Slavery Walking Tour
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Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 10:00am
Join us for a free walking tour, "From Slavery to Freedom in Adams Morgan" led by FMW attender Mary Belcher on Saturday March 20 beginning at 10 AM at the Sun Trust Bank Plaza at 18th St & Columbia Rd.
Contact: Mary Belcher, 202-462-9069, maryjbelcher@comcast.net
“FROM FREEDOM TO SLAVERY IN ADAMS MORGAN”
The tour starts at 18th Street and Columbia Road NW--the heart of Adams Morgan--and takes walkers back to the start of the Civil War, when the institution of slavery persisted in the District of Columbia, particularly on the large farms dotting the rural outskirts of the city. The second part of the tour takes walkers to the site of a unique archeological project to identify and protect Washington’s largest African American cemetery and its only Quaker burying ground.
PART ONE: WHO WAS HORTENSE PROUT? We walk first to Kalorama Park, recently designated, as a result of this walking tour, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site. Kalorama Park was the location of the manor house of John Little, whose 56-acre cattle farm was worked by 17 enslaved African Americans, including three generations of the Prout family.
In the spring of 1861, 20-year-old Hortense Prout made a daring bid for freedom, as thousands of Union troops pored into the city to quell rebel uprisings in nearby Virginia. Hortense disappeared quietly from her master’s house. She was found soon after in an encampment of Ohio soldiers a few miles away in today’s Bloomingdale neighborhood. She was disguised as a man, most likely waiting to board the Underground Railroad north to freedom. We know of her escape because the Washington Evening Star on June 17, 1861, reported on her capture:
“A FUGITIVE – A slave woman belonging to Mr. John Little having eloped, Mr. Little made diligent search and ascertained that she was in one of the Ohio camps. He made visit to the camp and told the colonel commanding what he wanted, and the reply was, ‘You shall have her, if she is here.’ Search was made and the fugitive was found, completely rigged out in male attire. She was immediately turned over to the custody of Mr. Little, and was taken to jail. Every opportunity is afforded loyal citizens of loyal States to recover their fugitive slaves.”
John Little, who built a prosperous cattle farm on the backs of enslaved people, threw Hortense Prout into the city jail for “safekeeping,” a form of punishment used against enslaved people, even though criminal charges weren’t filed. Hortense was released to Little after 10 days, on June 25, 1861. Just six months after Hortense’s imprisonment, President Lincoln outlawed the practice of “safekeeping” of enslaved African Americans in the District of Columbia. Less than a year after her escape, in April 1862, he declared them free
William Still, the great Underground Railroad conductor, wrote that women who fled from slavery “undertook three times the risk of failure that males were liable to, not to mention the additional trials and struggles they had to contend with. In justice, therefore, to the heroic female who was willing to endure the most extreme suffering and hardship for freedom, doubled honors were due.”
The walkers then leave Kalorama Park and head north three blocks to Walter Pierce Park.
PART TWO: RECOVERING A LOST MEMORY: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN AND QUAKER CEMETERIES AT WALTER PIERCE PARK
At the request of the neighborhood, Howard University archeologists are conducting an investigation of Walter C. Pierce Community Park, where more than 8,000 people are buried in two nearly forgotten 19th-Century cemeteries. The Colored Union Benevolent Association cemetery, DC’s busiest African American cemetery following the Civil War, was established in 1870. Walter Pierce Park is also the site of the city’s only Quaker cemetery, founded in 1807. Both cemeteries were forced to close in 1889.
Howard U. Professor Mark Mack, a biological anthropologist, is leading a ground-penetrating radar survey of the site to determine the location of graves and other subsurface objects without disturbing them. This phase of archeological work follows three years of measuring, mapping and documenting cemetery features on the surface of the park. During the initial survey, the exposed remains of at least nine individuals were found.
Many of the families that formed the Colored Union Benevolent Association, which founded the cemetery at Walter Pierce, were early members of Washington’s free black community. They founded some of the city’s earliest African American schools and churches. They were laborers, servants, landlords, and government messengers.
Among the people buried at the Walter Pierce Park site was Amelia Edmonson, the mother of six siblings who tried to escape slavery in April 1848 aboard the schooner The Pearl. At least 23 other members of the extended Edmonson family also were laid to rest in the Colored Union Benevolent Association cemetery.
“FROM FREEDOM TO SLAVERY IN ADAMS MORGAN”
The tour starts at 18th Street and Columbia Road NW--the heart of Adams Morgan--and takes walkers back to the start of the Civil War, when the institution of slavery persisted in the District of Columbia, particularly on the large farms dotting the rural outskirts of the city. The second part of the tour takes walkers to the site of a unique archeological project to identify and protect Washington’s largest African American cemetery and its only Quaker burying ground.
PART ONE: WHO WAS HORTENSE PROUT? We walk first to Kalorama Park, recently designated, as a result of this walking tour, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site. Kalorama Park was the location of the manor house of John Little, whose 56-acre cattle farm was worked by 17 enslaved African Americans, including three generations of the Prout family.
In the spring of 1861, 20-year-old Hortense Prout made a daring bid for freedom, as thousands of Union troops pored into the city to quell rebel uprisings in nearby Virginia. Hortense disappeared quietly from her master’s house. She was found soon after in an encampment of Ohio soldiers a few miles away in today’s Bloomingdale neighborhood. She was disguised as a man, most likely waiting to board the Underground Railroad north to freedom. We know of her escape because the Washington Evening Star on June 17, 1861, reported on her capture:
“A FUGITIVE – A slave woman belonging to Mr. John Little having eloped, Mr. Little made diligent search and ascertained that she was in one of the Ohio camps. He made visit to the camp and told the colonel commanding what he wanted, and the reply was, ‘You shall have her, if she is here.’ Search was made and the fugitive was found, completely rigged out in male attire. She was immediately turned over to the custody of Mr. Little, and was taken to jail. Every opportunity is afforded loyal citizens of loyal States to recover their fugitive slaves.”
John Little, who built a prosperous cattle farm on the backs of enslaved people, threw Hortense Prout into the city jail for “safekeeping,” a form of punishment used against enslaved people, even though criminal charges weren’t filed. Hortense was released to Little after 10 days, on June 25, 1861. Just six months after Hortense’s imprisonment, President Lincoln outlawed the practice of “safekeeping” of enslaved African Americans in the District of Columbia. Less than a year after her escape, in April 1862, he declared them free
William Still, the great Underground Railroad conductor, wrote that women who fled from slavery “undertook three times the risk of failure that males were liable to, not to mention the additional trials and struggles they had to contend with. In justice, therefore, to the heroic female who was willing to endure the most extreme suffering and hardship for freedom, doubled honors were due.”
The walkers then leave Kalorama Park and head north three blocks to Walter Pierce Park.
PART TWO: RECOVERING A LOST MEMORY: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN AND QUAKER CEMETERIES AT WALTER PIERCE PARK
At the request of the neighborhood, Howard University archeologists are conducting an investigation of Walter C. Pierce Community Park, where more than 8,000 people are buried in two nearly forgotten 19th-Century cemeteries. The Colored Union Benevolent Association cemetery, DC’s busiest African American cemetery following the Civil War, was established in 1870. Walter Pierce Park is also the site of the city’s only Quaker cemetery, founded in 1807. Both cemeteries were forced to close in 1889.
Howard U. Professor Mark Mack, a biological anthropologist, is leading a ground-penetrating radar survey of the site to determine the location of graves and other subsurface objects without disturbing them. This phase of archeological work follows three years of measuring, mapping and documenting cemetery features on the surface of the park. During the initial survey, the exposed remains of at least nine individuals were found.
Many of the families that formed the Colored Union Benevolent Association, which founded the cemetery at Walter Pierce, were early members of Washington’s free black community. They founded some of the city’s earliest African American schools and churches. They were laborers, servants, landlords, and government messengers.
Among the people buried at the Walter Pierce Park site was Amelia Edmonson, the mother of six siblings who tried to escape slavery in April 1848 aboard the schooner The Pearl. At least 23 other members of the extended Edmonson family also were laid to rest in the Colored Union Benevolent Association cemetery.