the American immigrant narrative mostly from those in
Middletown who call themselves Italians. The narrative goes from a
village in Sicily to Middletown. These Italians always included in their
narrative being poor and working hard. Sign which said, ”ITALIANS
NOT WANTED” was seen in the town, so they said. The first Latin
migration into Middletown was not Hispanic. These immigrants came
from southern Italy, most were Sicilians. They showed an overt dislike for
African Americans. They followed the American custom of doing to the
African Americans what those before had done. This dislike was not
generated by competition for jobs as with the Irish in their first wave of
immigration. The people in the black community on the South End called
them guineas, because of their dark complexion. When I ask why they
were called guineas, I was told that they were not like “real” white people.
These southern Italians were people of color because the white people in
Middletown said they were. The Anglo Saxons set the rules on race; those
who are not Anglo Saxons are people of color. Sicily had had hundreds of
years of African colonization.
A few of the black Italians were Sabastiano Carta, John Dibenedetto
and Pietro Fossi. This controversy about the color of Italians in
Middletown can be traced back to the WWI draft registrations. On the
registration form most Italians were listed as white in the block marked for
race, but there were some listed as black, colored or Italian. Those listed as
Italian could not make up their minds. There were more Italians listed as
black or colored than all the African Americans who registered. The
Italians in Middletown today are lighter than those who arrived earlier.
This is owed to color bias, something they learned after they arrived here.
African Americans have been cursed with color bias for centuries.
“Negro” was a last name of many Sicilians on the draft registrations. That
23
last name has disappeared from the Sicilian population in shame of
possibly an African origin.
Here is another piece of insanity. The population of Middletown is
80% white, which includes ethnic Sicilians. 12% African American, 6%
Hispanic and 2.8% Asian. Who decided that one Latin group called
Sicilians is white and another called Hispanics is not? Who decided that
the people of African descent among the Hispanics would not be counted
among the African Americans? Who decided that the people east of the
Suez Canal are Middle Easterners, not Asians, also? The people west of
the Suez Canal are called Egyptians not Africans”.
The Poles, Sicilian and Irish established churches in their
communities. African Americans were no different. Their church was
called True Vine Holiness Church; it is, now, located on Main Street in
Portland.
THE BLACK CHURCH
The early black churches in the northern United States grew out of
the Free African societies .It was the members of various organizations
within these churches such as the Prince Hall Masons or temperance
societies that worked with the Underground Railroad. As a rule, churches
were not the actual stations on the Underground Railroad. The first
African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia makes the same claim. The
Savannah Church had white minders and the church in Middletown was
under public watch.
During the early Colonial period, Christianity was withheld from
African slaves, because whites feared that the slaves would petition for
freedom based on equality as brothers under God.
24
An African American religious congregation was in operation in
Middletown, Connecticut as early as 1819. It was simply called the
African Congregation. There was a preacher who came from New York
once a month to preach to the congregation. History does not record this
preacher’s name, but he came from the African Baptist Church, which was
founded in New York one year earlier. By 1822, the African Congregation
had closed down. Rev. James Anderson was the very first recorded leader
of the Middletown congregation.
In 1823, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was established in
Middletown before Wesleyan university in 1831. When the university was
established it could not tolerate an African American church on its
campus. Tradition states that the first church operated in the home of Asa
Jefferys who was a seaman. As a seaman, Jeffreys had made contact with
the largest African American congregation on the Atlantic seaboard in
Savannah, Georgia. Asa Jeffreys move his family to Michigan and became
a barber and a saloon operator. Ebenezer Deforest was a native of
Georgia,
Because there were two great A.M.E. Churches in America, it
became necessary for this denomination to incorporate “Zion” into its
official name.
Until the 1860’s the African Methodist Church membership was a
large part of the African American community in Middletown. The church
enjoyed about 90% of the community’s attendance, at any given time. The
black population at that time was less than 60 people.
25
Middletown on the Connecticut River became a rich town early
through the slave trade. There were two slave markets in town.
Middletown became wealthy on the trade of slaves and slave-produced
products from the West Indies. Trade from Middletown went as far as
China.
THE LOCAL CHURCH
The first African American churches in the North grew out of the free
African societies and the convention movement. There were not any
underground churches as in the South. A religion called Grateful
Obedience was imposed on African Americans in the North and South.
The African Americans church members in the North had social and
political restrictions place on them, but to a greater extant, they were able
to enjoy something akin to freedom of religion.
The original land for A.M.E. Zion Church was purchased from
Henry Paddock. The Paddock family own prime real estate in various
places around Middletown. Henry Paddock must have known that he
would come under fire the second he sold land to African Americans.
The Cross Street location was not exactly chosen by chance. The
name of the church was the African Methodist Church in Middletown. The
name of the church did not officially become Cross Street A. M. E. Zion
until 1931. It is debatable if this was the same church. According to
tradition, the first A. M. E. Zion Church was on Cross Street in New York
City. We were not able to determine if the local church was older than
Cross Street in Middletown. The church was actually located on Pine or
Church Street, Most African American churches were built in the black
communities. In Middletown, at the beginning, there was a black
26
population, but not a community centered on a church. Cross Street was
not in such a location, it was on what became the campus of Wesleyan
University near what became the science building. A military academy
stood there first. The church was simply called the A.M.E. Church.
The church was eventually forced to move farther down Cross Street
by the University. The University and the white community heavily
criticized Henry Paddock for selling land to African Americans. It was
difficult for black people to buy land in Middletown.
In later years Cross Street Church received a lot of attention from
slave catchers. Runaway slaves had to continue on to Canada because of
the fugitive slave laws of the United States. Cross Street Church did not
develop in a vacuum.
BE - A - MAN
Some sources indicate that James Anderson was the first pastor of the
Cross Street Church. Most agree that James Anderson was head of the
African Congregation in Middletown, but the denomination is unclear. In
1818, the African Baptist church sent a minister from New York to
Middletown. Some say that Rev. Anderson came from a church in New
Haven.
Historians have come to believe that J.C. Beaman was the first pastor
of the Cross Street Church. He was from Colchester. Beaman was a made
-up name. It was taken from the phrase “Be a Man”. Every African
American has an ancestor who selected a family name. That name never
existed before that time. Sixty percent of the time a name was chosen
phonetically similar to a nearby white family name, but that name was not
legally transferred. The common belief that African American received
27
their names from slave masters is a trap in African American genealogical
research. Other made-up names were Freeman from “free man” and
“African” from Africa. African American in Connecticut favored
“African” as a name. Cudjo, an African day name was the all time favorite
African name. “John” was the least favorite names for slaves. Sambo was
another slave name in Middletown. Sambo is a Liberian name, which
means, “disgrace” or a Nigerian name, which means the “second son”.
This name had racial connotations as far back as the 1860’s, but it became
a racial slur after the book called Little Black Sambo was published in the
United States. Sambo was the name of a Tamil boy of India when it was
originally published in England in 1899.
Cross Street Church received a visit from the Amistad captives on a
fundraiser. They came from Farmington where they lived before their
return to Africa. Cinque is not the real name of the leader of the Amistad
captives.
The abolitionist called Doyle or Doll in a visit to Cross Street Church
and Middletown got in a fight and started a riot on the streets of the city.
Middletown seems to have been a center of abolitionist activity.
Abolitionist
Abolitionist believes in the abolishment of slavery. White
abolitionists believed that slavery must end but African Americans would
be non-slaves but not equal to other Americans. People like Wilbur Fisk
advocated sending freed slaves to Africa in a colonization skeem.
28
WILBUR FISK
Wilbur Fisk was a president of Wesleyan University. The members
of Cross Street considered him a paternal racist like most 19th century
white ministers. Their beliefs were based on Fisk’s support of the
American Colonization Society. The society sought to get rid of slavery by
getting rid of blacks through immigration to Africa. Very few African
American from Middletown were transported to Africa. African
Americans overwhelmingly preferred to remain in America. Wilbur Fisk
also believed that blacks could never be true Christians because white
Europeans assumed a Christian identity. Ironically, a bishop in the A.M.E.
Church believed that only Africans Americans were true Christians.
Wesleyan University, as many other institutions in Connecticut
facilitated the practice of slavery until slavery was finally abolished in the
state. Wesleyan University educated many students that became slave
owners and educated many who became Confederate soldiers to preserve
the vile institution of slavery. The history of Davidson College in
Davidson, North Carolina suggests Wilbur Fisk had an association with
that Presbyterian college.
Davidson College produced several
Confederate army officers and the school’s first president, Robert Hall
Morrison was definitely a slave owner. If Fisk participated in America he
participated in slavery. Slavery was not a Southern institution, it was an
American institution.
29
BROWN STONE
In the 1850’s, Cross Street A. M. E. Zion Church was involved in a
struggle to get black citizens employed in the Portland brownstone quarry.
Irish immigrants dominated the labor force. Wesleyan University failed to
exert its influence in this matter for obvious reasons. Since there was not
a noticeable increase in African American laborers, we must conclude that
the churches’ efforts were not successful. Portland brownstone was
famous as far as California.
THE SPLIT
The African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist
Episcopal Zion churches separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church
for racial discrimination. The Methodist Episcopal Church later split into a
northern half and a southern half over slavery. In the South, the churches
was scattered among each other. In 1871, the Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church. The
Colored Methodist became the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in
1954. They were embarrassed by the name. The Northern and Southern
factions of the Methodist Episcopal Church became the United Methodist
Church of today.
CHURCH MEMBERS
P. W. West was the pastor in 1850. He was confronted with the
Fugitive Slave Act of that year. Fugitive slave laws existed before, but this
act dealt the relationship between states known as “comity”. Rev. West
was a traveling minister. While he was in Middletown, he and his wife
30
Ellen boarded with Hall Birdsey and his wife Harriet. Shortly, Rev. West
moved into his own house. Some of the members of the church were
Elizabeth Crowell, Joe Rutherford, Mary Jeffreys, Asa Deforest, Robert
Huntington, C. Beaman, Jane Smith and J.C. Bernham, to name a few.
Ebenezer Deforest was the only original trustee, he was from Georgia. The
rest of the original trustees, Joe Gilbert and John Hamilton were dead or
were not re-elected. Deforest had become a prominent businessman. He
was a shoemaker and owned more than a thousand dollars in real estate.
His son, Richard, was a sailor and had contact with the First African
Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. Ebenezer’s wife Betsy helped him
in the business. George Jeffrey was gone but his widow remained active in
the church. George Jeffrey Jr. was a laborer.
SLAVERY
The fugitive slave law made it possible for any black person to be
snatched up and sold into slavery. Church members were warned to look
after their own safety and not look toward the local police and courts. Mr.
Baldwin, a white man that was active in the Underground Railroad,
publicly criticized local officials and the newspapers over their stand on
the violations of the law. Mr. Jesse Baldwin operated a freedom boats up
the Connecticut River that made connections to Nova Scotia. The law
called on citizens to detain and arrest all runaway slaves to be return to
slavery. This law resulted in the rise in kidnapping of free persons of
color. No black person could testify in court against a white person. To
make matters worse, the State of Connecticut passed a law preventing any
state official from getting involved in runaway slave cases. This closed the
door to those who would take a case on behalf of a runaway slave.
31
THE WAR YEARS
Americans were so consumed with the war between 1861 and 1865
that they did not see the significance of events in 2008.
In 1865, the government said that a marriage was a union between
one woman and one man for those who could not legally marry before.
There was a minority person who was Secretary of State; I don’t
mean the one that was a general.
The President wanted to allow non-citizens to vote knowing that
they would vote for the Republican Party. Some were illegal aliens.
The president originally came to office over a controversy at the
ballot box. Many did not vote for him in Florida.
There was war in Afghanistan.
They were fighting against an occupation around Bagdad.
There were seven conflicts in Africa, including Sudan and Darfur.
There were trade issues with China.
There were issues with Mexico.
There were trade and immigration issues with Cuba.
America was compelled to send a diplomatic mission to Haiti.
The American army in Georgia first used rape as a tactic of war.
32
WILBUR FISK BURNS
Wilbur Fisk Burns was not a minister at the Cross Street Church. He
was an 1860 graduate of Wesleyan University. He was associated with
the Methodist Episcopal Church, but he attended the African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church in Middletown. Burns’ father was a bishop in
Liberia. He was placed over black congregations so that he would not be
in a position over whites. Wilbur Burns was eventually a teacher and
pastor in Liberia.
In 1860, George Spywood was pastor of Cross Street Church. He was
originally from Rhode Island. Rev. George Spywood had been a Bishop
from 1852 until 1860, but he had not received an appointment. By his own
request, he was appointed Pastor of the Cross Street Church. George
Spywood and his wife Margaret had two grown children, George and
Mary, but they adopted two more children. By 1870, George and his
family had move to New York.
Rev. George Spywood, later Bishop, and African Methodist Church
saw the rumblings of the American Civil War. The membership of the
church dropped to 30 members, but for some unexplained reason, the
average attendance of the congregation was over 100 persons including
both black and white people in 1863. The Church became active in the
recruitment of black soldiers. Alfred L. Mosely attended the church; he
served in the 29th Connecticut Regiment of Colored Troops. He was later
transferred to the 138 USCT. Albert Orton, Alexander Rodgers and
Samuel Scott were recruited from the general area. They too served in the
29th Connecticut troops.
33
Other natives of Middletown or Middlesex who served were Daniel
Oliver, Paul Owers, David Thomas of Portland [East Middletown]
William Williams, John C. Seymore, Jesse Cables, William Garrison and
William Deo served in the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry. The 29th Regiment
saw duty at Richmond, Petersburg and Hilton Head.
In later years, Eli George Bittle would serve as pastor of Cross Street
Church. During the war he served in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry
Regiment of colored troops. Several years ago, there was a motion picture
about the 54th Regiment called “Glory”.
I would like to correct the record. The 54th was not the first African
American regiment. The 1st South Carolina was formed months earlier. At
the charge on Battery Wagner, the 54th was followed by a white New York
regiment that panicked and shot them in the back. Battery Wagner was
never taken, the Confederates just abandoned it. Almost half of the 54th
Regiment was killed in action. When the regiment fought its way onto the
wall of the fortifications, they saw that some of the gun emplacements
were manned by black gun crewmembers.
Eli Bittle was severely wounded on the last charge, he never fully
recovered. Upon his return to Massachusetts, he joined the A. M. E. Zion
Conference. Rev. Bittle was nearly 90 years old when he died.
On December 27, 1868, the Day Star Masonic Lodge reported 17
members. These Masons met in the basement of the A. M. E. Zion
Church. This was the first time a basement was mentioned in connection
with that church.
34
PASTORS OF THE CHURCH
1874-S.C. Birchwood
S.C. Birchwood a.k.a. Birchmore was originally from Maryland
and was married to Ophelia. He was 32 years old and the couple had two
small children. By 1900, he had another wife and made his home in New
Haven. He became elder of the New England District. There were nine
churches in Connecticut.
1875-S.C.Birchwood
1876-S.C.Birchwood
1877- J.B. Small
1878-J.C. Lodge
1879-J.W.Brown
1880-J.C. Lodge, once again
1881-J.C. Lodge
1882-There was no regular pastor.
1883----------SAME------------------------1884----------SAME------------------------1885-Chanceford Fairfax
35
Fairfax was probably born in Pa. He did not know his parents. In
later years, he lived in Middletown, New York.
1886-James F. Allen
1887-G.H.S Bell
1887- Robert Russell Morris
Dr. Morris was not the regular pastor, but he served. Dr. Morris had
been pastor of Greater Moore’s Chapel Church in Lincolnton, North
Carolina where he experimented with the Sunday school.
Doctor Robert Russell Morris was from Nova Scotia. He would have
been the first missionary to Africa for the A.M.E. Zion Church, but he was
sent to the West Indies.
1888-G.H.S. Bell
1889-James F. Allen
1892- Charles Ringgold
William Jones seemed to have been the pastor during the 1890’s. At
this point, we cannot find any records to indicate otherwise. Eliza G.
Smith was the pastor’s steward. She was a domestic servant and lived with
her employer on Main Street. Henry Farnham was the president of the
36
trustee board. He was a laborer and lived in Westfield. C.A.C Beaman was
the Secretary and lived on Prospect Street. He was a printer by trade.
Beaman also held the job as Treasurer for the trustee board. John H.
Snipes was the Sexton. He lived on Park Street and was a tailor. The rest
of the members of the board were George Washington, of Straddle Hill
and John Snipes whom we have already mention.
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
C.A.C. Beaman was the first Sunday school superintendent after Dr.
Robert Russell Morris unified and standardized the Sunday schools in
1888. The church standardized the literature and printed it from its own
publishing house in North Carolina. Up until that time, the churches
operated independent Sunday schools. The Sunday school at Cross Street
was the oldest in the denomination. It benefited from the teachers and
materials from Wesleyan University. Dr. Morris used a North Carolina
Sunday school in Lincolnton, NC, as a model.
It was also the New England Conference that founded the North
Carolina Conference under Rev. J.W. Hood.
Cross Street--------Greater Moore’s
Chapel
Number of students
50
190
Student-teacher ratio
1 to 3
1 to 14
Volumes in library
125
285
12
1
Teachers educated
Beyond high school
37
The teachers at Cross Street reflect students-teachers from Wesleyan
University.
Until 1888, Wesleyan students ran the Sunday school. After 1888,
they continued as an important resource.
1899- W. Jones
February 8, 1899, Middletown Tribune
“There will be a special song service with short addresses at the
Cross Street A. M. E. Zion Church on Sunday at 8 o’clock p. m.
Friends of the church are invited”.
The church was unofficially called the Cross Street Church, but
it was not officially called the Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church until
1931. Jessie Hunter suggested that the church be officially called
Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church.
1900-H.W. Hutchings
1904-Moses Monzingo
1906-G.H.S. Bell
Rev. Bell was born in St. George, Bermuda on December 16,
1858 to Inkle and Hannah Bell. In 1884, he was appointed to Hartford for
three years and then to Middletown for two years and on to Waterbury. He
served as Conference Steward. Bell was considered a very trustworthy
man.
1909- William Smith
1911-Joseph Murphy
38
1912- J.T. Battle
During the years around WWI, the church saw four new pastors.
1914-S.E.Robinson
1915-S.E.Robinson
1916-W.D.Francis
1917-W.D.Francis
1918-G.H.Coffey,
He was the first to commute from Meriden.
1919-G.H.Coffey
1919-G.H.Coffey
1920-G.H.Coffey opened the church to True Vine.
1921-G.H.Coffey, in name only, The True Vine Church moved to
Portland.
Mary Fanham was treasurer of trustee board she held the church
together through a series of guest preachers.
1927-S. William Weller, unassigned guest
Church went vacant and boarded up until 1931
There was the great flood of 1927 which may have contributed to
the closure of the church.
39
A.M.E. ZION CHURCH CLOSED IN MIDDLETOWN
Members of the African Methodist Church believe that the flood
in 1927 caused the church to close. They said members could not get
to the church. After the city recovered from the flood, neither the
members, nor Rev. Weller returned.
THE MIGRATION
Cross Street Church was founded around 1931 or the African
Methodist Church was continued under that name.
It was as if 100 years of church and community history had never
happened. For these newcomers, time had been reset to the 1920’s and
1930’s. Joshua Owens would say that the world began then.
The congregation was generally migrants from South Carolina and
True Vine Church .True Vine Church was founded on the campus of the
university. The university reacted negatively to the new Holiness Church.
Eventually True Vine Church moved to Portland, but part of the
congregation was left in Middletown. The first pastor of the new Cross
Street Church was E. George Bittle, a Civil War veteran in his eighties.
We already mention him in the section about the Civil War. The years
between 1927and 1931 are dark and foggy. Interviews with people who
were around at that time tell a hard -to -understand or confusing story.
Jesse Hunter was walking down Main Street in Middletown when a
white man he didn’t know approached him. This unknown white man gave
Jesse a set of keys and said, “This is the keys to your church on Cross
Street”. Jesse was a member of True Vine Church in Portland; call the
True Vine Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God.
40
As far as Hunter knew, there had been a vacant building of the New
England Conference of the A. M. E. Zion Church located at Pine Street
and Church St. Wesleyan University had the property condemned and
moved the building down Cross Street. John camp, a white man followed
the building down the street, where contractors had already laid a partial
foundation. Mr. John Camp reported that many Italian residents protested
the arrival of the African American church. No African Americans were
aware of the move. Mr. Camp stated that these Italian protester spat on the
foundation and pronounced a curse that this church would fail and move
out of the community.
The new congregation became southern emigrants. They knew that
the building once belong to the A. M. E. Zion Church so they contacted
the presiding bishop. Evidently the land was transferred to the trustees on
behalf of the Conference. E. George Bittle was sent to Middletown.
The list of pastors continued with Rev. Bittle.
1931-E.George Bittle
1935-E.George Bittle
1939-George F. Green
1942-George F. Green
1946-George F. Green
In 1947, Bethel African Methodist Church was established at 69
South Street. It did not survive beyond 18 months. The black residents
would not support a second black Methodist denomination.
1948- J. Thomas
41
1949- William Davage, posted from Kentucky
1957- Dwight Fogg
1963 –George C. Battle
THE MIGRANTS
The Great Migration started after World War I. We usually ignore the
migration into Connecticut. My family was part of that migration. This
migration came from Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.
The North Carolina migration came mostly from the eastern part of the
state. These migrants were attracted to the tobacco growing area of
Portland, Ct. Cross Street Church members were available to welcome
these new migrants, even though the church was boarded up.
Some of these migrants started a Holiness Church in a house on Vine
Street. They called their church True Vine. The church was near the
Wesleyan campus. This was a big mistake. The congregation was forced
out. Rev. Coffey opened Cross Street Church to the whole congregation of
the True Vine Church for services. The True Vine Church moved to
Portland. The church was located under the bridge. Now the church in
located in a house on Main Street in Portland. True Vine Baptist Church
has had a long tradition of using the Cross Street Church for large
functions.
After Rev. Coffey left town, there was a series of guest preachers.
The pastoral responsibilities fell on class leaders and trustees... Mary
Farnham became treasurer of the trustee board. She helped to keep things
together until the church received a regular pastor.
42
Jesse young and James MacArthur were typical of the migrants. Jesse
young left his home in Burke County, North Carolina when he was 13
years old and went to Winston Salem. He did not like the tobacco
industry. He started wondering around North Carolina until he met James
McArthur and Mack McCrae. They came to Middletown in 1919. Jesse
was then 19 years old. He lived in a boarding house. MacArthur moved to
Cromwell. Jesse later married Mary McArthur, James’ sister who died
recently at 103 years old.
Jesse Young’s family came originally from the Greer and
Spartanburg area of South Carolina where the Fire Baptized Holiness
Church of God in the Americas was established. Family members settled
in Burke County, North Carolina and established the Maple Grove
Holiness Church north of Vale.
Other pastors of Cross Street, not necessarily in this order they
served.
Marshall Brown
Thomas Riddick
Hezekiah Williams
Douglas Lawrence
Williams Jones
Roosevelt Scott
J. W. Brown
43
The people of the African American community of Middletown,
today, have no genealogical connection with Cross Street Church
members who existed before 1920, nor do they share the same values. The
church is not actively involved in the social and political issues that
trouble the black community today. The church is willing to let the
NAACP set its social agenda. Recently, city authorities criticized black
resident of a housing complex for drug use. Instead of dealing with the
drug use in the black community, the NAACP attacked the city authorities
as racist. These drug dealers employ our children who cannot find jobs.
The church allows this to happen.
We do not insist that our community leader have solid family values.
There are those who may argue that the problems of the first 100
years are not the same as those of today.
John Robinson a church member served on the Middletown city
council. Was he a token or did he bring about change for the good in our
community?
Community involvement in the early days
In 1846, Middletown and the African Methodist Church got caught
up in the struggle between Hartford and New Haven as well as the dries
and the wets over tougher liquor laws. Mrs. J. Beaman established a
temperance society, after town leaders complain of alcohol abuse among
African Americans. The trouble was also in the white communities across
Connecticut. There were already restrictions on the sale of whiskey to
African Americans. Has the present pastor done the same about substance
abuse in the city? Certainly, the white community has complained about
drug use in the North End.
44
A drug abuse program was established at Cross Street Church under
Pastor Douglas Lawrence. Why did this program die?
Wesleyan students tutored Cross Street members even though
African Americans could not attend the university. Has the University
cultivated a partnership with the black community, lately?
A tutoring program was established at Cross Street Church in recent years.
Was that program used to mentor children?
Arlene Butts, Eddie Jackson and Bert Turner were active in the
NAACP, an organization that is now useless in the civil rights struggle, as
its focus has become national politics. Jackson was also a police officer.
He was initially hired with the understanding that he would not arrest
white people.
Early Community Relations
In 1823, African Methodist Church was established in Middletown,
Connecticut. In 1823 heavy negotiations was underway to establish
Washington College at Middletown. Ultimately, the college was founded
in Hartford. It was the genesis of Trinity College. The African Methodist
Church was a problem for Washington College. Also, in January 1822, the
congregation at near Cross Street delayed the establishment of their church
to help the town folk search for the body of Ann Robbins who drowned in
the Connecticut River. The body was found and Ann’s family thanked the
town people and ignored the African Methodist congregation.
African Methodist Church built its first sanctuary in part with bounty
money from “shipping over”. Asa Jeffrey, a cofounder of the Church, left
Middletown before 1840. A search of the U.S. Census shows an Asa
Jeffrey from Connecticut living in Illinois and working as a barber.
45
SOUTH END
The South End of Middletown Connecticut could have been Hayti in
Durham, NC, Liberty City in Miami, Fla. or Second Ward in Charlotte,
NC. It was a community that the white power structure wanted.
Over 100 years ago, the South End was all white. It was a quiet
neighborhood. In 1899 Sam Werrick of South Street was arrested for not
sending his daughter to school. He had her working on a nearby farm. Sam
said that he could not afford to send his daughter and son to school. One of
them needed to work. John Williams was the community tramp. He was
sent to jail for 30 days for drunkenness in front of the Municipal Building.
All he had to do is stay on South Street. The South End eventually became
a Polish neighborhood.
By the time I arrived on the south end in 1959, the Poles were
moving out.
Frank Melek operated an auto body shop at 7 Sumner St. The Blue
Room Restaurant was at number 14. It was actually a bar. The residents
down Sumner Street were Arthur Pope Erlick Mathews and Anthony
Miethiewics, another Pole. Next door to Anthony’s place was the Andy
Handy Furniture Store. The residents From 22 to 30 Sumner Street were
Mollie Riddle, Jerome Byrd, from Darlington County, South Carolina.
The family also lived in Marlboro County South Carolina. Charles
Savage, Detroit Hunter, Hilton Byrd, Richard Beebe, Chester Lamoda,
Frank Vereen and Herbert Winstead, Arthur Bennett, John Bracket,
George Glover and Ben Peake. The businesses were the Byrd Barbershop,
Jason’s Package Store and Sal’s Market.
Starting with 4 South Street was S.G. Jones, Bezel Pope, A.E.
Weston, Walter Foster, Robert Prior, Stanley Howell. John Zeal, Roy
Foye, John Aiker and another house owned by Anthony Mietkiewics,
46
Russell Perkins and Dorothy Jackson. Zion Baptist Church was at number
15.
When it came, Mrs. Joyce Jones said, it may have been called urban
renewal, but it was really called getting rid of the black folks.
The South End was basically Sumner, South and Union Streets. It
was a black community that came about as the Polish move out and rented
to blacks who had come up from the South. The Polish landlords sold
houses to a few blacks. Clarence Riley lived on Union Street across the
street from Jeeps, a juke joint. Clarence was the brother of Joe Riley who
was married to Kitty, a noted singer. The Wallace and Glover families
lived on Sumner Street. The Popes and the Riddles lived on South Street.
Charlie Moody’s parents lived in an apartment atop Jeeps. Charlie used to
tell me stories about his service in New Guinea during WWII. He told me
about a Japanese P.O.W., who raped a native girl and was executed.
Charlie said that the Americans didn’t really care if a Japanese soldier
raped a black girl; they wanted an excuse to execute a Japanese soldier.
Later a white American soldier raped a native girl. They call them Fuzzy
Woozies. Later this particular G.I was found dead with his arms folded
back into his stomach. He was apparently a victim of the girl’s family.
Frank Vereen was one of the black home owners. He had migrated to New
York before he came to Middletown. He and his wife Luddie was from
Hemmingway, South Carolina in Georgetown County. The GullahGeechie way of speaking was evident. Frank was the descendent of Joe
Vereen. He also had a collateral ancestor called Wesley Vereen who
appears on the black Confederate pension rolls. In later years, Frank never
tired of telling others that the actor-singer Ben Vereen was his cousin. We
have learned that Ben Vereen was adopted and was born in North Carolina
to a woman called Essie Middleton. Jerome Byrd was the community
barber. Frank Vereen Jr. and his wife Clara lived with Frank Sr. Their
child, Susan was an infant, then. She later married Larry Owens. Frances
Young lived across the street from the Vereens. Frances came from
Western North Carolina. I mention this because most of the black North
47
Carolinians in Middletown are from Eastern North Carolina which is
about five hours closer to Middletown .Most are from the area around
Bertie County. Eastern North Carolina is tobacco country. Frances did not
see tobacco plants until she visited Portland, Connecticut. Clara Vereen
was her sister. I lived with my sister Frances. Our uncle was Jesse Young,
but he did not live in the South End. The YMCA was adjacent to the South
End, but a high fence was erected to keep out pedestrian traffic from our
community. Middletown High School conducted swimming classes at the
YMCA. The students were naked, this would never happen today. There
was a park but it was located in a flood zone. That is why it was a park.
The creek that ran through the park was polluted with tar or asphalt.
There was no church in the South End. Zion Baptist Church was still
on Bridge Street at the North End. I have a vague recollection of a store
front church on South Street.
There was a local legend that was a man known as “Snake” who
visited the South End, regularly. I have interviewed many people and no
one remembers Snake’s real name. Some say that snake was a graduate of
Tuskegee Institute. He lived in nearby Cromwell. Lil Homphrey said
Snake’s name was James Williard or Willis.
CHARLES GHENT
Charles Ghent [1917-2004] was the president of the Middletown
Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People [NAACP].He worked mostly on school segregation which was
caused by housing patterns. This problem was solved by the creation of
another problem, the forced relocation of the black community.
Ghent never realized that white people always employed one or
more of seven tactics in a discrimination case or situation. They will delay,
deny, divert, debunk, deceive, defuse and deride .They will never admit to
discrimination or racism.
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In July, 1961 Charles Ghent represented a Mrs. Thelma Dickerson in
a case of discrimination for promotion at the local office of the State
Department of Welfare. Dickerson had been denied promotion to a
supervisory post. She had the experience, education and superior
evaluations. Mrs. Dickerson had the highest score in a state exam for that
position. Charles Ghent and Mrs. Dickerson had submitted an eight- page
complaint.
In a conference with John Harden, Assistant State commissioner of
State Welfare and Alice Shehan , the District Director . Ghent and
Dickerson were diverted, delayed and denied. Ghent and Dickerson was
prepared for the meeting, but they were not prepared for Harden and
Shehan. Shehan pretended that she did not receive Dickerson’s compliant
in time to provide a written response. Never put anything in writing, it
will come back to haunt you. Shehan said that they could not make a
decision because at that time and scheduled a conference after July 16.
Delays caused discouragements. The meeting degenerated from an
official conference to a roundtable discussion, where Harden and Shehan
praised Dickerson and implied that she didn’t get the promotion because
she was so indispensable at her present position. Deceptions often come in
the stroking of egos.
Ghent came from Madison County, Florida in 1945. He arrived in
Middletown alone having left his wife Eula Lee Gill Ghent in Florida.
Charles went to work supervising patients on a farm of the
Connecticut State Hospital. He soon moved to working as a psychiatric
aide and then as a technician. His wife joined him years later.
Charles Ghent was the son of Henry T. Ghent and Frances Little
Ghent. Henry died in 1937.
The black community seems to dance around Ghent’s alleged charge
of bigamy. African Americans do not hold their leaders to the highest
standards.
49
THE FOX
Brian Hart was an All State athlete at Middletown High School from
1857 to 1960. He was considered to be a power runner. In the 1959
season, Brian scored nine touchdowns. Three of them were scored in one
game.
In the fall of 1959, Waino Fillback [The Fox] had a losing football
season, but he had a winner in Brian Hart. I was a freshman on the junior
varsity team. Coach Fillback placed me at right tackle. The Middletown
Press dubbed me The Peanut Butter Kid for reasons I need not go into. I
soon learned that I was faster than Brian Hart and approached coach
Fillback about moving to the varsity backfield... He said that I needed to
stay on the junior varsity line, because that was where I was needed. I
accepted his decision until I overheard a conversation between coach
Fillback and one of his assistant coaches. It appears that the great Waino
Fillback had lowered himself to the level of racial politics in Middletown.
He agreed that I had great potential as a varsity running back, but he could
not place me in the varsity backfield. That position was reserved for the
son of a prominent white parent. He said that Brian was enough “colored”
boys. Fillback went on to say, “When I told Rudy not to follow his color, I
was not only talking about football plays.”
I was also on the track team. The track events were an individual
effort. I was the only freshmen to be award a letter that year. The next
year, I left Connecticut. There are those who might say that I would not
have excelled at Middletown anyway. At my new school, I set all the
school records in the track and field events. This included two districts
championships and one state championship. In football, I was all state
twice as a fullback. In 2007, I was inducted in to my county’s sports hall
of fame.
Racism prevented me from reaching my full athletic potential at
Middletown. I was awarded a full track scholarship at a traditionally black
college in North Carolina and went on to play semi-professional football.
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THE FUTURE OF THE NORTHEND
The North End is a neighborhood, not a community as was the South
End. The housing pattern is clear. African Americans replaced the Italians
who owned the buildings and land. The neighborhood will continue to
rundown until the value will be in the land under it. The city will then
remove the people and buildings to develop the land. Getting rid of drugs
will be the excuse. The people will settle in another area where they will
not be able to be homeowners and the cycle will start over. The families
of the original African American migrants are not the families that are in
the North End. They are found in Charlotte, Atlanta, Columbia, Durham
and other places.
The descendents of the original migrants told me that they did not
know the other African Americans in Middletown. They came to
Middletown to get on welfare or deal drugs.
I had a conversation with Larry and Bettye Graham ,formerly of
Middletown who now lives in Charlotte , North Carolina. Bettye is related
to me by marriage and her family came from the same area as Jesse
Young.
51
From Rural South to Rural South
THE PEOPLE FROM HALF ACRE
PART TWO
"AFTER THE SLAVES WERE SET FREE, NOT A FOOT OF
LAND WAS GIVEN TO THEM TO STAND OPON".
……………………………………
Frederick Douglas in 1892
From Putnam County and Middle Georgia
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FOREWORD
Family and Friends Day 2011
Family and Friends Day at Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church is
a family reunion that is open to the general public. Our pastor, Rev. Benny
Thomas said that this is the way our church gives back to the community.
Our church was founded by migrants from South Carolina and Georgia.
Rev. Thomas is a native of Covington, Georgia. The migration continues.
These migrants like the migrants to Middletown met other people of color.
The most recent migration to Vale, North Carolina came from Georgia and
South Carolina. It seems that the Great Migration continues from the
1920’s, but this is a second wave. The recent migrants are more than
African Americans in the population of Lincoln County, North Carolina.
The recent migrants arrived from the same places as the African
Americans that founded Mt. Calvary Church. There was a surge in
migrants in the fall of 2011, because the states of SC and Georgia passed
laws that made it difficult for undocumented aliens to work. There are
Hispanics members at Mt. Calvary Church. The first migration was
Mexicans that came to Vale on the heels of the African American exodus
from Vale, in the late 1970’s. The Hispanics at Mt Calvary Baptist Church
are truly family and friends because they married church members.
Bernice Vargas, called Sunshine, has been a member since 1999. She is a
native of Costa Rico. She is an exception, because Costa Rican settled in
nearby Lincolnton. Half the Costa Ricans in North Carolina live in the
town of Lincolnton. They came to work in the textile mills. The Mexicans
53
settled in rural Vale. They worked in the cotton and soy bean fields as well
as the apple orchards.
Most African Americans moved to the small towns surrounding Vale
.North Street in Lincolnton is made up of former migrants. Former
migrants are found in Cherryville, Lawndale, Newton and Hickory.
In a conversation with Velmon Phelps Patterson, the church financial
secretary, I mentioned that I had attended a family reunion in Southfield,
Michigan. Velmon went on to tell me that her cousin McArthur Lawrence
was the husband of Brenda Lawrence, the mayor of Southfield. McArthur
was a former resident of Vale, NC. His family had migrated from middle
Georgia. This was the migration that brought Berry Gordy and Elijah
Mohammed to Detroit. Inside the Great Migration, there, was a migration
from rural Georgia to rural North Carolina.
In the 1920’s, thousands of black resident left Georgia. They had
many stories to tell about why they left. Rufus Stanford said that his
family left in the middle of the night. They were facing starvation and
exploitation from landowners for whom they worked as sharecroppers.
Matters were complicated by an infestation of “boll weevers”. The
Williams family said that they were fleeing violence after they complained
about being cheated. In fact, some workers were murdered in Putnam
County and held in virtual slavery on the Williams plantation.
One day a man showed up in Putnam County and promise them work
in another state. Many of them left with him that very day. Some Georgia
authorities actually issued fugitive warrants against these migrants that
were generally ignored by out- of –state law enforcement.
54
Doc Maddox went to Atlanta but he later followed his family out of
Georgia. The father of Mark and Thomas Tinsley, Mark, died in Jones
County. They migrated from Putnam County with Rev. Ben Gardner, the
man who married their mother.
After one generation, these migrants moved off the land and out of
the vicious circle of abuse in the sharecropper system in their new homes
in their new state.
In 2002, the descendents of these migrants began to seek answers
about their Georgia and South Carolina past. They were most interested in
the American Civil War and the years immediately after the end of
slavery. The history books did not tell them what they really wanted to
know.
THE VISIT
On Labor Day Weekend, 2007, my niece, Fontalla Randolph and my
sister, Virginia Jackson drove up to Northbrook from their homes in Union
City and Stone Mountain, Georgia, respectively. Fontalla was the daughter
of the late Frances Young Randolph, a civil rights activist and President of
the Victor Valley, California NAACP. She was a resident of Apple Valley,
California. Frances migrated to Middletown, Connecticut in 1955.
The Mrs. Randolph was born in Vale and once lived in the African
American community known as Northbrook. She later moved to
Middletown, Ct, along with three brothers, two uncles and two sisters.
Northbrook Township is also known as Vale. I wanted Fontalla to visit the
first home of her grandparents, shortly after they married back in 1925. I
invited them to attend my church and asked the Senior Deacon, Joe
Patterson, to take Fontalla and Virginia on the “grand tour” of Cat Square
55
and let them see the square and the ancestral church. If you are interested,
Cat Square is a real place in Northbrook Township.
Deacon Patterson took them first to the square. They were
disappointed for they were expecting a grand monument. The square is
only a square painted in the road at an intersection with a picture of a cat
painted within it. The ancestral church was more or less what they
expected. It is a small framed white church near the Reepsville Road.
Daniels Church is nearby.
Rev. Richard Nichols came up from Putnam County, Georgia and
founded Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Church. The pastor is now Rev. Oscar
Maddox, a descendent of the Georgia migrants who came to the Vale area
during the Great Migration.
As for Fontalla, her ancestors were slaves who were sent from
Virginia to a plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. After slavery,
her ancestors migrated to Elberton, Georgia.
HALF ACRE PEOPLE
Mt. Calvary Baptist Church is not very, very far from Half Acre
Kinderhook or Popcastle Township in Putnam County, Georgia. Dora
Clemons Brawley have descendents from Half Acre , she said that she
believed that the area was called Devil’s Half Acre and there is a church
there called Stanfordville Church. Dora said that her great grandfather
Oscar Culp was instrumental in the development of that church. Culp’s
name is engraved on the front of the church. I have been told that
Stanfordville was a lost town. I asked Rufus Stanford, who is a trustee at
our church, about his possible connection to Stanfordville. He said that he
had never heard of it and all he remembers is that his family had to get the
56
“hell” out of Georgia. The Pound family is probably the oldest African
American family that can be documented so far in Vale. We can trace that
family as far back as Georgia’s pioneer settler Merriman Pound.
Our church is located in the Vale area called Northbrook and West
Lincoln County. The original members founded the church in 1943. I am a
member and trustee of that church. Most of the members of the church and
most of the former residents came from Half Acre Township in Putnam
County, GA, between 1920 and 1954. After 1974, they started migrating
from the immediate area of Northbrook.
They left four African
American churches behind. Now, all the church members commute every
Wednesday and every Sunday to their respective churches. Most of the
families are descended from the original members from Putnam County.
Others are descended from adjoining counties, such as Baldwin, Greene,
Jasper, Jones and Morgan. There are several original members still at our
churches.
There are a few members at Mt. Calvary who are natives of South
Carolina. Like the Georgians, they help settle the African American
community in Northbrook, after coming from one specific county,
Lancaster, in South Carolina. Mt. Calvary is located about 14 miles west
of the town called Lincolnton in Lincoln County, as measured from the
church parking lot to the post office downtown Lincolnton .Vale is in the
zip code 28168 and Lincolnton is in zip code 28092. This Georgia
community is located in the foothills of Western North Carolina.
57
Georgia family Names in and around Northbrook
They were Kee, Kee Phelps, Phelps, Maddox Maddox, Williams,
Williams, Farley, Farley, Farley, Farley, Farley Clemons, Hunt, Tinsley,
Vinson, Vinson, Nichols, Smith, Davis, Moncree, Beasley, Foster, Haines,
Coates, White, Ursury, Fuller Young, and Butts. They were Batts, Daniels,
Gardner, Thomas, Thomas, Lawrence, Lawrence, Stafford, Hill, Coates,
Pound, Ross, Ross, walker and Ussery. There were an equal number of
migration families that settled in the adjoining townships in Cleveland and
Gaston Counties.
These migration families had the greatest impact on western Lincoln
County, because there were only five native African American families
living
arrived.
Those descendents of the original
Georgia there
migrants when
learned ofthey
slaveryfirst
in North
Carolina. There was a
difference in slavery in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
The most important thing to remember, in North Carolina was there were no significant history of
slave preachers and churches. In 1835, the NC Legislature banned Africans Americans from teaching,
preaching or learning to read or write. Later, free blacks could not migrate into the state. Lincoln
County free blacks had to have a white sponsor. When the Civil War started there was a move to
impress free blacks before slaves into state and Confederate service.
When the first migrants arrived in Northbrook, African Americans
own 25% of the farmland in the county. The black landowners were
concentrated in the eastern end of the county. In 2007, black people own
0% of the farm land. 100% of the tenant farmers are Mexicans. When the
migrants wanted to purchase land in Northbrook, the farmers refused to
sell it to them. They then moved east, north and south into the textile
mills. Until 1968, black people in Lincoln County could not work in the
textile mills except as janitors. Costa Ricans were hired to work in the
textile mills at the time blacks were not allowed to work in them. In 2007,
58
half of the Costa Ricans, in the whole state of North Carolina, live in
Lincoln County but not in Vale. Vale is Mexican country.
Immigration not Migration
Things have changed since 1920; Mexican immigrants have replaced
the African American agriculture labor force in Northbrook. The Senior
Deacon at Mt. Calvary says most of them are illegal aliens. Since America
cannot control her borders, we have no choice but to believe him. The
Congress pretends that it is serious about the illegal immigration problem.
They know and hope that there will be a way to simply NOT enforce the
law. The President, George Bush, wants to put these people, illegal aliens,
on a track toward citizenship, but we know that this mean also that they
will have the right to vote. They will vote for the Republican Party
because they will feel so grateful. “They will take jobs that Americans DO
want”.
The New Northbrook Laborers
Joe Patterson is 58 years old; college educated, and has spent most of
his working life in management of textile mills. When he was 52 years
old, he lost his job to NAFTA and Mexico. Joe then went back to school
to become a diesel mechanic. Joe had operated his own auto repair shop
for 15 years and had a degree in traffic and transportation. After he
graduated from diesel school, Joe went to a trucking company near Mt.
Calvary, seeking a job. He was not hired but what he was told
demonstrates the state of affairs in North Carolina.
59
“I would like to hire you Mr. Patterson, but we have enough
Mexicans”.
They said and did some of the same things back in slavery times.
Illegal immigration and the illegal international slave trade looked pretty
much the same. Certainly, they said some of the same things. Business
interest simple moved the centers of the slave trade off shore and the U.S.
Government refused to enforce the laws.
“We have not come a very long way”
THE MARCH BEGINS
The Rev. Benny Thomas of Mt Calvary Baptist Church is a native
of Covington, Georgia. His father still lives there now. Most of us became
familiar with that town in the TV series “IN THE HEAT OF THE
NIGHT”.
The Intelligent Negro
Sherman’s first meeting with African Americans, all slaves, took
place at Covington in Newton County. Sherman realized that his policy of
“separation” not “liberation” was not working. The hoards of runaway
slaves following his army were hampering his progress. He met with a
group of slaves on a plantation and talked to an “intelligent negro” about
remaining on the plantations and not following his army.
“Intelligent Negro” has nothing to do with intelligence, it is a racist
term that implies that black people are, as a norm, ignorant and stupid and
one has found an exception. As proof of the exception, a white man must
validate the Negro in question. Intelligent Negroes are not smart; they are
intelligent ONLY when they think how white people want them to think in
60
any given situation. This was a widely held belief among racist of the 19th
Century. The official military records of the Civil War contain many such
references to the “intelligent Negro”, especially in the collecting of
military intelligence.
The “intelligent negro” at Covington said that he understood the
situation. Yet, Sherman continued his march and the hoards of runaway
slave continued to follow his army. They followed his army all the way to
the Cape Fear River up in North Carolina.
“The Ignorant Negro”
Evidently, Sherman met “an ignorant Negro” called Frank Childress
earlier in the war.
Frank Childress was captures with Confederate forces and was taken
to General U. S. Grant who wanted to kill him. Sherman intervened and
Grant turned Childress over to him. Sherman said to Childress,” You
helped the Confederates, now you will help us. Load that cannon or I’ll
shoot you.” Childress was virtually enslaved by the Union army.
Frank Childress later received a Confederate pension from the State
of Mississippi.
Contraband Negroes
“Contraband Negroes”, as General Butler dubbed them, were
property of the Confederates that could be separated from their slave
owners. Other than those used as pioneer labor, they could not be eaten,
ridden or fired in Sherman’s army.
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On the other hand, Sherman’s army systematically sexually exploited
black women across Georgia and into the Carolinas. There were no
Georgia laws against the rape of a black person.
Sherman stated many times that he did not want black soldiers in his
army, because they were inferior to white soldiers. He had no black
combat soldiers, but he was willing to have black servants and laborers.
The African American combat units were in the rest of the Union army,
not with Sherman.
The Anonymous Negro
The anonymous Negro is found throughout American history.
Anonymous Negro means that a black person was present or did a
noteworthy act, but he was not important enough for us to know his
identity. Since we do not know him, he did not exist or contribute
anything to society. He is dehumanized. Anonymous Negroes are no more
than echoes and shadows that really did not exist. They have no substance.
Are African Americans descended from anonymous Negroes?
Velma Phelps Patterson is our churches’ financial secretary. When
her father, Henry and his brother Marshall left Putnam County, their
names were Key. After they arrived in North Carolina, Henry called
himself Henry Phelps and Marshall started writing his name k-e-e. The
Kee family started claiming Native American ancestry. This is no surprise
as nearly 60% of African Americans claim Indian ancestor. Why this
claim is so vastly exaggerated, I can not tell you. There were stories about
an Indian woman who came to Putnam County with Sherman’s army. By
accident I found a similar story in a newspaper, except the woman was
called a mulatto.
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The Colonel’s Woman, an Anonymous Negro
Phelps - Kee
Union soldiers under a colonel came to the Walter U. Mitchell farm
in Putnam County and camped for a few days. There were black servants
with them. After the soldiers left, the Mitchell slaves went to see what
they could find at the abandoned campsite. They found a beautiful mulatto
woman with a baby that had frozen to death during the night. They buried
the infant and took care of the mother. After a few days, “Eliza”, the
mother told this story which was put together from several versions:
“I am from Tennessee where I met Colonel Cook or McCook. He
seemed to like me. There were several women around; he could have had
any one of them. I knew that he was married. We never mentioned his
wife nor did he say that he wanted me as his wife. I worked as his servant.
We stopped at the Walter U. Mitchell farm because I was ready to deliver
my child. He left me there because I would be taken care of by the slaves
on the Mitchell place. We both knew that we would never see each other
again”
Oscar Culp had a young sister that was taken off a fence among other
children who were curiously watching Union troops. The kidnapping of
his little sister was a source of animosity toward the Culp family. Oscar
believed that the slave owner should have protected his sister from the
Union army. She was never seen again.
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The origin of the Daniels-Butts family
Louise Butts Daniels died on November 29, 1947. She came to
Northbrook with her husband from Putnam County, Georgia. Louise was a
direct descendent of Adolphus DeLaMotta.
When Alexander Daniels was over 40 years, he decided to move his
family from Popcastle in Putnam County, Georgia to Lincoln County,
North Carolina. He settled in Northbrook .His family included his wife
Louise and eight children, Mamie, Lucius, Rufus Thomas, Mary, Lillian,
Alexander and Joseph.
Rufus Daniels moved to the Rock Hill community in Stanley,
Lincoln County, North Carolina.
The ancestor, George Daniels was in Baldwin County when the
Union army came through. He followed the troops about ten miles before
he turned back.
We first encounter Adolphus DeLaMotte in 1860; he was working as
a blacksmith in Savannah, Georgia. He was a Free Person of Color who
had entered into a union with a slave woman called Sarah Butts who lived
in various places including Chatham, Hancock, Clarke, Baldwin, Jasper
and Jones Counties. By 1854, the couple had one son. They could not
marry because Sarah was a slave. Adolphus entered into the Ministry of
Jesus Christ because of the privileges and chances for material gain. He
came to hate the politics of the Reconstruction Era.
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E.D. Townsend, for some reason, recorded Adolphus’ last name as
Delmotte in the minutes of a meeting with General Sherman.
The DeLaMotta Family
After Sherman’s army occupied Savannah, Adolphus DeLaMotta
united with his family. They were his immediate family which included
his wife Sarah Butts DelaMotte and several children. Their sons were
Fleming D. Butts, Edward DeLaMotta, Clinton DeLaMotta, Emanuel
DeLaMotta and James Henry DeLaMotta. Their daughters were Sophia
Carrolton, Fanny Morse and Emeline DeLaMotte. Emanuel was named for
one of his well knows Jewish relatives.
James Henry DeLaMotta was born in Athens in Clarke County and
grew up in Savannah. He attended Atlanta University. He moved to
Washington, DC with a family called Bethel. Adolphus worked as a
janitor at Atlanta University and Spellman Seminary to supplement his
income.
C.L. DeLaMotta, a well known Deacon at the First African Baptist
Church of Savannah was a relative.
The Vinson {Vincent} family of Vale was ALSO descended from
another Jewish family called Solomon in Georgia.
Adolphus DeLaMotta missed Sherman’s army when it came through
Baldwin County and Milledgeville. Adolphus left for his hometown only
days before.
Piney Grove Primitive Baptist Church lies just across the county line
in Cleveland County, North Carolina. The church is close enough to Mt.
Calvary to be part of the same community. For some reason the members
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of Pine Grove called their church the “New Church”. Late in the 1980’s, I
interviewed Rev. Mark Tinsley.
The Tinsley family started out in Jones County, Georgia. James
Tinsley had two son called Mark and Thomas. Mark had two son called
Mark and Thomas Tinsley. These are the brothers that we know. Marks
wife died and the mother Creassie married Rev. Ben Gardner. Ben
Gardner already had a daughter called Elsie. Ben Gardner moved his
family to North Carolina and founded Pine Grove Church. Elsie married a
Lawrence and later she married Henry Phelps,
Mark Tinsley told me that he was the Moderator of the
Milledgeville, Georgia Primitive Baptist Association and his association
was founded in 1865. Rev. Tinsley traveled once a month to Georgia on
his official duties in the association. I believe that his association was
different from the one I knew.
My parents co-founded Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Church along
with Richard Nichols; Mt. Olive is the only church within the Mt. Calvary
Primitive Baptist Association that is located outside Georgia. I was
always aware of the Georgia connection to the African American of the
Vale area.
Rev. Mark Tinsley talked about the Baptist Churches in Baldwin
County in or near Milledgeville. Our conclusion was that the black
religious community in Milledgeville was shaken to its foundation in
1865. The Union invasion could have been the only thing that could have
happened. After Sherman’s army left Milledgeville, the black religious
community found a need to make a greater attack on personal sins.
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During Sherman’s whole march, Milledgeville was the only place
where a public orgy took place between local black women and Union
soldiers. This is apart from the systematic rapes that took place along the
march.
Rev. Tinsley believed that the Primitive Baptist Churches attracted
members only because it was more conservative in their beliefs.
Rev. Tinsley was probably right. In 1863, Secretary of War
E.M.Stanton setup the American Freedmen Inquiry Commission. Stanton
claimed that the commission wanted to learn how the government could
help the slaves in their transition into freedom. E.D.Townsend was his
assistance. The preliminary report got into religious matters of black
people. The commission concluded that there was a high degree of
religiosity among the Freedmen. They also concluded that all the singing,
shouting, snorting and praising “de lord” did not translate into higher
moral standards. They reported that Freedmen would lie in a “heart beat”
among other things. Now, the commission never realized that the so called
white Christians were the same. We have seen the so called conservative
Christian commit personal sins, but the commission attributed this
behavior to African Americans entirely.
A careful reading of the American Freedmen Inquiry Preliminary
Report will lead one to understand how the final report was edited and
changed. You have to consider both reports and understand what the
people believed at that time. Here are my conclusions concerning religion
in the reports:
The Freedmen are religious; they practice a primitive form of
religion. We can use this to our advantage to control them.
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The Freedmen are very superstitious, but we will not interfere with
that because there is no advantage for us. It won’t cause any harm to us.
The Negro race is blood thirsty. Negro soldiers will charge
Confederate line oblivious to the high number of casualties. Since they are
so religious, we can use this for our purposes.
Have our military officer to make black soldiers believe that they are
fighting the Confederates in the “Cause of God “. After the war, we do
not want them to believe that we owe them anything. Let God reward
them. Let them go up to heaven where God is, we don’t need them to
come up north we don’t want them.
Freedman believes in the laws of the church not, the laws of God.
Slaves practice a religion called Grateful Obedience. They are not
allowed to aspire no higher than the Will of the Slave Master which
overrides the Will of God.
If you do not believe what I say, read the report for yourselves.
FREEDOM?
Sherman troops corrupted a large number of black women. Freedom,
they were led to believe, was the right to do what you wanted to do. This
was confused with gratitude toward the “Northern Liberators”. They at
first believed that the Union soldiers were not so bad. They soon learned
that Northerners had the same attitude as Southerners about African
American. These women may have known or did not know that
Sherman’s troops were raping their way across Georgia.
Sherman
himself pretended that he was not aware of what was happening. This was
like what is happening in Darfur in Sudan today, burning, raping and
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killing. In Darfur it is about genocide, in Georgia it was about total war
and the separation of property from slave owners.
FREEDOM?
George Daniels, the father of Alexander, learned that those slaves
who followed Union troops were just runaway slaves not free men.
George attached himself to a Union military unit in the vicinity of Murder
Creek during War in Georgia not on the Great March. After some time
when the slaves were asleep Confederate soldier over ran the pickets and
sent the slave rushing into the Union camp. The Union troops rushed into
the woods in panic. The Confederate soldiers were joined by civilians in
hunting down and killing the Yankees. Many slaves were killed .George
made his way back home. This was not the kind of freedom he had in
mind.
After Milledgeville and just before Savannah, there was Ebenezer
Creek. The Union army and the government showed their true colors. The
Ebenezer Creek incident led to the meeting in Savannah with the black
religious leaders which was no more a than a sham in public relations.
We know about Sherman’s army, but we were not told of Joe
Wheeler’s army. He was a Confederate cavalry commander.
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The Meeting with Bre’r Rabbit
About 13 years ago, had a telephone conversation with a Nancy
Garvey who worked for a southern living magazine. I came away from
that conversation with a deeper understanding of Georgians.
I visited Putnam County, Georgia for the first time in July, 2007. I
drove down to Stone Mountain from North Carolina to visit my sister,
Virginia Jackson and on to Union City. I also visited the family of Clifton
Patterson at Stone Mountain. Clifton’s great great grandfather founded Mt.
Calvary Baptist Church in Vale, North Carolina in 1943. From Stone
Mountain, I drove to Eatonton, Georgia via Covington and Madison. I was
in the city about four hours, but I did not have time to drive down to
Milledgeville. On the road from Madison to Eatonton, I was struck how
the countryside looked like the countryside in Vale, Lincoln County,
North Carolina. The only difference that I noticed was that from Vale you
are able to see the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Before I left North Carolina I talk to Velma Phelps Patterson. She
asked me to make contact with the families that had members to leave
there between 1920 an1955. I was disappointed; all I was able to do was
to get into an argument about a tar baby.
The people in North Carolina know that their families left Putnam
County, but the people in Georgia know only about the great African
American migration to the cities of the east and Midwest. This is hard to
understand because in Half Acre Township alone every other household
had a family member to move to Lincoln County, North Carolina. Most
left Lincoln County and moved on north, but Vale was their original
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destination. The people who stayed in North Carolina have family
members who also moved north.
John Beam, a Lincoln County cotton farmer went to Putnam County
and moved ten families to west Lincoln County. Forty more families came
later. John Beam helped these new migrants to establish Indian Creek
Primitive Baptist Church. He donated land and lumber to build the first
church. Don’t think for one second that John Beam did this out of the
goodness of his heart, he was trying to keep his workforce in the local
area. It’s better to exploit you, my dear.
The members brought Elder George Clemons as the first pastor. The
Clemons were the family of Colonel and Crockett Clement or Clemons in
Putnam County.
As I drove into Eatonton, I saw a stature of Bre’r Rabbit. At the
public library I took my “anger” out on the first library patron I met, a Mr.
James Crawford “You people might as well have put up a stature of tar
baby”, I said.
“Bre’r Fox is my man”, he said,”You seem to be insulted some how”.
“Aren’t you”?
“This white man, Harris, have become famous by something that he
stole from African Americans. He has also changed the characters. There
was no Uncle Remus, either; his real name was Uncle Monday who lived
in South Carolina. The trickster was originally Bre’r Turtle”.
I was not really angry; this was how I got Mr. James to tell me about
what he knew about Georgia and Putnam County history.
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South Carolina roots and past
The migration from Lancaster County, South Carolina.
Mt. Calvary Baptist Church was founded by Joseph Cunningham of
Lancaster County, South Carolina but the bulk of his members were
Georgians.
Families from Lancaster County
Brown, Jones, Patterson, Patterson, Foster, Ballard, Tomes,
Cunningham, Cunningham, Barnes, Anthony, Thompson, McIlwain,
Kilgo, Cauthen, Stinson, Stover, Sowell
South Carolina
Hammond, Hush, Thomas, Bryant, Roseboro and Rice.
We catch up with Sherman’s army leaving Columbia South Carolina,
they arrive at Fairfield County.
THE GREAT MARCH FROM ATLANTA TO SAVANNAH,
GEORGIA
Sherman troops had corrupted a large number of black women.
Freedom, they were led to believe, was the right to do what you wanted to
do. This was confused with gratitude toward the northern liberators and
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relief that they were not like the Confederates had said they were. These
women may have known or did not know that Sherman’s troops were
raping their way across Georgia. Mostly black women were raped. There
was no enforceable law against this crime. Sherman himself pretended that
he was not aware this was happening. This was like what was happening
in Darfur in Sudan today, burning, raping and killing. In Darfur it is about
genocide, in Georgia it was about total war and the separation of property
from slave owners that could be used in war. The Yankees were about
separation not liberation of the slaves.
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PATTERSON-CUNNINGHAM
PART II
In memory of Curtis “Uncle Buddy” Cunningham
Dear Members,
To be shared with others.
I am truly sorry that you did not make it to Uncle Buddy’s
funeral. There was a lot of my-
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Camp Stafford, La
The name “Cunningham” is big in Kershaw and Lancaster Counties,
South Carolina. I counted no less than 20 different families. This family,
Patterson- Cunningham, is part of the Half Acre migration story. Rev. Joe
Cunningham went from Lancaster County, South Carolina to Lincoln
County, North Carolina and founded a Baptist church. His membership
was migrants from Georgia, particularly Half Acre Township in Putnam
County Georgia. Rev. Cunningham’s church was a Missionary Baptist
Church which provided an alternative to the three Primitive Baptist
Churches.
Tucker’s Grove Baptist Church
Rev. Joseph Cunningham also founded the Tuckers Grove Baptist
Church in Iron Station that operated for 12 years.
Origin
Joseph Cunningham of Kershaw County, South Carolina had about
111 slaves. Brothers, Henry and Wyatt Cunningham were among those
slaves. After the general emancipation Henry and Wyatt Cunningham
moved up into Gills creek, Lancaster County, South Carolina.
During the Civil War Wyatt Cunningham was a slave of Dr.
McDowell of Liberty Hill. Emma McDowell’s family was slaves of the
McDowell family. Emma was the mother of Joe Cunningham of Vale,
North Carolina
Wyatt was impressed into Confederate service as a teamster. He was
wounded in the leg at a skirmish near Rocky Mount Ferry, now Great
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Falls, South Carolina. Great Falls is where the Catawba becomes the
Wateree River.
Henry was at the Cunningham plantation at the time of the general
emancipation.
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CUNNINGHAM
ALMETA CUNNINGHAM
PATTERSON
ANNIE
JOE
BROWN
CUNNINGHAM
Born 1895
8?
MINNIE
BROWN
EMMA
McDOWELL
4 HENRY
CUNNINGHAM
Born 1838
BESSIE BROWN
HENRY CUNNUNGHAM
1794
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Joe Cunningham’s parents, Henry and Emma Jane McDowell
Cunningham dies when Joe was very young. The oral tradition of the
family state that young Joe was reared by his uncle’s, Solomon and Aaron.
I could not find any evidence that they reared Joe Cunningham. I did find
an association with Henry McIlwain, his half brother. Henry
Cunningham’s first wife was Margaret McIlwain. Henry had a son called
Solomon by his first wife. This Solomon would have been Joe’s first wife.
The first census that we can be certain of Joe Cunningham is 1900.
He was about 17 years old and was a boarder in the house hold of Richard
Mackey. It is interesting that William Trusdell is also a boarder in the
same household. As you remember Trusdell was a family name of Dave
Trusdell Patterson. In 1910, Joe Cunningham is working for Adam white
as a servant. Joe’s brothers, that we know about, were Mary, James and
Elias. Elias went to Mecklenburg County and worked for Robert Elliott.
Sometime after 1910, Joe Cunningham married Anne Brown. In
1920 they were living in gills creek. Their children were Bessie Almeta
and William. Eliza Ford lived in the household. She was listed as Joe’s
sister-in-law.
By 1930 Joe and Annie are living in Lincoln County. Their children
are Bessie, Almeta, Willie, Ed, Roxana and Hazel.
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South Carolina Roots and Past
The migration from Lancaster County, South Carolina.
Joseph Cunningham of Lancaster County, South Carolina founded
Mt. Calvary Baptist Church but the bulk of his members were Georgians.
Families from Lancaster County, South Carolina
Brown, Jones, Patterson, Patterson, Foster, Ballard, Tomes, Cunningham,
Cunningham, Barnes, Anthony, Thompson, McIlwain, Kilgo, Cauthen,
Stinson, Stover, Sowell
Half acre, no more, no less
Rev. Joseph Cunningham was born in Lancaster County, South
Carolina in 1886. He moved his family to Northbrook in Vale during the
great migration. In 1942, Rev. Cunningham and other African American
residents started negotiations with Calvin Wehunt to build a near El Bethel
school. Wehunt was a wealthy cotton farmer as well as a store owner. He
was going to charge tree times the fair market value .Wehunt had
promised to sell land for the church. The congregation held services in the
El Bethel School.
The Sowell brothers, James and Ben, shot up the Wehunt store.
Wehunt blamed the whole black community for the actions of the Sowell
brothers; he used his influence to have the congregation kicked out of El
Bethel School.
A few months later, a local widow, Mrs. Brenny Houser offered the
congregation some land that was along Hull Grove Church Road. They
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were to pay the fair market value for the land. The congregation was very
excited about the prospect of having a church.
Later, Mrs. Brenny Houser came to the home of Joe Cunningham in
tears. She explained that the Ku Klux Klan had come to her house and had
threatened her. They objected to having a black church along the road
where they could be seen.
Mrs. Houser promised to sell them another plot of land about an
eighth of a mile on the backside and bottom land of her property. The
congregation purchased this land at the same price as the prime land along
Hull Grove Church Road.
Rev. Cunningham was not a sharecropper before he came to North
Carolina. He owned his own land in Lancaster County. He went to
Lancaster County and had timber cut from his land and transported it to
Lincoln County. In Northbrook he swapped green timber for dried
lumber. They build their church.
Today, deacons Joe Patterson, Thomas Tinsley, Jeff Tinsley are
grandsons and great grand son of Rev. Joe Cunningham.
Since then Mt. Calvary has acquired additional land. The last acre
was transferred from an adjoining farm. Mt. Calvary had paved the long
dirt road to their church. The contractor who paced the road noticed that
a farmer used the road to get to his farm. The contractor went to the farmer
and asked him to help the church pay for the work since he was using the
road. The farmer contacted the church and agreed to transfer an acre of
land for the church cemetery,
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Daniels-Butts
After 1920, about sixty families migrated from Putnam County,
Georgia to Lincoln, Cleveland and Gaston Counties, North Carolina. Most
of the migrants that settled in Lincoln County came mostly from Half
Acre Township in Putnam County. They established three churches in
Primitive Baptist Associations from Georgia. Edward Chapel Missionary
Baptist Church was already in the area. The Daniels-Butts family did not
attend the Primitive Baptist churches, they joined Edward Chapel.
Collateral Ancestor
On January 12, 1865, General William T. Sherman met with 20 black
ministers and religious leaders at Savannah, Georgia. This meeting
supposed to have led to Field order No. 15 of the 40 -Acres –and -Mule
fame. The meeting was a hoax. One of the ministers was Adolphus
DeLaMotta. Rev. DeLaMotta had been a minister at a Missionary Baptist
Church in Milledgeville in Baldwin County. He had actually married
Sarah Emma Butts in the Governor’s Mansion. Sarah Emma was a servant
of Governor Brown. One of our collateral ancestors was Rev.
DeLaMotta’s stepson, Fleming Butts. Most of the African American Butts
were from Hancock County.
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DANIELS-BUTTS
Alexander Daniels died on November 18, 1942, 13 years after he
arrived at Northbrook No.2 in Vale, North Carolina. He was one of the
many migrants from Putnam County, Georgia. He was born in Putnam
County on November 10, 1880. He was buried at Pine Ridge Cemetery in
Cleveland County, NC.
Alexander’s parents were George and Amanda Wells Daniels of
Putnam County, Georgia. Amanda was the daughter of Jacob and Harriet
Wells of Randolph County, Georgia .Some of Alexander’s siblings were
Ervin, Sophie, Flossie, James and Mary Daniels Williams. Mary had a
daughter called Mary. By 1910, George and Amanda had been married 37
years.
Alexander Daniels was married to Louise Butts of Hancock County,
Georgia. Louise moved to Putnam County after she married Alexander.
Some of Alexander and Louise’s children were Inez, Lucy Mae, Margo
Rufus, Luscious, Thomas, Mary, Alex, Littie Ann and Joe. Louise Butts
Daniels was the daughter of Claiborne Butts, born in 1846 and Flora Butts.
Somewhere along the way “Claiborne” got perverted to Liborn and Libon.
Some of the children of Libon and Flora were Walter, Leola, Annie Lee,
Charlie Miller, Sallie, Barlow, Caledonia and Minnie. Flora’s mother is
believed to be Sallie Fraley.
Louise Butts Daniels died on November 29, 1947. The cause of death
was bleeding of brain after a stroke. She is buried at Edward Chapel at
Toluca in Vale, North Carolina.
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She was living in eastern Lincoln County. Her son, Rufus had moved
to that part of the county. On November 29, 1947, six other people also
died in Lincoln County, all were African Americans.
Deacon Joe Patterson is married to Velmon Louise Phelps. Velmon is the
daughter of Henry Phelps and Elsie Gardner Lawrence Phelps.
Phelps-Kee
Willis Phelps was born in Half Acre Township in Putnam County,
Georgia around 1858. He was a slave. After emancipation he married Ida
Hill. Ida was 18 years old. They stayed together until after 1920.Their
children over the years were Benjamin , Lucy, Mada ,Carrie, Minnie,
Josie, Clara , Essie , Mandy, Tinsley ,Hutie ,Joe and Charlie . Between
1882 and 1895 Willis had a child by Louise Kee called Henry William
Phelps. Henry Phelps was reared by Willis and his wife Ida.
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