Freeman, Virginia

Last updated

Freeman is an unincorporated community located in Brunswick County, in the U.S. state of Virginia.

Oral history of origins

The oral history that is shared by members of the Union Bethel RZUA Church [1] tells of two or three enslaved persons, some by the last name of Callis. The brothers, Rufin and Ira, were told by their enslaver in Louisiana that they would be given their freedom and a certain amount of gold if he did not return alive from the Civil War. The enslaver's last name was Callis; Rufin and Ira took it as their own. [2]

When it became known that the enslaver had died, in 1866 the two brothers, now free, walked for about ten days to Totaro, Virginia. With their large sum of money, they were referred to as freemen. Rufin Callis purchased 900 acres of land for $1 per acre. Ira Callis also purchased "several hundred" acres. [2] The area is now known as "Freeman", named in honor of their freedom. [3]

The oral history tells that the land for the Union Bethel RZUA Church, the adjacent school building (now a cemetery), and the cemetery were parts of the purchased land donated to create the church. To this day, members of the Callis [4] and Robertson families own tract of lands in Freeman, Virginia.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franconia, Virginia</span> Census-designated place in Virginia, United States

Franconia is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population was 18,245 at the 2010 census, down from 31,907 in 2000 due to the splitting off of part of it to form the Kingstowne CDP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Allen (bishop)</span> American educator, author, writer, and black leader (1760–1831)

Richard Allen was a minister, educator, writer, and one of the United States' most active and influential black leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poplar Grove National Cemetery</span> Historic veterans cemetery in Dinwiddie County, Virginia

Poplar Grove National Cemetery is near Petersburg, Virginia, and is managed as part of Petersburg National Battlefield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capon Chapel</span> Historic United Methodist church in West Virginia, U.S.

Capon Chapel, also historically known as Capon Baptist Chapel and Capon Chapel Church, is a mid-19th century United Methodist church located near to the town of Capon Bridge, West Virginia, in the United States. Capon Chapel is one of the oldest existing log churches in Hampshire County, along with Mount Bethel Church and Old Pine Church.

Cayuga is an unincorporated community in northwestern Anderson County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 200 in 2000. It is located within the Palestine, Texas micropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Overton Callis</span> American politician

William O. Callis was the son of William Harry Callis and Mary Jane Cosby. He was a childhood friend of Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, was with Washington at Yorktown, and was known to Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, and Benedict Arnold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oakwood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)</span> Historic cemetery

Oakwood Cemetery is a large, city-owned burial ground in the East End of Richmond, Virginia. It holds over 48,000 graves, including many soldiers from the Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin and Armfield Office</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

The Franklin and Armfield Office, which houses the Freedom House Museum, is a historic commercial building in Alexandria, Virginia. Built c. 1810–1820, it was first used as a private residence before being converted to the offices of the largest slave trading firm in the United States, started in 1828 by Isaac Franklin and John Armfield. "As many as [a] million people are thought to have passed through between 1828 and 1861, on their way to bondage in Mississippi and Louisiana". Another source, using ship manifests in the National Archives, gives the number as "at least 5,000".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lumpkin's Jail</span> Slave market in Richmond, Virginia

Lumpkin's Jail, also known as "the Devil's half acre", was a holding facility, or slave jail, located in Richmond, Virginia, just three blocks from the state capitol building. More than five dozen firms traded in enslaved human beings within blocks of Richmond's Wall Street between 14th and 18th Streets between the 1830s and the end of the American Civil War. Its final and most notorious owner, Robert Lumpkin, bought and sold slaves throughout the South for well over twenty years, and Lumpkin's Jail became Richmond's largest slave-holding facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Virginia</span> Aspect of history

Slavery in Virginia began with the capture and enslavement of Native Americans during the early days of the English Colony of Virginia and through the late eighteenth century. They primarily worked in tobacco fields. Africans were first brought to colonial Virginia in 1619, when 20 Africans from present-day Angola arrived in Virginia aboard the ship The White Lion.

John Henry "Jack" Yates was an American freedman, minister, and community leader. Born enslaved in Gloucester County, Virginia, on July 11, 1828, Yates was taught to read at an early age by his enslaver's child. He married Harriet Willis, who was enslaved on a neighboring farm. When her enslaver moved his plantation to Texas to avoid emancipation, Yates, then a free man, asked to be re-enslaved in order to stay with his family. He joined his family in Matagorda County, Texas, until their emancipation in 1865. The family then relocated to Houston, where he helped establish Freedman's Town, purchased property, and began ministering to the community. In 1868, Yates was named the first full-time preacher of the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Houston's first Black baptist church. As a community leader, Yates organized Houston Academy, now Booker T. Washington High School; Bethel Baptist Church; and Houston's Emancipation Park. He died in 1897. Yates' original Houston home, the Jack Yates House, was donated to Houston's Heritage Society and first opened to the public in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alethia Tanner</span> American educator

Alethia Tanner, née Alethia "Lethe" Browning, (1781–1864) was an American educator and a leader in the African American community of Washington, D.C. in the early nineteenth century. She purchased the freedom of 18 enslaved people and was involved in the creation of The Bell School, the first school for free black children in Washington, D.C.

Flat Rock is a historic African American community in DeKalb County, Georgia. It is located within the city of Stonecrest, as well as the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area. Flat Rock is believed to be one of the oldest African American settlements in DeKalb County. In 1820, the area rested along the border of Creek and Cherokee Nation hunting grounds when it was settled during the Georgia Land Lottery. In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, the era of reconstruction provided opportunity for former enslaved people to stay in the area to build schools, churches, and civic organizations and create the tight knit African American Flat Rock Community. The community has continued to live in the area and have experienced the Black Codes, Jim Crow and the Great Migration. The area currently houses the Flat Rock Archives, which specialize in preserving African American rural history in Georgia.

Pleasant Ridge is a former community in the Town of Beetown, Grant County, Wisconsin, United States. Settled c. 1850 by a family of formerly enslaved African Americans from Fauquier County, Virginia, Pleasant Ridge was a rural community with a significant population of formerly enslaved people and their descendants. The community declined in the 20th century, and the last African-American resident died in 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noah Davis (Baptist minister)</span>

Noah Davis was a Baptist minister, who was a former enslaved person that purchased his and his family members' freedom. He established the Second Colored Baptist Church in Baltimore. He spoke at lectures in the north and published A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis, a Colored Man to raise money to free his wife and children.

The African American Burial Ground is a historic cemetery for the enslaved, located in Ashburn, Virginia, off Harry Byrd Highway in Loudoun County, Virginia. Most of the enslaved buried there were from nearby Belmont Plantation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gum Springs, Virginia</span> Unincorporated community in Virginia, United States

Gum Springs is a community in Fairfax County in Hybla Valley along Route 1. The African American community, the oldest in the county, was established in 1833 by West Ford, a freedman who had been manumitted by Hannah Bushrod Washington, in 1805. A historical marker was erected by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in 1991.

The Randolph Freedpeople, also called the Randolph Slaves, were 383 slaves who were manumitted in the will of their master, John Randolph of Roanoke.

Mary Lumpkin (1832–1905) was an American former slave and owner of the property on which stood Lumpkin's Jail, a notorious slave jail. Mary was purchased by Robert Lumpkin around 1840 and made to act as his wife. She had the first of her seven children with him at age 13; two children died as infants. Mary "reportedly told [Robert] that he could treat her however he wanted as long as their kids remained free". Two of their daughters attended a Massachusetts finishing school.

References

  1. Union Bethel RZUA Church
  2. 1 2 1866-1990 Callis Reunion by Dorothy Callis, dated July 7, 1990 (Unpublished Manuscript). Copy with Yigal Rechtman, genealogical research library
  3. The Genealogy Collection of Yigal M. Rechtman, Fort Lee, New Jersey
  4. Callis

36°45′18″N77°41′36″W / 36.75500°N 77.69333°W / 36.75500; -77.69333